1:72 AH-1F Cold Warrior Cobra - Finished!

Thanks a lot Gino!

Would you give me a hint what paint would be best to give me the correct Helo Drab? I would prefer an enamel paint if possible.

Thanks in advance and have a nice day

Paweł

The only correct enamel Helo Drab Green I know is by Testors Model Master.  I don't know if you can get them anymore though since the MM paint line has been cancelled.

Gino, Andrew - thanks a lot for your comments!

Gino - in the oldest hobby shop in my home town I managed to find a bottle covered in moss and cobwebs with Testors 2024 in it... :-)

Now I'm ready to close the hull up - I scratchbuilt the collectives, painted some of the engine bay with custom mixed Zinc Chromate, glued in the tranny and fake turbine. I also drilled out the holes needed to mount the intake air diverters. Now I'll just close up the hull - I just have to remember to put in the poly cap for the tail rotor...

Thanks for looking and have a nice day!

Paweł

Very nice work, Pawel! I can see you know your helos. The Cobra is one of my favorites too. Looking forward to seeing it all come together!

Cheers,

Russ

Flight Line Media

Very neat! I love the Cobra. It's one of the few helos that simply look fast.

 

Agree totally. While the new attack helicopters may have more goodies the Cobra holds a very special place in my heart. It just has that "I'm gonna get ya"look to it.

Russ, Glenn - thanks a lot for your comments and I'm very glad to have you on my thread here!

And I have closed up the hull, almost ready filling and sanding the seams... Here's how the cockpit looks like:

Thanks for looking and have a nice day!

Thanks for looking and have a nice day!

Paweł

Love it, especially how you captured that cheesy 70's stash on the pilot!

Hello!

Mongoose - thanks a lot for your comment! I was happy to have something like faces on those tiny boys!

And in the meantime the snake is almost ready for painting with the exception of masking the windows. I used the black Vallejo spray primer to chech the seams for smoothness. Somehow I don't have the best feeling about this stuff - even after severeal days it doesn't feel completely dry. Luckily there won't be a lot of masking because this is going to be a single colour paint job, so maybe I can get away withoput lifting  paint here...

On the underside I have replaced the antennae I have cut off so they wouldn't interfere with filling and sanding the fuselage seam. I made the bigger one out of sheet copper, and the smaller white one from an ice cream package (sheet styrene). On the front I added two WSPS (wire strike) blades - one was missing from the kit design so I have scratchbuilt it:

The canopy fits exceptionally well here, even without glue - infact after dry fittling it you have a hard time to remove it (!). I carefully filled the seams along the front and rear edges of the clear part. There's one more WSPS blade to be added on the rear of the canopy, but I'm holding it off until after the painting - this will help make the masking of the glass easier:

Now I'll mask the windows and I'll look for a good opportunity to paint it up.

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

Pawel id suggest avoiding any tape if that stuff doesn't feel right. I've quit using their primer all together. They can peel off in sheets. The best luck I had with it was when applying it in super thin coats. Where you do tape be gentle removing i. I tried folding the loose end back over itself so I pilled at a 180 degree angle instead of pulling up from the surface at 90 degrees. That was somewhat successful. 

Hello!

Thanks a lot for the tip, luckily there's no real need for tape here, maybe except fot he wing walkways, but I think I can find a way around it here, too. I have also tried to wash everything down with Gunze thinner, I think that worked good, too.

So I masked up the windows and painted my baby up trying to make the best out of this one colour scheme. The preshading is Humbrol 67 Panzergrau, Model Master Helo Drab on top of that and some lightening done with Helo Drab with lots of light gray mixed in. The wire in the main tranny is a painting holder:

I tried to apply the colours very thin to make them as gloss as possible - they are still very flat. I have to gloss them up with future  a lot to prepare for decals - decals love to silver on a surface like this.

Thanks for looking and have a nice day!

Paweł

Looking good.  I really like the color and finish of the MM Helo Drab.

Hello Gino!

Thanks a lot for your comment and for your kind words!

Have a nice day

Paweł

Hello everybody!

While waiting for the decals to arrive I'm working on the subassemblies... I painted up the main rotor:

I'va also had a try at the ALQ-144 disco light:

But most of the time I spent detailing and painting the TOW launchers:

BTW, you can see my method of making stripes here - I take a piece of clear decal sheet, paint it the colour I like and wait for the paint to dry. Then I cut it up with a sharp knive, and then I have the stripes.

There are still some subassemblies to do like the 20mm gun or the unguided rocket pods...

Thanks for lookin' and have a nice day

Paweł

Looking great.  Good job on the rotor blades and TOW launchers.

Quite an improvement on the TOW launchers!

Tows are looking fine! Great idea on using the decal paper to make colored stripes. I'm going to try that!  Thanks, Pawel!

Russ

Hello everybody!

Thanks a lot for your comments - they mean a lot to me! I thought I'd write this comment a lot earlier, but I waited for my custom decals. Now they arrived at last!

Let's see how they are going to go down on this difficult surface - I've already futured the whole model quite heavily, but it's still pretty flat...

I have also decided to redo the "disco light" - the ALQ-141 jammer. This time I applied all the paint by airbrush. The prismatic paint (from the art shop) was applied over a red/blue background:

Now I'm more happy with it - I'll just paint the top Helo drab and I'll call it done.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Thanks a lot for your kind words! This is going to change further, as I have to apply some clear under and over the decals - hopefully for the better!

Hey, Pawel! This is a sweet looking Helo you have here. I've always loved the Cobra and eventually I'll build one of those Sea cobras! Now that's a wicked looking Cobra.

I've taken a fancy with 1/72 helicopters but I've only completed one so far. I have to admit, detailing is quite fun for the scale. Almost like Armor lol.

I can't wait to see your finished build! 

Hello Mike!

Neither can I wait! It's good to hear from you. Nice Hughes - Model 500 is an incredible machine. Did you see me building those babies some years ago?:

I have to get the tail serial number from somewhere, as the one I got printed is wrong due to one CorelDRAW! caveat...

In the meantime I'm working on the 20mm gun.

Thanks for lookin' and have a nice day

Paweł

I don't hang out in this section much, So no I haven't seen those beautiful builds til now, my friend.

I still have my Apache to finish lol.

And I'm going to use the references I'm seeing here. I had a brief moment in an Apache Bay one day and I noticed how dark the paint really is. It looks almost black and the panel fading is accurate. Whatever paint they use actually fades more in the panel centers, just not consistently overall.

They are tough looking machines up close and you can barely see any of the markings because of the low contrast.

Hello!

It's been a long time - this build kinda stalled because people that printed the decals for me took their time. Now the decals are on, but I'm waiting for an opportunity to spray on the flat coat - and this is always stress since one time the flat clear turned white on me on some carefully painted figs... (I was able to save it with some diluted clear from Gunze - the ofender was Humbrol by the way).

Now the build looks a little obnoxsious because of the gloss:

And I have also been working on the gatling gun. Right out of the box it isn't very impressive:

I don't like those half-round deails much, so I tried to fix it:

A little plastic bits and wire help the gun look more realistic:

Once I spray that flat clear there will only be a small bit of work left...

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

Looks like it is coming along nicely.  Good job so far.

Gino - thanks a lot!

Now I'm done fighting with the silvering (it's hard to see when the decals are gloss) and I have put on a flat coat. Here's what it looks like:

While I had my airbrush out, I also added some exhaust soot...

Now I can take off the masks and start putting on the subassemblies...

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

Hello everybody!

In the meantime this baby is FINISHED! I fitted all of the subassemblies, touched the paint up here and there and I have added a scratchbuilt reflector under the left skid strut. I painted up the lights, too. So here's how she looks like:

Thanks a lot for lookin' and I hope you liked it - have a nice day!

Paweł

You've managed to make this build look like a 1/48. That's always an impressive trick in my book.

Very well done!

I love the attention to the gun and TOW launchers that made it look just that much more impressive.