Dragon 1/35th Huey

[HeavyArty]

Just spent a few hours with some medium / fine Testors sanding sheets. You can sand them down to just a barely visible raised bump and you should be good to go. I didn't go the greatest job on mine but a couple of coats of paint does wonders for smoothing things out.

Yup, I did the same on my Panda UH-1H WSMR SAR bird. The old Panda-come-Dragon UH-1 kits can be made into great models with a little elbow grease, TLC, and good old-fashioned modeling. You can see the results of mine here

John,

Yours is looking great. Good job on all the little details. Keep us posted on the progress.

Edited June 4, 2008 by HeavyArty

[huey_crew_chief]

Just spent a few hours with some medium / fine Testors sanding sheets. You can sand them down to just a barely visible raised bump and you should be good to go. I didn't go the greatest job on mine but a couple of coats of paint does wonders for smoothing things out.

John

Did you do anything to the panel lines?

[11bee]

Did you do anything to the panel lines?

Actually... I had planned on filling them and re-scribing but decided that my scribing skills were substandard. The worst panel lines are on the tail boom. All I did was hit that area with a few extra coats of OD paint. They are still somewhat prominent if you are looking closely at the model but (to me at least) are an improvement over the basic kit.

John

[11bee]

-- double post ---- deleted.

Edited June 4, 2008 by 11bee

[Sabre]

Man...that is a killer build indeed! Great job..

Minor point....a bit of weathering on the interior, perhaps?

EGT 610 degrees....in the green.

Jim

[11bee]

Haven't done much with the Huey this weekend. Between working and the 93 degree heat, just don't have the energy. The most I could get done was to spray on a flat overcoat and mount the M-60's and ammo cans. Thanks to all who provided info on this. Jim - I'll definately add some grime / dirt to interior. Just haven't figured out how much yet...

Regards,

John

[charles]

Super nice!!!!!!

[Anthony in NZ]

Nice work there

Thanks for the updates!!

Cheers

Anthony

[Sabre]

Perfect! Mud from grunts right at door....and pilots too....very nice touch indeed!

Hope I can build one half that well.....killer job! :D

Good to go,

Jim

[11bee]

Here's the latest on my project:

- Added the FM antenna to the top of the tail boom

- thinned out some of the overly thick components on the rotor mast

- added door handles and window glass to the Cobra Company pilots doors

- Glued the cargo doors in place

- Added the kits photo etch wipers

- glued a Cobra resin 20mm ammo can behind the pilots console as a general storage container

- weathered the skids and cabin roof (not too sure about the weathering... this is definately a work in progress)

- did some additional painting and cleanup work

Thats it for this week. As always, any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Regards,

John

PS - after I posted these pictures, I decided I didn't like the pilots sliding window on each door. I think I made the top border too thick, it should be a thinner silver edge. So I ended up popping both of those windows out, cut new ones from clear plastic and painted as mentioned. While doing this, I managed to break off one of the door handles which I then had to replace. I then realized that I forgot to add the canvas grab handles on the edge of each door. I cut these out from some scrap PE and painted and glued in place. While doing this, I managed to knock one of the doors off the aircraft, which in turn knocked off yet another %#$* door handle which I will in turn have to build from scratch. I'm not making much progress today!

Edited June 16, 2008 by 11bee

[rotorwash]

John,

I like the weathering. Hueys just don't look right clean!

Ray

[11bee]

John,

I like the weathering. Hueys just don't look right clean!

Ray

I was going to air brush on some soot on the tail boom from the exhaust but with the toilet bowl, I don't think this would be appropriate. I wonder if there would still be some soot present on the far end of the tail? I can't seem to find any pics that show it either way. Most pictures of Hueys with the toilet bowl show them in dark helo drab and you wouldn't notice any exhaust staining anyway.

Edited June 21, 2008 by 11bee

[11bee]

Haven't had a chance to do much on the model this week, too much going on with work and kids. The only things I've managed to get done are:

- Replaced the pilots side windows as noted above

- Replaced the clear anti-collision beacon on the top of engine cowling (the original one I made was too tall) and painted it with clear red acrylic paint.

- Painted all the navigation lights with clear red / green

- Added the rear cargo door restraints (thanks to all who provided info on this obscure topic). I still need to do something about the front locking assemblies but since the kit's doors aren't flush with the rear of the cabin, this may not be practical.

- Did some more work on the rotor mast to thin down some of the components.

I also tried taking these pictures outside using natural light instead of the lights on my work desk. I'm not sure if this is an improvement or not. I still can't seem to get my pictures as clear and crisp as some of the others I've seen posted. Still a work in progress I guess. If anyone has advice on taking photos of models, I'm listening!

[rotorwash]

John,

looking great, man! As for the pictures, my guess is that the F-stop is too low. That F-stop determines the depth of field that will be in focus and is probably set on about 2.5 or so if you are using auto settings. You can see that part of the model is in focus in every picture, just not the whole thing. One thing you could do is to photograph the model with most of it in a single plane perpendicular to the lens so that depth of focus problems are minimized. Changing F-stop is a balancing act with exposure time because the higher the F-stop the longer the exposure time needed because the lens aperture is smaller. If you can lock the camera down, try an F-stop of about 8 or 9 and vary the exposure until you get the right brightness to your shot. This will work especially well outside, but you will need extra lighting or flash inside to get good crisp pics at higher F-stop values. Not sure if that will help, but it's what I have found works well, others may have better ideas.

Ray

Edited June 22, 2008 by rotorwash

[11bee]

Another progress report on my project. After much deliberation, I decided that the cargo compartment looked too empty so I added the large 5 person troop seat. This was somewhat of a challenge since I had already assembled the model. The kit provided seat is very, very basic. I ended up thinning down and modifying the kit parts with a lot of trimming and adding of supports and brackets. I then added the kit's PE seatbelts. I really like these, they are one of the highlights of this kit. It took me mulptiple tries to get the seat installed. I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with it. I still have to add some supports and I may replace one or two components. Thanks again for the great pictures Ray. Couldn't have even started this without them.

The other thing I hoped to do this week was to install the Cobra main rotor. It is a very nice casting and I spent a good amount of time assembling and painting it. I then installed it and it looked great. I came back the next day and found that the rotor blades had drooped significantly. It appears that the resin blades do not have the strength to remain rigid for any amount of time. A little droop is ok but they ended up nearly touching the tail boom. Based on this, I cannot recommend this kit from Cobra. It has some nice detail parts for the tail and main rotor but the primary components are the rotor blades. Since it appears that these are unusable you are left with only a few pieces, most of which could probably be scratch built to save some $. Note that this is not meant to be a slam againt Cobra Company. The rest of their parts are fantastic and there is no one else out there that offers these types of aftermarket kits. Maybe I got a set from a bad batch of resin? Anyway, at this point I will have to salvage what I can from the Cobra parts and paint and assemble the kit rotors (after trimming them down to the proper width). So for another week, my Huey remains rotorless.

Regards,

John

[rotorwash]

John,

The seat looks great! Can't wait to see her complete with rotors.

Ray

[Anthony in NZ]

Excellent work there!

Cheers

Anthony

[charles]

AMAZING HUEY MY FRIEND!!

dont worrie about the weathering

remember that theres nothing more pretty and better

than a really dirty Huey

Exelent job

[Randy Wise]

I LIKE IT!!!! ;)

Randy

[11bee]

John,

The seat looks great! Can't wait to see her complete with rotors.

Ray

Well, here she is with rotors. I also made the following changes:

- Replaced the tube supports under the forward troop seats with smaller diameter tubing, my first ones were much too thick. This was a real pain to do as I had already superglued the seats in place and could not remove them. I also added some brackets to secure the troop seats the veritical poles.

- Thinned down the ADF antenna mounted on the cabin top and tried to give it a flatter cross section.

- painted a black anti-slip walkway on the fuselage top (thanks for the info Ray). I tried to replicate the rough texture of the black paint and then added some weathering to it.

- Added the main rotor from the Cobra Company UH-1 Transmission / Rotor Blade Upgrade set (see last pic below).

Here is the last shot I took 5 minutes after mounting the Cobra main rotor. I think if I had waited another 5 minutes, the rotor blades would have been touching the ground. It wasn't even that hot outside. I am very disapointed with this kit. It was one of the more expensive items I purchased from Cobra and given the problem with the resin sagging, the primary component of this kit is useless. Chris should just sell the smaller components at a much reduced price. Anyway, I've got the Dragon main rotor blades trimmed down to remove the extended edge on the blades and partially painted, I'll have to do a fair amount of work to transplant the Cobra pieces to the Dragon kit. I'm no expert in casting resin but I wonder if it would have been possible to cast these rotor blades with a small diameter metal rod inside to provide some stiffness?

Edited July 13, 2008 by 11bee

[rotorwash]

John,

Great work, man! Sorry about the blades, but the weathering and the roof look great! Thinning down those supports was definitely worth it as well. I can't wait to see her after the new blades.

Ray

[11bee]

Thanks Ray,

I think I am almost done with this model. I'll probably tweak a few items but once the main rotor blade is on her that is pretty much it. I'm not sure what else I can add for weathering, I'm a little hesitant to start messing with the overall paint scheme and the one picture that I have of this helicopter seems to show it in pretty good shape.

My only other decision is with the crew. I spent way to much time on the seats and seat belts to put a crewmember in them but I would like to have a least one figure onboard to add a sense of scale. By using a combination of all 4 crew members, I've got one that looks to be in a (somewhat) relaxed pose, sitting down. My thought is that he would be killing a few minutes prior a mission. The only thing that looks out of place is the flight helmet since I highly doubt that a crewmember would be relaxing with his flight helmet on. I think I may order some aftermarket resin heads (used them on some of my armor projects) for this guy. Aside from these items, that is pretty much it. Now I need to start thinking about what is up for my next project.

John

[rotorwash]

Thanks Ray,

I think I am almost done with this model. I'll probably tweak a few items but once the main rotor blade is on her that is pretty much it. I'm not sure what else I can add for weathering, I'm a little hesitant to start messing with the overall paint scheme and the one picture that I have of this helicopter seems to show it in pretty good shape.

My only other decision is with the crew. I spent way to much time on the seats and seat belts to put a crewmember in them but I would like to have a least one figure onboard to add a sense of scale. By using a combination of all 4 crew members, I've got one that looks to be in a (somewhat) relaxed pose, sitting down. My thought is that he would be killing a few minutes prior a mission. The only thing that looks out of place is the flight helmet since I highly doubt that a crewmember would be relaxing with his flight helmet on. I think I may order some aftermarket resin heads (used them on some of my armor projects) for this guy. Aside from these items, that is pretty much it. Now I need to start thinking about what is up for my next project.

John

John,

This is fro the 118th AHC, but this was a common scene in Vietnam as the birds were the only shade on the flightline. I have also seen a pic of a crewman in a hammock tied to the tail stinger and tailboom. That would look cool! Good luck!

Ray

[rotorwash]

John,

i know it's kinda late to be showing you this, but I found some US birds with Toilet bowls! check this picture page on the 129th AHC site. Probably more as well, but these caught my attention. this is in 72 most likely because there are also pics of one of the TOW Hueys from this same individual and they were there in 72. Go to the second picture page.

Ray

129th AHC pics

Edited July 16, 2008 by rotorwash

[11bee]

John,

i know it's kinda late to be showing you this, but I found some US birds with Toilet bowls! check this picture page on the 129th AHC site. Probably more as well, but these caught my attention. this is in 72 most likely because there are also pics of one of the TOW Hueys from this same individual and they were there in 72. Go to the second picture page.

Ray

129th AHC pics

Hi Ray,

Thanks for that link, it's a pretty cool website. I especially enjoyed some of the stories.

It's good to know that the toilet bowl wasn't as uncommon as it was initially though on late war Hueys. Those are some pretty good pictures of slicks with the toilet bowl mounted but I still like "my" Cav Huey better!