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Cheers to Mason for saving your proverbial butt :cheers:

I have to admit, your riviting looks great. You have no reason to knock it at all. Mason is right about one thing, you are putting alot of thought into your project - that is a good thing. I know that seeing these guys working on thiers have given me alot to think about in my build. Just keep looking at all of the threads - you will be amazed at how you get inspired by these guys. I am all of the time.

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Adam that's looking great! as the other guys have said you have taken alot of time and put alot of thought into this and can only help you in the long run. another fine start to a great subject(IMHO).

semper fi

Dan

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Thanks for the encouragement guys.

I just ordered the Flying Leathernecks decals for my build, cant wait to get 'em, and definitely cant wait to see the pictures on the CD that comes w/ the decals. I'll take all the reference pic's I can get my hands on.

Edited by Adam Baker
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Ok, my progress for the weekend. Got the port side fuselage almost finished. Just got the spine where the tail rotor shaft runs left to rivet. Not sure yet at the moment how Im going to go about doing it, but that'll wait till next weekend. Thankfully Thursday is the last day of my summer classes, and then I have 2 1/2 weeks off before the fall semester starts, so I'll be able to get a fair bit done over the next few weeks, starting next weekend. Also think I'll be able to get a bit more time once the fall semester starts, so that will be nice as well. I cant wait, haha.

Anyway, here are the pic's I have. Think it looks pretty good. I screwed up in a couple places, and put rivet lines in the wrong position, but the nice thing is that no one will ever know, so I dont care, and Im not going to worry about it. I'll just make sure to repeat it on the other side, so that it matches.

riveting10.jpg

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Next I'll do the riveting on the starboard fuselage half, and then I'll do the bottom. I have the 2 sponsons & the fuel tanks assembled, but need to assemble the wings that hold the tanks to the sponsons. Then I'll have to do some riveting on the sponsons & the wings, but thankfully there's not a lot of rivet detail on those pieces, and absolutely no rivets on the fuel tanks, which Im very greatful for, haha. I can only imagine the nightmare of having to rivet round tanks, haha.

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Very nice work on the rivets!

Given the amount of "holes" you did a wonderful job; I'd say that 99% is accurate.

Is that red Dymo-tape undernath you stallion?!

Don't know why I'm obsessed by Dymo-tape these days! :thumbsup:

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Haha, yup, that would be Red Dymo tape. I bought a 3 pack, and I went through about half of the red & blue tape just on that one half, but I still have a whole roll of green that I havent started on, haha.

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Ok, made a lot of progress on my riveting this weekend. Got it pretty much wrapped up. Got a couple more pieces I think that should get some riveting, but for the most part, its done, thank god! haha

Friday I worked on getting the other half of the fuselage done, and it went a lot faster than the first one did. Guess that experience I got from the first side paid off, haha.

riveting25.jpg

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I remembered Mason talking about having some issues w/ the rivets not lining up on the bottom panel, so I was very careful about riveting that panel. I started by taping the whole fuselage together, and then taping the bottom panel in place, and then I used a pencil & marked where each rivet line lined up w/ the bottom panel. And then I just went in w/ my dymo tape, dial caliper & pounce wheel, and got the job done. Took about an hour or two to get it done, but when finished, it lined up almost perfectly.

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After that, I moved on to the tail rotor, is pretty much all I worked on today. I probably spent 4-5 hours just on the tail rotor. But it came out great. Im very happy w/ how it came out. Mason used sheet styrene for the reinforcement panel on the port side, but I didnt feel like dealing w/ it, and w/ some guessing and some measuring, I think it came out pretty good. And once its got paint on it, and the rotor is mounted, I dont think it'll be that visible. So I said screw it and went with what I had, haha. Overall Im extremely pleased w/ how the riveting came out. A few goof ups here & there, but overall it came out excellent. And the really nice part is that no one will ever know whats right, and whats not.

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Now I gotta move on from here. Not sure what part Im going to do next. Think I might go back to working on the rotor head, running the hydraulic lines & such. Unfortunately Im still not in a position to be able to paint. I have my paint booth set up, but I dont have the blower attached yet, or the vent line run to the window. Might try working on getting things organized enough so that I can start using the paint booth this week. I wouldnt mind starting work on the interior and cockpit. Still gotta start working on the Crash Worthy Seats, before I can take the interior too far. If I cant pull the seats off, then I'll just fall back & go w/ the stock seats that came in the kit. But Im really hoping to do the seats. Ive found several good pic's of them.

Im still waiting on my decals & CD to show up from Flying Leathernecks, im eagerly anticipating its arrival. I cant wait to see what kind of reference images are on the CD.

This weekend was amazing, as far as reference pic's are concerned. I posted over on Hyperscale, that I was looking for pictures, and a member over there posted links to 2 different pic albums, and one of them was like the holy grail. It had pic's of almost every single compartment that Im looking at scratch buidling on my '53. I also found out that a member over on Hyperscale works on '53's, and I asked if it would be possible for him to take pic's of a '53 for me. So hopefully that will come out good as well.

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Dang....... my eye's are starting cross just looking at all those rivets I can't imagine the patience it took to place them all.

Nicely done, I look forward to seeing the rest of this build progress.

:woot.gif:

Mark

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Well, I guess Im commited to building at least 1 compartment, haha

doors01.jpg

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Used my pinvise w/ a sewing needle chucked up in it, to get the outline around the panel. Then used my Dremel Stylus to very carefully thin the plastic on the back side so that I didnt have to go through the full thickness of hte plastic, to get the door off. Took about 3 1/2 hours total, on this one door, to get it off. Started it last night, and played w/ it for about 2 hours, before calling it quits. Couldnt find the right bit & collet for my dremel last night, so I stopped. Thankfully I found both pieces tonight, and was able to get it going.

Im kinda concerned about the door on the nose. I knwo that the clear plastic tends to be very brittle, so Im concerned about how its going to react to being scribed & dremel'd.

1 down, 6 or 7 to go, haha.

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Adam very smart work on that electronics bay door. if you're worried about the front nose door. you can always scratch a door out of styrene and just cut out the door with out worry. that's what i would do as that clear is very brittle.

semper fi

Dan

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Well, for the nose I think that Im going to do the same thing I did w/ the first door. Just work on it w/ the pinvise & needle, and do that until its about halfway through the thickness of the plastic. I'll just have to be extremely careful to not put too much pressure on it, so that it cracks. And then very carefully thin the plastic w/ my dremel. Altho, it might not be a bad idea to go ahead & scratch the doors for all of the compartments anyway. Im sure the plastic is way way way too thick, probaby making the scale thickness something like 2 or 3" which obviously wouldnt be correct. Go in w/ something like some .010 or .020 styrene to make a more accurate door. Any suggestions on how to get it to hold the correct shape? Thats the only problem I can think of w/ the front doors, they've got a very noticable curvature to them.

Gonna try to start on it tonight, but gotta do some packing tonight. Im going out of town this weekend w/ SWMBO for our anniversary, so I'd imagine I wont get much done tonight, and wont get anything at all done this weekend.

Edited by Adam Baker
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Ok, managed to get a fair bit done today. Didnt expect to get anything, and then due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up w/ quite a bit of free time to work on it.

I was able to get the pilot side avionics door opened up. Went a lot faster than the first one, which was no surprise. Took probably about an hour or so to get it off.

doors05.jpg

After that, I started working on the APP cover. Im not ready to jump on the nose yet. I think I'll wait to do that one last. Still very concerned about the clear plastic being very brittle, and I just dont want to deal w/ that. The APP cover wasnt nearly as bad as the avionics doors, since for the most part the panel lines were pretty much straight. The worst part is where the lines went from the verticle surfaces on the sides, to the horizontal surfaces on top, but even then it wasnt too bad. Repeated the same process as for the avionics doors. Put a sewing needle in my pinvise, and then just very slowly & very carefully kept scribing the line, until I was about halfway through the thickness of the plastic. Then I grabbed my Dremel Stylus (man, I love this Dremel Stylus, the grip is amazing, making it so easy to do very fine precise work), and used it to carefully thin the plastic down along the panel line. Took about 2 or 3 hours to get both sides done. Thankfully managed to keep from gouging the plastic anywhere. Very happy w/ how it came out.

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Couple "dry fit" shots, showing approximately what it should look like when done. I think it looks pretty good, and oughta look awesome when Im done. Will be very visible, w/ the rotor blades folded back.

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This will probably be my update for the weekend. Heading out for Asheville in the morning w/ the wife for our anniversary, and wont be back till Sunday afternoon, and when I get back then I have to work on my truck, and figure out why the engine keeps stalling out on me. So it'll probably be Monday at the earliest before I will get a chance to work on it. When I get back, I'll probably start working on the doors for the main transmission, and the oil cooler. After those will be the 2 engine covers that will be opened, and then last, and most definitely least, is the door on the nose.

Edited by Adam Baker
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If you decide to do another one, let me know Mason, and I'll burn you a CD w/ all of the pic's that Ive got. So far I think that Ive managed to acquire about 150 images, and most of them are very helpful.

A member over on Hyperscale actually works on these thing's at MCAS New River, and he's been a huge help. He actually sent me 8 pic's today of the area under the doghouse, that will come in extremely helpful. I cant wait for my decals to show up from Flying Leathernecks b/c I really want to take a look at that CD and see what all is on it.

I definitely cant wait till Im far enough along to be able to start working on scratch building all of these different compartments. At this point I think thats what Im really looking forward to the most, b/c its something Ive never done, and Im really excited about giving it a try.

Edited by Adam Baker
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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, time for the weekly update.

Finished off all of the doors today. Took quite a bit of time to do it, but overall Im pretty happy w/ how it came out. Thankfully it all came out w/o any real major problems, or any big issues that Im going to have to go back & clean up.

Last update had the APP & forward avionics compartments opened up.

Here you can see the #2 engine compartment on the port side, and then the doors for the main transmission, and the oil cooler area, on the starboard side.

fuselage14.jpg

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And then the one that gave me nightmares.

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And thankfullly, it came out pretty good. It was much harder to scribe the clear plastic, than it was the regular plastic. I knew it was going to be very brittle, and I knew I was going to have to be extremely careful to not put too much pressure on it, causing stress cracks. Thankfully nothing happened. I wasnt able to scribe it nearly as deep as I was able to on the regular plastic. So the dremel come in even more handy on this one, allowing me to slowly grind the plastic down from the back side.

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Once I had the door on the nose removed, I dry fitted everything togehter, to see how the door lined up w/ the interior floor of the fuselage.

fuselage12.jpg

Im trying to recreate this view, so I know Ive got some work to do to get it right, obviously the 2 vertical pieces are going to have to be removed

forwardavionics.jpg

Now its time to move onto the next step. At this point Im not sure what the next step is going to be. I think that its time to start w/ some painting & construction, but I dont know. My paint booth still isnt hooked up, so I cant really paint anything yet, so thats going to slow me down, until Im able to get it done. I think that I may start working on trying to build the Crash Worthy Seats. Overall, I dont think building them will be extremely difficult, but its definitely not going to be a cake walk.

I found this image of the seats awhile back

CATTS_heli_Seat_popup-1.jpg

From this image, it looks like there are only 2 main hoops. The large hoop, that is bolted via its brackets, to the fuselage, and then a smaller loop, where the actual seat is at. Both of these only appear to be U shaped, so I dont know that it will be too incredibly difficult to make. Im thinking that this could probably made fairly easily w/ some kind of a jig. The hardest part w/ this step would be getting the first one right, that I could use to make a jig. One thought is to take one of the CAD programs I have, and lay out the hoops in that, and print it out, and use that to make a jig. The hardest part I think, for these seats, will be doing the seating material itself. Ive thought of a few different things, but Im thinking that using something such as Kleenex soaked in white glue, similar to how scale tarps & that sort of thing are made. I think I could probably make the belts from aluminum foil or something like that.

Something else Im thinking about, thats down the road, is lighting my model up. With building all the CWS's in the back, I want them to be visible, which means putting some kind of lighting in the back. But another thing that Ive started thinking about doing, is lighting the instrument up using fiber optics. This model lends itself pretty nicely to lighting it up. I could hide the LED's for the fiberoptics in the sponsons on the sides, and then route the fiber optic strands up to the cockpit by running them between the inner & outer floor panels. I think there's plenty of space between the 2, to not have much trouble running them. I havent decided on this at all, but its something Im definitely thinking about.

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