Merlin to Cormorant RCAF SAR

[bikerider]

So here we are with photos.

I wasn't kidding when I said it's a big box and I want it off my table. For reference, the table measures 70cmx70cm and as you can see the box is almost that wide.

As stated, I am converting the Airfix Merlin to a RCAF SAR Cormorant using the Belcher Bits conversion kit. Most of that involved fuselage panel changes. It was an intimidating set of steps for me. The starboard side required two panel changes so I started there. Lots of careful measuring and cutting et, voila!

The port side was more complicated with I think 3 resin panels provided requiring some significant removal of the base kit material. A lot more careful measuring and cutting. This side did not go quite as well as the starboard, and required some extra filling and sanding, but nothing too bad.

The pic below shows where I'm at with that side, and what's left to finish in general.

When I started this kit, I remember having quite a few moments thinking how well engineered it was, and how precise the fit of the parts was. Well as the assembly progressed, the fit got a little bit worse each time, resulting in quite a few gaps that will require finesse to clean up. I'm pretty sure this was not entirely my fault - I was extremely careful test-fitting at each step. I've read on other forums people having similar problems with the Merlin kit as their builds progressed too. It was part of the reason I put this thing aside.

Here are some pics showing what I mean.

Here's a view of the underside of the starboard nose:

and one of the wheel sponsons:

Just sanding, filling and sanding I guess, but too much to make it fun. However I want to get this done, so, on we go.

I also have crew in this bird, using figures from the Lynx crew made by PJ Productions. I think their figures are really nice, I have used them before, and they really add to the effect I'm going for in the end here. I know they're RAF crew and not RCAF, but I didn't make any changes to them. I'm not sure if such minor details would be seen or not, and I felt it was too much to worry about.

The cockpit is nicely detailed,

I'll also have a SAR tech sitting inside when I'm finally done.

So that's where I'm at with progress. Since these photos were taken I've already cleaned up a few of the seams, but still more to do. Lots.

Also working on the rotors. This is my first time ever modelling a helicopter, so it's a new experience all around.

Thanks for support and tips.

Edited March 31, 2015 by bikerider

[Emvar]

My fear is also putting knife to plastic.... which is why I'm only doing the CH-113 Labrador in the SAR GB.

[Sentry30]

Wow, that's a lot of plastic work!! That along with the fit (as you describe it) for sure would be enough to frustrate me!!

[phantom]

It IS a challenge. I am no where near as far a long as you but I am all ready noticing big gaps.

[bikerider]

So back to the grind. Literally. I got the sanding sticks and putty out and went at the beast last night.

The Merlin has a whack of sensors and things on it that the Cormorant does not. Airfix included these on the kit, for the most part by moulding them directly as part of the main fuselage walls, or by having an indentation on the fuselage where the sensor piece would fit in. I've lost count of how many, but I think there are at least a dozen. So for my project what this means is cutting off the moulded on bits, and then filling all the holes with putty. I had started some of that prior to putting this aside the first time, but second and third layers are required.

Here's a shot of the rear port side of the fuselage, with one of the areas where I had previously put putty (above the window) and an area where I had to fill. You can also see some of the gaps to deal with where the engine housings are on top of the fuselage. That really was the best I could get after repeated fittings and trials. Yes, I made a mess of the window. But last night I took that out and will re-do it later.

On the rear of the wheel sponsons, the Merlin has some kind of sensor thingy that Airfix included by leaving a giant open space in the sponson, and then adding a plate with the sensor mounts.

Here's the before:

I used some styrene card to fill in the space, then puttied and sanded to make it blend in.

After:

There was also a moulded on sensor at the end of the tail boom to be removed / filled in:

Edited January 7, 2015 by bikerider

[bikerider]

The most work required is around the nose and under the cockpit on the bottom of the fuselage

Before:

After:

That's as far as I got last night. Clearly I need to do another layer of putty, and more sanding of the same areas to get nice smooth, unnoticeable finishes. I fear when I put the windscreen on (which wraps right around the top and includes part of the roof) I will have more again. Sigh.

Still, I'm liking the Cormorant and I'll get this done as it will look quite impressive when finished.

As an aside, I have about two dozen small patches of drywall in my house to work on these days too, from various upgrades and repairs.

Looks like putty, sanding and dust will be in my future for a while to come.

Best regards

[CorsairMan]

Well done - sometimes you just have to bit the bullet and sand. I'm working on a 1/32 B-17 model which is both beautiful and somewhat ill-fitting. Since I want to preserve as much of the rivets and panel lines as possible I put off the task of sanding the joins and steps. But a couple of weeks I go I just dove in and did a pile of them. Mostly good results too. It takes time but when the plastic is smooth and the steps are gone, its worth it.

[rightwinger26]

Well done - sometimes you just have to bit the bullet and sand. I'm working on a 1/32 B-17 model which is both beautiful and somewhat ill-fitting. Since I want to preserve as much of the rivets and panel lines as possible I put off the task of sanding the joins and steps. But a couple of weeks I go I just dove in and did a pile of them. Mostly good results too. It takes time but when the plastic is smooth and the steps are gone, its worth it.

Is there a WIP for said Fort?

[bikerider]

Progress.....

Decided to work on the main windscreen and cockpit glass. There's a lot of it, and to keep the final look clean it must be added prior to painting.

Things start with the addition of the upper control console inside the cockpit. I also cleaned up the pilot's faces.

Most of the upper console will be hidden, which is too bad as it's nicely detailed.

Then the main windscreen. My reference photos show the roof glazing is either darkly shaded, or totally opaque - nearly indistinguishable in my photos, so I used some gloss black on the inside to represent this. Test fitting showed the windscreen was going to be problematic and require some encouragement. So once I had it in place with Microscale Klear, lots of tape to hold it together.

Added the side windows, which took some shaving to make them fit, then I walked away and let things settle for a full day.

There are four smaller glass sections to put in on the lower section of the nose, and test fitting shows each one will require some shapping and sanding to fit.

That, and puttying up the gaps where the top of the windscreen meets the roof sections are on tonight's agenda.

Edited January 12, 2015 by bikerider

[phantom]

I think the windows are opaque from the solar scree that folds out under the upper windows. They look black on the upper service and white or maybe silver grey below. I thinking of doing mine a very dark clear green. Just for some colour!

[CorsairMan]

I know its not for a bit but I can't wait to see that gloss yellow paint!

[bikerider]

Thanks for the tips and encouragement. Things are moving along. Although last night's work looked for a while I might end up in a "one step forward two back" situation in the end I made it two forward.

So the main goal was to get all the "glass" in the fuselage. That was done. But each of those 4 little glass pieces that go in the nose below the main windscreen had to be reshaped to fit the opening. Tedious. Oh, did I say 4? I meant 3. Because the carpet-monster ate one of them, so the 4th had to be made from scratch. The other thing I noticed in my reference pics was the panel below the cockpit side windows I had installed were wrong. Between the Belcher instructions (which are pretty good) and the Airfix instructions somehow I made the decision to install a panel piece that is flat. My reference pics - which I only printed when I re-started working on this kit - clearly show that the 2 panels have some kind of bulge in them. The Airfix base kit includes these, so out with the old and in with the new. Which means more putty. Here's a shot of the side cockpit areas that shows all of this. Once again, you can see the poor fit of the Airfix parts - the bulging panels have canyon like gaps left around them.

Goal #2 was to get the rest of the glass in. The conversion to the Cormorant adds fuselage panels with more windows than are provided with the Airfix kit. Belcher included some, but not enough. Add to that me screwing up a couple, and out with the clear styrene, knife and sanding stick to custom cut 5 new window panels. This shot shows a couple of them friction fit in. I used Microsoft Klear to glue them, and I'll double check the final fit of the pieces prior to committing to leaving them as is.

One of those windows to be added was in the sliding door on the starboard side. This presented another problem - the door piece would not sit flush inside the fuselage opening because the resin panel I inserted behind the door was about 0.5mm too wide. I wasn't overly worried about this because in the end I'm going to display the helo with the door open, but kind of by chance, I found the Belcher resin panel that was inserted to the rear of the sliding door was easy to pry out. So I did that, put the window in the door, resized the resin panel, and, voila, everything fit well.

This shot shows the are I'm talking about midway through the fix.

The rest of my night last night was doing more seam clean-up, particularly on the cockpit roof area where the clear windscreen piece meets the grey plastic. There is a cowling type shape on the roof that curls down the top of the windscreen and - typical for this Airfix kit - the seams were bad. The edges of the various pieces in the joint were not square edged, whereas on the real machine there is no visible joints. So, more putty and sanding.

And here's an overall of where I'm at.

A little bit more seam clean-up to do. Then - paint? Can I really be that hopeful? Yes, I think so.

[phantom]

Looks like you are missing the same big engine inner part I am on the Starboard side. What are you going to do about the big hole?

[bikerider]

um..... gotta admit I'm a little lost as to what you're referring to.

Looking at photos of real Cormorants vs. the model so far, I don't see what I'm missing. Also don't recall missing any steps in assembly. Maybe something is just not included with the kit?

[phantom]

The big hole in the starboard engine as shown in your photo. Looks like I am missing the port one. So in your case its sub assembly #47.

[bikerider]

The big hole in the starboard engine as shown in your photo. Looks like I am missing the port one. So in your case its sub assembly #47.

Ah - ok.... I know what you are referring to now. But there is "stuff" in there. A scoop-shaped tube-like thing. Sorry, can't describe it any better. I suspect it's an intake, but my knowledge of helo engines is not great, so, am not sure. At the end of the tube is a compressor face I think - I looked tonight and it's really hard to see. The tube is painted flat black, and because of the direction it turns, it's really hard to see what's in there. Same on the port side.

Thanks for the tip.

[bikerider]

More progress. Motivation is good. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Tonight... finish up the glass. What I did the other night was satisfactory to me. Not perfect I think, but in the overall scheme of how this project is going, I'm good.

One of the other windows though - I realized today it was inset too far inside the frame, so, out it came, and in with another custom cut clear piece. Surprisingly this original piece was one of the Airfix supplied windows, and it wasn't sitting properly. Oh well.

So some finish sanding to do here, then I'm satisfied.

The top of the windscreen - roof joint is nearly done. Again, more finish sanding.

I'm going to walk away from this for a couple days, go back and do some finish sanding, clean up panel lines, then I think I'm nearly good to go for painting.

And got into some Belcher-Cormorant details - tail rotor lights. A couple resin pieces fit into a space at the back of the loading ramp fuselage area. A little finish sanding needed here, but pretty good. I'll add some detail in the painting stage, including some clear.

I cleaned up the kit box and realized, I don't really have a lot left to add or assemble. But what is left. grrr.... I had time tonight to work on the tail rotor. And remember THIS was the point I put the model aside originally. The 4-blade rotor is assembled with two pieces for the rotors put in an "X" shape and then 2 or 3 small details for the rotor housing. Like so:

For me - every. single. piece. in the assembly. broke.

Despite being extra careful with the obviously fragile parts, somehow either in removal from the sprues or in assembly, every part snapped. So, out with the super glue, some careful fitting, and patience to let the glue settle, and assembly is under way.

I actually got three of the rotor blades connected to the hub tonight. It's very fragile though. I think when I get the final part of the assembly on, things will be ok.

But I was afraid even taking a picture tonight would break what I had done.

Edited January 16, 2015 by bikerider

[Don]

Wow that is a lot of work! Well done though and kudos for persevering . She's coming along nicely. Whatever you do though don't drop it...with all the putty on there you will chip it... :lol: .

Keep up the great work.

Regards,

Don.

[VMFA314Knights]

bikerider,

Nice progress on this one although, it being a former "Shelf Queen" and seeing all the work that is going into this beauty is making me shy away from jumping in on this kit purchase....someday build. I haven't committed myself to this beast yet although it would make a nice addition to my CH-113 in SAR markings.

Interesting to see your and phantom's build progress with this conversion. Wonderful stuff that will be a real help if I do decide I have to have one of these. When the dust has (literally) settled on this one I'll be interested in knowing whether the you'd do it again...

Keep up the great work. The SAR technicians are going to make a real bonus add to the look of this one. Are they also from the PJ Productions Lynx crew?

Cheers,

:cheers:/>

David

[bikerider]

Got the tail rotor sorted out. If you don't look too close I think it passes inspection. Had to add a piece of styrene to get a place to attach the last blade. Once painted it will be hardly noticeable.

Was a slow weekend on the modelling front, which is typical. Did a little bit more sanding, but most of my time was taken up with house repairs and hanging out with my daughter doing outdoors stuff.

Thanks for the tips, comments and encouragement everybody. Now not only am I trying to finish a long delayed project, I am behind Phantom on his version of this.

[bikerider]

bikerider,

Interesting to see your and phantom's build progress with this conversion. Wonderful stuff that will be a real help if I do decide I have to have one of these. When the dust has (literally) settled on this one I'll be interested in knowing whether the you'd do it again...

Keep up the great work. The SAR technicians are going to make a real bonus add to the look of this one. Are they also from the PJ Productions Lynx crew?

Cheers,

:cheers:/>/>

David

The two pilots and the flight engineer figure come from the PJ Productions set for the RAF Lynx.

The two SAR techs (one is already hidden inside, can't see because of the masked windows) come from another compnay, and for the life of me I can't remember. I think they were described as "Huey pilots", and I modified them a bit to fit.

As I said in my reply on Phantoms build thread, no, after going through what I have on this one I wouldn't do it again.

My time to make models is really limited some weeks, and the poor fit, putty, sanding and what not that this kit has required to get it to where I'm at just wasn't as much fun as I prefer to have in my free time. That being said, I probably would still have made the one. It's going to be impressive when it's done, and it's a model I really wanted. I knew with the Belcher modifications this would be a big project that would test my skills. It certainly has. The plus is I have come away with improved and new skills. In the downtime on this model I built a CF-18 Hornet, and a F-15DJ Aggressor for other group builds, and finished a F-15E as well. And they are three of my best models ever.

[bikerider]

Primed, main rotor assembly begun, and some fiddly bits to put on.

The primer showed some problems to be fixed, that was done.

Moving along.

Hopefully I'll get the yellow done this weekend. Then it's back on the shelf while I travel for work next week.

[bikerider]

A little bit of yellow....

[Sentry30]

Nice banana after some serious filling and sanding!

Looks good so Far!

Daniel

[phantom]

Coming along, nice and yellow.