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I did this kit / conversion. Slow is better. It's a tough project. You're doing really well and getting much better results than I did.

Thank you for the compliment. Do you have any advice, having completed this bird?

Did you do a WIP of your project? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Chris

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I did a half-wip thread. I started this one way back in Nov. or Dec. 2013. Did a bunch of work, then put it aside as it got really frustrating. Then the Shelf-Queen group build happened here earlier this year, so I hunkered down and finished it. And even then.... I had moments when I nearly gave up.

My best advice is seriously, work slow and take time fitting and sanding. Even doing so, get the putty tube ready. As I progressed I found the base Merlin kit parts fit together worse and worse. The assemblies in the early parts of the instruction went well. As more and more steps were completed, the fit and assembly got harder to keep good. The Belcher Bits panels for the fuselage changes take a lot of care, but you probably guessed that already. Taking time I found those steps were not so bad. It was the kit parts themselves that caused me the biggest problems.

Admittedly, when I started the project, my skills were probably not what they should have been - certainly based on your photos my skill don't match yours - to take on such a task and do it really really well, so some of the problems I had were certainly my own fault. But I read other build logs (on Britmodeller I think) of people doing the straight Merlin build of the kit having similar problems.

In the end the model looks good and I am glad I finished it. I think my modelling skills improved big-time from this one kit, and I'm glad with the end result despite there being some obvious flaws in my finished model.

Good luck!

ps. I found a guy on Flickr that has some really nice Cormorant pictures that I used for references... unfortunately I didn't save the link. Probably easy to find again.

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I did a half-wip thread. I started this one way back in Nov. or Dec. 2013. Did a bunch of work, then put it aside as it got really frustrating. Then the Shelf-Queen group build happened here earlier this year, so I hunkered down and finished it. And even then.... I had moments when I nearly gave up.

My best advice is seriously, work slow and take time fitting and sanding. Even doing so, get the putty tube ready. As I progressed I found the base Merlin kit parts fit together worse and worse. The assemblies in the early parts of the instruction went well. As more and more steps were completed, the fit and assembly got harder to keep good. The Belcher Bits panels for the fuselage changes take a lot of care, but you probably guessed that already. Taking time I found those steps were not so bad. It was the kit parts themselves that caused me the biggest problems.

Admittedly, when I started the project, my skills were probably not what they should have been - certainly based on your photos my skill don't match yours - to take on such a task and do it really really well, so some of the problems I had were certainly my own fault. But I read other build logs (on Britmodeller I think) of people doing the straight Merlin build of the kit having similar problems.

In the end the model looks good and I am glad I finished it. I think my modelling skills improved big-time from this one kit, and I'm glad with the end result despite there being some obvious flaws in my finished model.

Good luck!

ps. I found a guy on Flickr that has some really nice Cormorant pictures that I used for references... unfortunately I didn't save the link. Probably easy to find again.

Thank you for the link and for the compliment about my skills. I am just getting back into the hobby after a long hiatus. There are a lot of amazing additions that weren't affordable when I was doing this up to about 10 or so years ago. I looked at your build as well as Emil's and as you mentioned above have checked out some other forums to find out more about this kit. Looks like I have some serious work ahead of me. I hope I am up to the challenge. Your finished conversion looks really great. How were the decals that came with the conversion from Belcher's Bits? They look really good. I know I'm still a long way off but still curious.

I'm hoping to get some work done over the next couple of nights.

Thanks for looking,

Chris

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The Belcher decals work really well. I used them straight on the final paint coat - no extra gloss coat added - and the decal film is barely visible. Even over the black parts, which for me I used a flat black.

Overall the Belcher parts were really good. I'm working on a UH-1N to CH-146 Griffon conversion right now (among other things) and again, the Belcher parts are good.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Belcher decals work really well. I used them straight on the final paint coat - no extra gloss coat added - and the decal film is barely visible. Even over the black parts, which for me I used a flat black.

Overall the Belcher parts were really good. I'm working on a UH-1N to CH-146 Griffon conversion right now (among other things) and again, the Belcher parts are good.

I used the Belcher Bits Decal on the loading ramp and they were really good. Very impressed.

Chris

Edited by Dadeo911
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Finished putting the decals on the aft cabin area.

IMG_5306_zpsy33b8ivg.jpg

Looking at the reference pictures I have I made the unwelcome discovery that the walls of the aft cabin are covered with a quilted insulation.

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/awa01/401-500/awa449-CH-149-Spenard/31.jpg

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/awa01/401-500/awa449-CH-149-Spenard/33.jpg

I don't know how I missed that. Well that isn't happening with this model. :doh:

Oh well... Carrying on:

The SAR and Flight Engineer seats turned out OK.

IMG_5304_zpsdemo07pm.jpg

All put together:

IMG_5308_zps08mpolai.jpg

IMG_5307_zpszpoyleyu.jpg

Slowly getting there.

Chris

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