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Kitty Hawk 1:35 SH-60b… What Aftermarket Parts Should I Get?


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My Seahawk pilot has given me more suggestions including how each blade (main and tail) are color coded and used in managing the main rotor folding process. The blade clamps are also color coded to their respective blades. The colors are also on the main rotor hub. I'm going to color some tiny strips of Tamiya tap and add this micro-details. The scheme is Forward starboard blade is Blue, Aft Starboard blade is Red, Forward Port Blade is Yellow and Aft Port Blade is black.

 

I finished all the weathering I'm going to do. I dirtied the bottom up and added dirt on the walking arees on the roof. I got the engine door installed, broke it off in handling the model improperly and glued it back on again. I got the front door mounted with wire. And I spent WAYYYYY to much time screwing around with the tiny marker lights on the wheel sponsons and the windshield wipers. Didn't finish them, but will do so today.

 

Here's the bottom: Notice the wheels are now on.

SH-60-B-Bottom-Complete.jpg

And here's the model showing its newly attached doors. I'm very happy I was able to fix that door window. Dodged a bullet on that one. 

SH-60-B-Doors-opened.jpg

Lastly, the wipers. I find that some of the smallest details drive me the most crazy. It's the Pareto principle at work, except it's 3% of the parts take 90% of the work (and aggravation). It's a small gluing area and they weren't drying correctly. I ended up using gel CA. I'm wiring them on since the mount points weren't holes, just tiny flat spots. I want the model to be able to put for the long haul.

When laying the model on its side while putting on the cockpit door I broke off the port side mirror. Glued it on with gel CA and then broke it off again. This time I'm going to J-B Weld it and then not touch it again.

SH-60-B-Wipers.jpg

 

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Had an ice/sleet/rain/snow storm today and into tomorrow. Good day to spend some time in the basement building cool things.

 

It was pointed out to me that I mounted the engine hatch at the wrong angle, but couldn't get the work platfom part flat. Well... after carefully looking at a guy kneeling on the hatch and working on the engine, I realized that I put the wear strips on the wrong wing of the hatch. The strips go to the hinge side, not the outside. With that understanding, I removed the strips, fixed the paint, made new strips, applied them and redid the weathering. I also had to repair where I had glued the door in the wrong position to the helicopeter's body. All's well that ends well.

SH-60-B-Corrected-Hatch-Position.jpg

I then got the wipers on using the wire. Touchy, but not too difficult.

SH-60-B-Wipers-installed.jpg

Lastly, based on Svt40's additional info, I'm adding the color-coding strips to the various places identifying all the blades, their holders and other parts. I painted some Tamiya tape and attempting to use that. It's not sticking as I wish it should. I think I'll give it a little patch of clear gloss since things stick to gloss better than flat.

SH-60-B-Tail-Rotor-Color-Code.jpg

Onward and upward!

It looks like they had to destroy one of these Seahawks in that successful ISIS raid last night. Mechanical troubles. In look how complex these beasts are it's amazing they work at all.

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It was one of those days where I spent 30% of my time doing new stuff and 70% of my time fixing crap that I broke off. 

 

For the new stuff, I built the blade support racks and their associated blade clamps. The kit parts have a very narrow, scale-ish, connection between the forward half of the two-part assemblies and the main part. There are two sets that vary in size. I was seiriously concerned that this narrow part wasn't going to make it especially after it got softened by the solvent cement in its proximity.

SH-60-B-Blade-Support-Challenge.jpg

I fixed this by drilling and applying a piece of 0.014 guitar string and a corresponding hole at the correct angle in the main part. I put on accelerator and then pooled some thin CA in the joint. Much, much stonger.

SH-60-B-Blade-Support-Wire.jpg

You can't use sprue cutters to cut guitar string (or any music wire for that matter). It's so hard it will put nice half-moon dents in the cutters and ruin them. You need a good hardened cutter. I have a Xuron Hard Wire Cutter. But surprisingly, my 30 year-old Channellock long-nose pliers have a cutter near the hinge and cut hard wire with no damage. It's all abou the metallurgy. Chinese tools generally don't hold up.

The Xuron cutters can't cut a tiny piece due to the thickness of the jaws, so a bit was sticking out the bottom of the assembly. This will imapale you so it needed to be removed. I used the Dremel with a diamond-coated burr. Took my time and didn't grind away the much softer plastic surrounding the wire.

 

The blade clamps were another small assembly that too much too much time due to the poor engineerig. They needed to be glued together OFF the blade since I'm going to airbrush the entire blade clamp, but I needed it to be spaced as it would be on the blade. I measured the blade's thickness at the point where the clamps go and then used a piece of cardboard of that width to glue the clamps. When they were reasonably set, I placed them on the blades to finally cure. 

Here is the gluing set up.

SH-60-B-Blade-Clamp-Gluing.jpg

And here's all the parts waiting for paint (on Monday).

SH-60-B-Blades-Ready-for-Install.jpg

I glued the rearview mirror back on. First I tried 30 minute epoxy, but it wasn't viscous enough to stay put and there was no way to clamp it. I wiped off the epoxy and then used some epoxy putty. This worked! It help the part still and cured hard. The mirror is firmly attached. It needs a little cleanup which I'll do next week.

 

While fussing with the mirror, I had the model supported on a foam block. It fell off and a main wheel came off, a tailwheel came of and the scissors link broke again. That's the seond time it broke off since I replaced the original with my 3D printed one. It had become a mess. I still had some printed ones left over, so I made a new one. This one I actually got the hinge wired too. Needs painting.

SH-60-B-New-Scissors-Link.jpg

I painted the main rotor color coding. The tape idea wasn't working so well. Besides the hub there's also coding on the swash plate connection links.

SH-60-B-Rotor-Color-Code.jpg

Lastly, I got all the loadout items installed. Had to reglue the torpedo. Very small contact area for these parts... i.e., really fragile. This is NOT A TOY! IT IS NOT FOR CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH!

SH-60-B-Tank-Insalled.jpg

SH-60-B-Torpedo-Installed.jpg

So, that was a pretty big week! Got a lot done and it's almost finished. What's left is putting on the main rotor blades with their stowage clamps, and put on the tail boom in the folded position. I may use epopxy putty on this application due to the small gluing area and the weight of the part. 

 

The blade mounts when you look at a prototype image show a connection into the fuselage to locke them into position. The model does not have this, but I'm going to add it. Otherwise, all those blades are just hanging out there.

SH-60-B-Blade-Clamp-Colors.jpg

All y'all have a nice, safe weekend.

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Spent a lot of time today fussing with getting the blades mounted and didn't finish. I did get the blade racks installed. i found that there was a pin on one end of the bottom member that could go into the holes in the fuselage if there were holes there. There were keyslot-shaped engravings at the correct locations on the strbrd-side. I measured the pin and drilled out those areas. Then I realized that I had put the mounting pins on the wrong end of this member and had all the paint schemes backwards.

 

I had to make new pin on the rear set using Evergreen round styrene of a very similar diameter. The front one's pin was intact and I was able to use this. I repainted all their bottoms to conform to the scheme on the rotor head. I also added all the blade clamps before painting. The red was air brushed. The rest was hand painted.

SH-60-B-Blade-Racks-Painted.jpg

Then came the real fun. Getting the kit's plastic blades into the scale-like attachment points. I was able to use metal pins on all of them without further wrecking the plastic components. Getting these things in was approaching a horror show. At one point I over-torqued one of the hubs and broke it off. I reglued it. 

 

752163502_SH-60B3outof4bladesin.thumb.jpg.cd881d59bf0c598b31d6b43900e75457.jpg

 

The remaining blade was an hour's worth of work. Besides using another 3D printed knuckle after I wrecked the first one, I also had to fix where I destroyed the connection journel for the de-icing wiring. I broke the copper wire off from manhandling the knuckles to stay glued. So I re-drilled the tiny hole to reapply the copper. Then it happened again. This time I broke off the carbide tiny drill in the hole and couldn't get it out meaning I couldn't redrill it. It's impossible to re-drill a hole with a chunk of tungsten-carbide buried in it. 

 

I ended up cutting the whole journel off and replacing it with some Albion micro-tubing. That too took wayyyyy to long because I kept losing pieces as I was cutting them off using the razor blade. It was getting late. I was getting tired and hungry and the basement was getting cold.

 

I finally got that done and next session I'll get this blade finally mounted.

SH-60-B-Blade-Repair.jpg

As you all know by following my work, I generally do not give up. I will keep trying until I get it. Meanwhile, the  blades will need repainting due to all the messing around with them.

Edited by Trainman 2001
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The problem with having your thread read by people who ACTUALLY know about the model you're building is sometimes they tell you things you're doing wrong and that you must fix. This happened with yesterday's post. I was told by words and pictures that I installed the blades in backwards. Ugh! They were awful to get in the first time. However; there is a silver lining... sort of. 

By spending the time to pin the blades to the knuckles and not gluing them, I was able to pull the pins and remove the blades without breaking them. 

SH-60-B-Blades-removed.jpg

While trying to get the blades back on I re-torqued the knuckle that I broke yesterday and rebroke it. This time, knowing that more CA wasn't going to do the trick, I drilled and inserted a 1/32" diameter phos-bronze pin. It was much more secure after regluing.

SH-60-B-Head-Repair.jpg

I got three of the four blades in again. The last one is the one with the 3D printed end. I just printed the mating half which I've also pre-prepared with hole positions to pin the parts together and to the end of the blade since I'm also cutting of the battered plastic end. This will give me two good eyes into which I will put the mounting pin.

SH-60-B-3-Blades-Repositioned.jpg

Tomorrow, the blades will be on I promise. I'm still having trouble positioning them fully folded. The resin knuckles and the plastic blade ends do not conform well to each other. I've had to grind away little bits of the blade end to let it swing further towards the hub's center.

Meawhile, I'm continuing to draw like mad on the Iowa Turret Project. I got the gun loading apparatus finished. This was a very challegning SketchUp task. Here is the cradle in the loading position. The gun is held at 5° during the loading procedure. This gun can be reloaded in 30 seconds.

ITP-Load-Position.png

And here it is in the firing position. There's still more detail to add around this equipment which I will eventually get to.

ITP-Loading-Equip-2.png

Again, I'm fully describing this project at https://forums.kitmaker.net/t/takom-iowa-class-mark-7-16-50cal-turret-with-full-interior-start-to-finish/16832/22

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First of all I'm getting this error when trying to enter yesterday's post in the FSM Forum.

 

111377277_ScreenShot2022-02-10at1_23_12PM.thumb.png.06b7dd9abe98d40b91868c59d66f5c9c.png

And I can't seem to enter a new post in the troubleshooting forum. Any ideas?

 

Secondly, I did (FINALLY) get the four blades attached to the hub. My new parts worked although they still required a styrene spacer and then do some creative carving of both the claw and the rotation motor head on the hub to get the new parts to sit correctly on the hub. Again, the pinning idea was the reason I could do this at all. The hub's taken quite a beating and will need some TLC to bring it back to it's prior self.

 

Here are the two sets of claws. I'm glad I made a bunch since I did use a few before I got it right.

 

1524273320_SH-60BBladeHubPrints.thumb.jpg.b22b9ac3c61d524da22531ddb7e7caeb.jpg

 

And here are the four blade facing in the correct direction. The broken hub came loose again, but the pin I inserted kept it in position. I'm letting it float until I put the blades into their racks and then I'll hit it with some CA. I have to hook up the blade deicer lines and repaint the rest that show their underlying copper. Actually, considering the abuse it took and the number of times I dropped it on the floor, the fact that it looks this good is a minor miracle. I have to put back most of those PE straps on the ends of the blade lock indicators. I have to touch up the blade paint, detail the sensors on the hub end and do some slight weathering on the bolt heads.

124940519_SH-60BBladesON.thumb.jpg.fb087c746e36441a09fe50d80a6f40f5.jpg

 

Edited by Trainman 2001
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I finished the rotor head, did the repaint, connected the deice lines, and refinished the blades including painting the pop-out nitrogen leak indicator. I also did the anti-collision belly light and finish painted the rear landing gear. I fixed all the blade lock indicators putting on fresh little slivers of PE fret to complete them. They do need some touch up paint. And I notice that I didn't trim the phos-bronze rotating pins. 

SH-60-B-Blades-Done.jpg

There may be a few more areas needing attention such as cleaning up the accent around the blade bolts.

While mounting the rotor and attempting to position the blades into the holders, I broke one of the holders. I also knocked off one of the blade clamps. I drilled both and pinned them.

SH-60-B-Blade-Brace-Whoops.jpg

Ran out of time today to put it all back together. I also broke off the engine hatch by grabbing the model in the wrong spot. It's a very delicate beast. It will be finished on Monday.

So everyone have a happy Super Bowl Sunday! I'd like Cincy to win, but really don't care who does as long as it's a good game that doesn't embarrass anyone.

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Big day! Had a gall bladder imaging session this morning to see if it's working right and finished the Seahawk this afternoon. Won't know about the gall bladder for a couple of days, but you'll learn about the finished Seahawk tonight.

 

Before putting the rotor on I had to get the tail boom on. I chose to use epoxy putty since there wasn't much gluing surface for conventional adhesive AND the surfaces themselves were not very secure. I put a wad of putty on the back of the fuze side of the ResKit hinge component and pushed the parts together. Had to hold it for a while by hand and then used some tape. The putty cures pretty fast, and while this was going on I removed a lot of the stuff that had oozed out of the joint all over the place. 

 

SH-60B_Gluing_on_the_Tail.jpg

 

After it cured I did more fine cleaning using various dental tools. BTW: you may want to ask you dentist if he has any tools that are no longer usable in the practice, but could be very useful for us modelers. I got a bunch from my dentist. After cleaning I had to go back and touchup paint any areas that degraded during all this fussing.

 

I did final touchup on the main rotor, trimmed all the extra-long pins that are now holding the blade hubs, and did final finish on all the wires and bits. 

 

I had to repair the rear blade brace since it fractured right near the fuze joint. Don't know when it happened. I drilled and pinned it. Not easy with the model so far completely and the brace glued to it. Kitty Hawk styrene was a bit brittle and broke way too often way too easily. The rotor went on easily and all the blades aligned perfectly with the braces. Miracle! 

 

I then remembered that I had to add paint and add the missile warning sensors that go onto the port and strbrd EMS pods in front, and the HF antenna wire. I also had to reattach the open engine cover this time with wire. It's now a bit flexible so you can bump it without it fracturing off. CA is too darn brittle! 

 

For the antenna, I used E-Z Line Lycra inserted into a 0.030" Albion micro tube held with some thin CA. For those that haven't use E-Z Line, it's great for rigging antenna and small naval ship rigging. It is hugely elastic and when slightly stretched stays taut. It also glues almost instantly with thin CA. I think it has to do with the huge surface area within the fiber itself. The stands making up the yarn are very fine. The tube was inserted into a hole I drill in the fuze at the antenna entry point. Also a pain in the butt since the model (including the rotor) was already there and in the way.

 

With that it was done. I still plan on doing the base, but the model stands on its own nicely. Here's the album.

 

SH-60B_Final_Port_3.jpg

 

SH-60B_Overhead.jpg

 

SH-60B_Final_Overhead.jpg

SH-60B_Final_3-4_View.jpg

 

SH-60B_Final_Nose.jpg

 

SH-60B_Final_Port_Side_2.jpg

 

SH-60B_Final_Strbd_Side.jpg

 

SH-60B_Final_Strbd_Top.jpg

 

SH-60H_Port_Side_1.jpg

So there you have it. Work started in mid-Oct and ended in mid-Feb about 4 months of pretty intensive work. My opinion of the model:

Pros:

1. Beautiful surface detail especially with the addition of the ResKit parts.

2. Lots of choices on build and configuration. (Huge amount of parts still left on many sprues.)

3. It's a great model in a great scale. You can really go to town on super-detailing.

Cons:

1. Instructions leave something to be desired. Terrible instructions on creating the stowed version

2. That reversed part HD33 that i had to redraw and 3D print.

3. Styrene was fragile and broke at the worst possible times. You better be a good problem solver.

4. The ResKit parts did not mate 100% accurate with the kit's requiring further problem solving.

5. Fits - While having the interior as a separate box seemed like a good idea at the time, in reality it made getting a good main joint nearly impossible requiring a lot of filling.

 

It was singularly the most complex aircraft build I ever did and I've been building models almost non-stop since 1954 at my 9th birthday. I've made a practice recently to have each project I attempt to push my skills. This project did not disappoint. That said, I love how the rotor head and engine came out. They met the image I had in my mind's eye and for that all the work was worth it.

 

SH-60B Gluing on the Tail.jpg

SH-60B Final 3-4 View.jpg

SH-60B Final Nose.jpg

SH-60B Final Overhead.jpg

SH-60B Final Port 3.JPG

SH-60B Final Port Side 2.JPG

SH-60B Final Strbd Side.jpg

SH-60B Final Strbd Top.jpg

SH-60B Overhead.jpg

SH-60H Port Side 1.JPG

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Let me be the first to congratulate you on a fantastic, museum quality build of the SH-60!!

 

I've kept up with this thread for several reasons - the high quality of your workmanship, the "little things" you brought to the build that lifted it WAY above average and your perseverance.

 

I can only dream of a build that nice.  Again, congratulations.

 

C2j

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Thank you C2J. I have very little patience, but lots of perseverance. It gets me through the tough spots. While I may wish to, I never through anything across the room when frustrated. I practice test pilot problem solving,, "try A, B, C, D, E, etc, until you either auger in or start flying again."

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Thank you!

As an epilog... Here's what my work space looks like when I'm done.

Between-Projects.jpg

 This phenomenon only occurs every so often when work is done. Sadly, it doesn't last very long.

And here's my high-tech method of dealing with the sharps that are created constantly. I buy my #11s in the 100 piece packs and change then very often, especially when using it to cut decals, masking, bare metal foil, etc. I toss them all in a yogurt container and when full, tape the darn thing shut and toss it in the trash. I don't handle them any more than I have to. Being an AFid person and on a blood thinner, I try and not cut myself.

Handling_Spent_Blades.jpg

Lastly, when I said there were a lot of unused parts, I wasn't kidding. These are not all of them. I threw out a bunch of sprues that had parts on them besides these. It seems like a lot of waste.

SH-60B_Leftover_Parts.jpg

Well... that's that. Next up will be the massive Missouri Turret project. I'm still waiting for the kit and guns to come to my local hobby shop. I'm finding more and more reference images and am busy drawing all the parts. I'm posting the whole deal on the ships part of this forum.

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  • 10 months later...

Thank you Janus! And happy New Year!

 

I've just finished a project that, in my estimation, is more remarkable in every way and I've done a build thread of its entirety. It's a complete Iowa Class 16" turret structure in 1/72 from keel to gun house. It's based on the Takom 1/72 Missouri turret with hundreds of hand drawn and 3D printed components… all done by me. It's now residing in the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial ship in the Delaware River across from Philadelphia. I delivered it on Thursday. It will go on permanent display probably in the Ward Room. Read all about it here:

 

https://forums.kitmaker.net/t/takom-iowa-class-mark-7-16-50cal-turret-with-full-interior-start-to-finish/16832

 

438930501_ITPDone5.thumb.jpg.2103faa3233e8cf4cdfd38aa016dd3cb.jpg1971224284_ITPDone1.thumb.jpg.9b02384bfcf64b9c7e0aa65b6a7afc94.jpg

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Hey there!  I know this blog is from a couple years ago... But I am now building both the left and right engines and have found this blog to be invaluable!  Your engine loose freaking awesome!  I am absolutely learning a lot from the steps you took and I am going to try a few of the techniques and extra pieces you used and made.  Thank you for such an indepth and excellent blog post!

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Hey there!  I know this blog is from a couple years ago... But I am now building both the left and right engines and have found this blog to be invaluable!  Your engine loose freaking awesome!  I am absolutely learning a lot from the steps you took and I am going to try a few of the techniques and extra pieces you used and made.  Thank you for such an indepth and excellent blog post!

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Your Welcome. The thread may be old, but still relevant if you're building the model. Coming up next is the Takom 1/32 Apache Long Bow that I have on lay a way at my local hobby shop. I'll be starting it in about a month or so and will post the build here too.

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/21/2021 at 12:17 PM, Trainman 2001 said:

Just put the Kitty Hawk 1:35 SH-60b on layaway at my favorite (and one of the best hobby shops ever), Scale Reproductions, Inc. in Louisville, KY, USA. I'm doing some pre-planning before actually getting the model. I won't be starting it for a couple of months since I have a Meng Bradley Busk w Interior on deck. What aftermarket is available for the Seahawk and what should I buy? I'm planning on super-detailing the engine compartment, rotor head, etc. My last aircraft model was this Airfix 1:24 Typhoon that got into the January FSM magazine's Reader's Gallery.

 

617303710_TyphoonFin9.jpg

Typhoon Exhaust In.JPG

Cannot express to you how annoyed I am reading this! You mean to tell me while I stayed in Louisville from 11-6 thru 12-12, I missed this hobby shop??? What's more aggrivating, I  googled "hobby shops near me" and this never came up 🤬 well, I know I where I going during my next trip down to louisville

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The Hobby Shop, Scale Reproductions, Inc. is thriving and is about 6 miles from downtown heading southeast. I'm a member of the Military Modelers Club of Louisville founded by the hobby shop's owner, Brian Bunger. He established the club 40+ years ago and it's growing with some younger member joining recently. In fact, our meetings and events have record attendances. I did pick up the Apache, but am finishing up a railroad structure before getting started. I'm trying to determine how crazy to go on it. There's not much aftermarket stuff yet available for it other than canopy masks (which I've ordered) and possibly some really spiffy crew members from ReedOak. I will, of course, post this build when underway. BTW: the Iowa turret IS in the ward room on the New Jersey battleship. If anyone sees it please let me know.

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