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

[Rotorman]

Great build so far.  I agree the Reedoak figures are a bit expensive but really worth it for any kind of US Navy dio. I used them on my build.  I dig the photo of the maintenance in the hangar. Maybe you reconsider getting the figures since so much amazing effort in your build. 

Oliver

[Trainman 2001]

Short session so I didn't paint, but continued with the main rotor. I started to drill the tiny holes for the many hydraulic lines. There's a mock fitting on top of the rotor hub arms that's supposed to have 2 lines going through it. I attempted to drill it, but the resin started breaking out. So I filed them off and will make holes clamps with wine bottle foil. 

 

 

I drill the five holes in the hydraulic manifold fitting on top of the outer arms. That was fun! Not! That's my thumb for scale. I'm going to lay in these lines now when I have easy access to the holes. I will cut them to length upon final install. I may drill and pin some of the actuating levers too for a more permanent construction.

 

 

The rotating portion of the rotor hubs went on next and I found that I glued that little shoe thingy (technical term) in the wrong place facing in the wrong directly. I now know why they gave you 8 of these things when you only need four. They get lost really easily. They can also foul the fit of the rotating portion from seating properly in the hub arm. I had to removed two of them (broke one in the process), glue in the arm and then put the shoe back on.

 

 

There are rights and lefts of this rotating part and you need to pay close attention to their placement when doing the rotor-fold version, which I am. To further complicate things, the two in "front" get canted up 10° from level. I set up the level on my iPhone at 10 degrees to use as an approximate guide. 

 

The last thing that went on in this step was a tiny piece of PE. In the real bird, this bar indicates clearly when the lock pins are engaged (in) or disengaged (out), so it can be seen from the ground easily. Since I'm building it with the blades folded, the pins would be in the outward position as the part was molded. You're instructed to cut them off if you're building with the blades in the operating position.

 

 

I found the easiest way to put these on was to lay them face down on the little piece of plexiglass I use when cutting PE, put a small amount of gel CA on the pin ends, and then bring the pins down to the PE until it grabs. Trying to hold the PE in aligment with tweezers was an exercise in futility.

 

I'm going to pre-drill any hydraulic line holes before assembly whenever I can. 

[Trainman 2001]

Hope everyone survived Thanksgiving day! Our son and family were in from State College, PA so it was the first time the cousins saw one another in over 2 years. When kids are in their teens, two years is a whole lotta change, you know. It took a day for them to get comfortable with each other, but they all warmed up.

First thing I did today was to throw a coat of rattle can Tamiya Silver leaf on the T700 for the first metallic coat. I let it dry completely. It already looks better. I masked the firewall so I would have to repaint the Ocean Gray.

 

 

The rest of a reasonably long work session was wrestling with the main rotor resin kit. Let me tell you, this is a real beast. I was spending as much time cobbling together repairs as I was building the assembly. There is a link with a universal joint on one end that seems to be part of the collective pitch mechanism. It's a two-part affair, with the cylindrical main part and another that will have a hydraulic line in it. 

 

The cylinder casting was a total bear! There was an air bubble flaw in the narrow portion connecting it to the eye clevis on one end. This bubble caused a failure of every one. They gave six of these and I used all six. I ended up drilling and using guitar string to attach the parts back together.

 

 

To complicate things more, the eye angles were not in line with the cylinder main axis. I ended up first gluing them in the wrong angle since there was really no way to tell. To get the assembly right I broke the joints so I could rotate the eyes around the piano wire and get them together. It was a half-moon hole in the hub to accomodate the same shaped pin, but of course the pin was slightly oversized and needed careful filling so it would assemble without excess pressure that could break more piston rod joints. Ask me how I know this. After each was in the best position I used med CA with accelerator to fix them.

 

Through all this manhandling the little PE straps came off and some of the pins to which they attach broke also. I replaced one with 1/32" phos-bronze and will do the same with the other broken ones. I have extra PE parts and will replace them AFTER all the pieces are together. The resin is quite brittle. My 3D printed parts are tougher.

 

 

Meanwhile, I wised up and drilled as many of the 0.012" holes as I could before getting these parts attached.

 

Then more troubles cames. The main shaft was still too tight a fit into the hub for my comfort. I didn't want to have to press too hard to get these together for fear of breaking more stuff in doing so. To rectify this I attempted to chuck the shaft into my DeWalt and spin it so I could sand it round. That worked until it didn't! A little too much side pressure and the smallest part of the shaft fractured. That part disappear into the ether. I found that the diamter was really close to 3/32" so I replaced it with a piece of tubing of that size. This worked pretty well and I dodged another bullet.

 

 

There is a hydraulic distribution component that sits atop the main shaft and this part has 8 fitting that needed to be installed AND drilled 0.012" The kit had two extras of each type (straight and elbow). I drilled them BEFORE separating them from the mold sprue. That part worked. What was less successful was getting them attached to their respective holes in the distributor. The holes were slight undersized and in pushing them in I broke a couple and lost more. 

 

 

I opened these holes to a #58 drill to give more room. I still lost one elbow — and that was with my parts capture apron in place — so I started to scratch-build a little soldered affair that needs one of those small holes for a hydraulic line. It's a small piece of Albion tubing and a 1/32 piece of phos-bronze soldered together. I was in the midst of drilling the hole when it was time for dinner.

 

 

Just for scale, that large wooden log is a toothpick! That drill is really freaking small! The 0.012" is holding up much better than the 0.010" ones I was using (and breaking) before.

[HeavyArty]

Wow, great work.  I think I will stick with the kit rotor head though.  To me, it looks like way too much work for a marginal increase in detail level.  The kit rotor head is actually pretty nice, especially after plumbing it.

[Trainman 2001]

Gino, that's why all this crap is sold as aftermarket. It's personal choice at work.

I put the first color coat on the engine. Tamiya Dark Iron. It's a little dark so I might dust it with some orangy shade.

Then I got down to business and finished the mechanical assembly of the rotor head proper (not the gear box which is another model in itself) and started piping.

 

The swash plate and locking lugs that connect it to the rotor shaft was reasonably sane except for breaking the ball end of one of the connecting rods. Again, I drilled it and used Guitar strings. Getting a bit tired of this. The first three rods when in in 10 minutes. That last one took probably a half hour. The lugs that connect the swash ring to the main shaft via that two-ended forging needed some filing to open up the slot so it would slip over the parts without forcing (which tends to break things).

Got the first pipe in and you'll notice in this image that I got all four PE rotor lock indicator bars in place.

Piping is going okay so far except for a slight distraction.

 

There were holes in the top rotor piece that i neglected to open. One of the pipes goes up through these holes and attaches to the underside of the angled fitting. I decided to re-pipe correctly and starting doing this late this afternnon and just got started on it.

 

And you'll now notice that some of the bars already popped off. I hate gluing PE with CA! I'll put some more in once all the handling is actually done.

[Trainman 2001]

Piping work on main rotor hub continues. Spent about 1.5 hours today, with over one of those hours spent fixing the fittings on the hydraulic distributor. I used up all the resin ones I had including the double set that was included. The last two that I cut off the sprue were damaged since I cut too close to the part and actually removed some of it. I ended fup enlarging the connector end with some accelerated CA and made them work. Hopefully, when painted, they'll be okay. Getting the piping threaded under the piece and through the hole wasn't the big challenge. The challenge was geting the fitting into the holes and holding them there. I also replaced some of the straight connectors.

The next pipes ot go on were the large group that feeds the blade locks, and others that connect to the various components. One pipe comes out of the holes in the ring below the distributor. They were a large hole which I drilled deeper with the tiny drill.

 

This line curves under the blade angle cylinder — I suppose that's what it is since nothing actually tells you what all this complexity does.

There are four lines that go to the distribution fitting on the top of the claw (that's what I'm calling it... it's probably called the blade hinge. Three go to the claw: one into the back of each lock cylinder, one f the claw, and the last into the back of the clevis. That hole I didn't pre-drill and had to add it now. It was delicate to say the least!

All of those lines will have to painted black once the hub is painted. Next session I'll get as much done as I can.

[Trainman 2001]

I decided to find out what these parts really were and found the Pilot's manual for the SH-60B Seahawk. A good, complicated read that I should have review BEFORE doing all the engine piping. There are good images of engine details and components. Here's the main rotor. The cylinders on the sides of the arms are shock absorbers. And the plate on top with the weights hanging on the ends (which are separate snap on pieces on the rotor kit) are tungsten weights that act as a vibration damping system.

[Trainman 2001]

I Can't believe that this is the 3rd time I've written this post. I keep doing something that changes the Safari tabs and I lose the entire thing. I'm going to copy the darn thing so I can retrieve it when I screw up.

I got the rotor piping done today. I did the rest of the arms in the same time as it took to do one yesterday. If I had to build another I'd even be faster. Up the learning curve I go...

 

I did some more research on the prototype learning about the Biflar Vibration Dampening System on the top of the rotor mask. It uses free floating tungsten weights that oscilate opposing the natural vibration generated by the rotors. The system is dynamically balanced, but the rotors still generate a lot of vibration. With the system vibration is reduced 55% in the cabin making for a quieter and smoother ride.

The engines are fully computer controlled by Digital Engine Control Unit (DECU). This takes all the fuel and engine settings away from the pilot. All they do is put the throttle control on idle, hit start, when it spools up, move it to fly and that's it. Everything else is controlled by the DECU based on the flight inputs and how much power is needed.

 

The tubular duct running across the top of the engine is the output from the Grit Removal System. A centrifugal impeller drivers particulates out of the air stream and then a separate blower pushes the dirty air out to the exhaust trunk (a la the Dyson vacuum).

 

I found more good images for detailing and coloration. Notice how clean it is. The Biflar weights are very obvious in this image.

 

 

And this is even cleaner. I think this is a new aircraft. Most is body color, but there's enough bare metal to add interest.

 

 

The rotor system even has a power fold actuator (another hydraulic line).

 

I broke another blade lock sensor and had to scratch-build the complete part this time. No big deal. I was pressing too hard when trying to scrape a bit of excess CA off some small detail. It's a complicated thing, ain't it?

 

 

I primed it with Tamiya white primer.

 

 

I will be adding more details using bare metal foil during the finish painting time.

 

While this was drying I started working on the transmission and angle drives. The hydaulic pumps come off the angle drives, not the engines. There were four sub-assemblies requiring tiny resin parts and Gel CA. Not fun! Too small of gluing area and critical angles.

 

These parts going onto a bracket that attaches to the trans body. This stuff may not be visible unless I open some more panels. 

The Seahawk also has an APU that's nestled between the exhaust trunks that provides starting air and power when main engines are off. The kit does not have this, nor are there any AM parts. I suppose I could draw it and 3D print it, but then I'd have open another panel. I don't think I'm doing this.

[Trainman 2001]

The transmission and final drives are built and ready for paint. I kept breaking off the little actuator ball ends and ended up pinning various parts in place so I wasn't just relying on CA.

 

The lever bracket had a square opening that you needed to open. I missed it at first and was having a heck of time getting the lever set to fit in. I then saw the little "Cut" writing on the rectangle, removed it and the lever went in without difficulty.

 

 

Lots of other stuff went on this final drive including an oil filler which is also pinned. 

 

 

The angle drives that come from each engine have a right and a left. I didn't pay attention to this! I didn't read the instructions carefully enough to realize they had two different part numbers. So of course I put them on backwards (Darn Murphy!!). I was able to pop them off and put them on correctly. 

 

I took these pictures with the trans and engines in relatively correct positions. I think they're upside down. The tail rotor take off is there too.

 

 

 

Painting will commence again tomorrow.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Trainman 2001

[ExchefAndy]

This is so far beyond my skill level, or probably desire when it comes to detailing. Your attention to those details and repair skills are rather mesmerising!

Great work and I'll be following along for sure 

Andy

[Trainman 2001]

For years I looked at people's work and felt the same way, and then I just started doing it. I'm a follower of the Yoda School of Life Experience, "There is no try, there's do or do not!" Start small and go big later.

 

Trans is finished and I painted both it and the T700. Still have to paint the rotor head (tomorrow). Armed with my engine pictures I painted the different engine sections various shades of metal, plus some transparent green metallic shade for the grit separator scroll. I then picked out the various piping/wiring/sensors and appliances in flat aluminun, flat black and Molotow Chrome (decanted and using brush).

The darker shade is flat aluminum mixed with flat black. The lighter shade for the accessory case is flat white and flat aluminum. The compressor section was the initial silver leaf spray brush coated with Tamiya flat clear.

Lastly, I also sprayed the trans with the silver leaf and then went over most of it with the darker black/aluminum mix. I left some parts shiny and painted the oil filler cap yellow.

Just for reference. here's the engine pic that I used for color choice.

[HeavyArty]

Nice.  The paint really makes the engine pop.

[Trainman 2001]

It certainly does. Today the intake trunks were installed along with another piece of skin. I then did the detail painting on the rotor, but there's still more to do there.

 

The trunks had a very narrow gluing edge. I spent time finishing the outside edges, but you don't see that. What you do see is the inside seam looking up the trunk. That doesn't matter either since the spliter and intake protector block off any view lines. I needed to give a little clamping assistance to make sure that all the seams were down tight.

 

The angle drives needed to be detatched from the torque tubes to fit them into the airframe. In all these images, neither the trans or the final drives are actually glued in place. The unit is upside down in these two images.

 

While this was setting up, I went about painting all the details on the rotor hub. I used Bare Metal Foil brushed aluminum for the main shaft. I picked out some of the mechanicals with my dark galvanized mix (steel) and flat aluminum. I then used NATO black to paint connectors and piping. I used Molotow chrome on the snubber rods.

Lost another one of those %&$#()%$@ brass straps. I don't have more. Will have to make one out of PE fret. Bummer!

The rotor is gloss coated so I can use some Tamiya Panel Accents. They don't work well with a flat finish. I also need to pick out pipe fittings with gold (Brass) and further age the unit just a trifle with some pastels. Some of the hoses are not black and I will make those additions as I go on.

 

Here's a status shot, again, not finally assembled. I also treated the engine compartment walls with some brown panel accent, and a mixture of black and rust pastels to simulate the heat damage to the walls as seen on some of the pictures.

[Trainman 2001]

The main rotor is pretty much done. I did more detail painting, painted the white patches on the distributor, added some bright brass at the pipe ends, added some panel accent block in some strategic locations, and painted a single pipe to the snubbers a blue that matches what I've seen in the pictures. The ResKit was challenging and at times, so daunting that I wondered if it was worth it. That said, the results are definitely worth it. If you can stand breaking more than a dozen tiny carbide drills and lots of CA gluing frustration, I would recommend it.

Here's a side view.

There's one more line that goes on after the blades are installed; the nitrogen leak sensor line that goes to the spot of the arm where the other half of this line was previously installed.

Just for comparison, here's the real deal showing that blue line going to the snubbers.

I could still add some more metallic accents to the tubing clamps. I'll see what my mood it...

 

The intake fairings didn't fit well over the ResKit's angle drives. They are bigger than the kit's I think. Some selective shaving took care of it, but if you'll notice on the above picture, the fairings DON'T full close the drive housing openings. The instructions DO NOT clearly show this and I was attempting to get them to fit. 

Here's the rubber-band clamps getting it all together, but now I have to go to the shop to see if I glued the forward part in error. 

 

 Nope... not an error. Here's the fit. Again, instructions do not tell you how this should fit. That acts as a splinter to not injest boundary air, also gets some cooling to the trans and final drives.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Trainman 2001

[Trainman 2001]

I wish Tamiya made this kit! I'm having trouble with some of the fits and the aftermarket stuff isn't helping. I spent a lot of time today, filling gaps and preparing the surface after that activity. I was unsure about how the intake fairing fit and my suspicions were well-founded since the engine hatch didn't fit well and needed a piece of fitted styrene to fill it. Later on I checked the entire assembly onto the fuselage roof and the fit there was quite challenging. It's going to require a shoe horn and some patience to get it settle down as it should. That step is very late in the assembly and that, unfortunately could make it more difficult. There are two slots on the fuselage top that mate to two tabs on the inner engine compartmemt walls. It's a blind joint and would really benefit by having your finger pushing up to engage the pins. But... you won't be able to do that because the cabin will be installed and nothing will be able to get in there. It may be better to just cut off the tabs so nothing has to go into blind slots.

I didn't like the obvious seam running down inside the exhaust stacks so I filled that with Tamiya putty. I used some adhesive backed sand paper wrapped around a paint brush handle to sand it smooth.

I used shaped styrene to fill the intake fairing gap.

I then finished it with a bow-sander with fine grit. I had to re-engrave the seam lines. I used masking tape to protect the surfaces around the fill to not do more damage.

There is another fairing that encloses the other half of the exhaust outlet. It too has some more seams that needed a little help although nothing to the extent of the intake gap.

I again used Tamiya putty to fill and the sanding bow to level it. Not only was there a gap and I also got a significant glue smear resulting from putting the liquid cement in the back, but having it wick out the front under my thumb.

Here is the sanded version.

Lastly, some PE and some antennas and such went onto the engine housing roof.

Y'all have a nice weekend. We're due for some strange and rare weather tonight and I'm not happy. There is a significant tornado threat all night long as a major cold front crashes into this unseasonably warm weather we've been having. Most of the most agressive parts is supposed to be west of Louisvile, but you never know. I don't like tornado threats!

[Rotorman]

Try superglue for filler next time. It cuts down on time and makes the gluing parts like the exhausts stronger. 

[Trainman 2001]

I have used CA for filler, but it does sand much harder than the styrene surrounding it. I may use it.

 

Happy Monday. First of all I want to tell everyone that Louisville was spared any damage from the monster storm that ran through KY. Unlike many, I do not either blame a diety or praise one regarding where a weather front decides to become malevolent or benign. It is almost the pure definition of random. it's that randomness that drives people to want to identify an actor, but there is none. With tornadoes, a house on one side of the street is reduced to molecules and the one on the other side of the street is untouched. Gods have nothing to do with this. What I would want a god to do would be to prevent the storm from happening in the first place.

 

On Friday afternoon, I listened to a broadcast from one of our local weather forecasters where he was discussing "Athmospheric Caps." I hadn't heard the term, but it was very interesting. It is the high pressure that exists high in the atmosphere that can limit the ability of a storm front to make tall super cells. It results from when low and high pressure areas collide and the high pressure rides up over the low. 

 

It was strong over our area and weak in Western KY. He said depending on how long it hangs around, it could mitigate how strong the storms would be over Louisville. I feel this effect was the main reason the storms broke down as they reached our area. Tornadoes did form about 25 miles south of the city. Meanwhile, my trash totes didn't even move. Others in the Commonwealth did not fare so well and it was horrific in the extreme.

 

So I am extremely happy that my wife are I are alive and well... that our house is intact, and my workshop is here so I can build this model and write about it to you.

Today began with gluing the interior onto the right hand fuselage side. I used some Quickie clamps to hold it tightly in place. The fit was pretty good so far. 

This view shows how nicely the rear of the cabin fit the fuze side. I forgot to put in a piece that lay inside the nose one each side. I had to stick it to a sticky picker and slide it into the narrow space, and glue it. No harm no foul. I did glue it to the other side that wasn't attached.

I then attempted to fit the left side in place and was greeted with terrible gaps. If I got the top to fit tightly, the bottom was wide open and vice versa. Two factors were at work. With the cabin being a completely enclosed structure, you can't look and see if it's aligned properly as you could when it was just on one side, and I suspected that the cabin bulkheads were just too wide in spots preventing closer.

 

Here was the bottom: Notice the bulb in the front. That was an option that I decided after it was all glued in that I didn't want to use it since I wanted the FLIR option on the front end.

And this was the top! Ugh!

This was totally unacceptable and made for bad fits of the engine housing and the front fairing.

 

I selectively reduced the outer edges of the bulkheads and kept trying the fit. I finally got it as far as it would go, so it was time to glue. But first, the rear landing gear has to go in because it's trapped by the two fuze halves.

 

I painted the gear silver only to identiy that it was probably white. I first tried bare metal foil for the oleo strut, but scrapped that and used Molotow chrome brushed on. Meanwhile, the scissors link broke. I glued it together once, and it broke again when I was fussing with the foil. This time I drilled and pinned the scissors joint and glued it again. This time reinforced with thin CA.

But then, disaster struck again during all my manhandling when trying to close those pesky joints. Another piece of the scissors broke in another place and got lost.

I'll have to scratch-build or 3D print another scissors. Annoying! My UV 3D printing resin is tougher than styrene... or at least the Kitty Hawk styrene.

I changed out that front piece before commencing the fuze gluing. This one has the mount for the FLIR in front.

It was time to glue the fuze together trapping the landing gear and the front piece. I worked the bottom joint first since it's exposed more. I let the top joint go for a while. The bottom will get a little filling tomorrow after the joint is fully dry.

The top joint still ain't so hot, but it's hidden. It could cause fit problems with engine housing, fairing and the front glazing that I'll have to figure out as I go.

I'm going to fill this seam with styrene and then filler. 

 

The tail seam was the best of the bunch and looks pretty good. I apply the liquid cement on the inside in as many areas as I can before wicking it in from the outside.

While the paint on the gear was drying I assembled the wheels and made some masks for the hubs. I use a small machinist dividers with one point ground to a sideways chisel edge. I measured the diameter with the digital calipers, divided it in half and used this setting to set the dividers. I added a dab of Molotow Liquid Mask to cover the tiny hole from the dividers' point.

Fuze cleanup will start tomorrow.

[HeavyArty]

Glad you made it through safely.  Coming along nicely.  Keep at it, it will look great in the end.

[Trainman 2001]

Thanks Gino!!! I am persistent and today that persistence paid off. I decided to go for it and mount the entire engine housing on the craft. It took lots of handling, pushing and shoving and if any more add-on details were on the plane, I would have surely broken most of them off.

 

Before doing this I started working on the major gap issues. For the top gaps I used a combination of strene strips and med-acccelerated CA. 

When dry I used a single-edges razor to slice the excess off near the skin line, and then using power precision sander and other sanding tools to level it. This entire joint is buried beneath the engine housing. I also used the razor to scrape the joints, not just rely on sanding.

For the bottom and tail seams I used mostly Tamiya filler and some strategic CA to fill it all. In this case I didn't use the power sander, but used the bow sander for all the convex curves.

Getting the engine house on required some surgery and lots of pushing and pulling. I though I wouldn't be able to use the ResKit trans because fit issues, but that was a red herring. The real culprit was the engine itself. It was too fat and was holding the entire assmbly off the plane. I also had to pop off the intake fairing to so more cutting. I relieved the front edges also. I lost the control rods on the trans, but they would be buried under the nose fairing. 

 

I had to grind some of the engine, and cut one of the pipes so the engine would fit properly.

With the interference removed I was able to rubber band and clamp the housing and start gluing all around.

 

One joint needed some more attention with the addition of a piece of 1/32" rod and CA. That joint, even with removing the interference, was still too high and need persuasion to get where it belonged.

Here are some of the other fits after correction.

I was rewarded after all this work to see that the nose fairing fit almost as it should. This is not glued. There's some internal pieces that must go on first. You can see what's left of that Phos-bronze pin.

The last gap was due to a mismatch of the fuze sides at the rear engine mount vertical face. I could see this offset, but it seemed in a difficult to remove it, so I decided to handle it with filling.

Again, I used styrene (2 pieces of 0.015" stock) to fill it. It will dry overnight and I'll sand it the next work session.

[HeavyArty]

Nice job closing it all up.  The rest should be smooth sailing.

Edited December 16, 2021 by HeavyArty

[Trainman 2001]

Thanks Gino!

 

First I unsuccessfully printed a gaggle of scissors links that turned out to be too thin to properly drill for the assembly wire I was going to us. I'm going to redesign.

I then finished cleaning up that complex fill area where the engine house joins the tail section. I used various sanding aids including a riffle file that works on concave surfaces.

The rest of the long work session was spent installing lots of little bits that make the model unique. The SH-60B LAMPS version has a lot of antenna and sensor sticking out everywhere. I reinforced some of the most delicate with wire. The instructions called for the canopy to be installed now, but I'm holding off until much later. I will mask the interior without the glazing. I also built and installed the FLIR unit that hangs on the front. There are loads of lights on the ship which I install with canopy glue on a surface prepared with Molotow Chrome Paint.

This phos-bronze is firmly holding this protrubing antenna.

There are two lifting eyes that were broken on the sprue. There are two "E" sprues and the part was broken on both.

I formed new ones out of wire and installed them with CA. They're a little thick, but that's the best size I had. Everything else was too thin or even thicker.

Here are some of the lights. That ugly seam is actually closed with CA. When painted it will disappear... thankfully!

There are sensors that go on the four corners of the cabin. Not sure what they are, but they have lights on the front ones also which I pre-treated with the Molotow. The FLIR goes on an optional bracket on the nose. It even includes some nice connecting leads. 

The forward half of the FLIR ball is transparent so I pre-masked the optical windows before attaching to the airframe.

It's captivated by the two halves of the lower frame. The ball articulates vertically, but does not rotate.

Can someone tell me what that rectangular array is? IFF?

[Trainman 2001]

I re-designed the scissors print. Instead of printing them all directly on the build plate, i drew a plank below them and supported each print sufficiently so no part of the link would attempt to print in free space. My reasons for this change are due to the nature of starting layers. The first 8 layers printed are exposed for 60 seconds per layer (as compared to 10 secs/layer on the rest) to ensure that they are well hardened and adhered to the build plate. If not, when the plate lifts to allow fresh resin to backfill for the next layer, the previous layer could adhere to the teflon barrier at the resin vat bottom, and not lift with the build plate thus creating a failed print job. This long exposure has a negative side effect. It causes the first layers to spread out beyond the part's boundaries creating what's know as an "elephant foot". For large parts, the elephant foot's no big deal, but on small parts it can distort the shape pretty badly as it did on my first attempt. 

 

By elevating the parts off the plate and supporting them, the elephant foot is on the plank, not the parts, and the parts come out true size. Notice that the print was actually starting to faill on the right side of the image with the plank lifting off the build plate, but enough of the plank was still attached to produce a bunch of good parts. That's why I ALWAYS print a lot more parts than I actually need. The resin is cheap for tiny parts, and the print time is the same since it's the number of vertical layers that determines print time (along with exposure times and print layer thickness).

I post-hardened the bars before drilling the holes and separating them from the bar.

 

I tried to drill one and did have success. THEY WILL WORK! Notice the one in the background has a broken leg. Again, that's why I print so many. They're fragile and drilling is a bit abusive to tiny parts.

Work continued adding fuselage details. There were three antenna that went onto the tail boom. I had pre-opened holes for two of them, but had missed opening the square hole for the middle one. Rather than just drillng anywhere, I came up with a scheme to shine my iPhone light down the boom and lo and behold, the thinner plastic where the location was on the inside glowed just enough so I could poke the hole from the outside and produce the square hole in its correct location.

The crew door is supposed to be installed now, but I want it in the open position to pose a mechanic sitting on the sill. That means the fuselage must be painted before the door goes on since you can see the fuze wall through the glazing. I also drilled and pinned the delicate door handle. I have the Eduard transparent parts mask set for this model. I use the Testor's Canopy Glue for all the transparent parts.

Up next was the torpedo rack on the strb. side. It's a 3-piece affair where you have to sandwich a part inside before gluing the two halves together. It was confusing to me just how this part was to be installed so I spent a lot of time studying it and ultimately got it right.

 

Onto it when four, very tiny sway braces. These suckers were really, really tiny. I used a 'parts catcher' apron (a la watchmakers) stapled to the underside of my work bench that catches about 80% of the crap that I drop (as long as I remember to clothes pin it to my shirt). One of these parts dropped into it. Here's what it looks like. Imagine seaching the floor for that!

In case you think I'm being hyperbolic, he's a cropped closeup showing it's actually a molded part.

And here they are glued in position on the underside of the torpedo rack.

Last thing I did was assemble the co-pilot's door. Again, I have to hold off on the full assembly since the inside of the door is black, like the interior, but there's a inner frame that goes on over the glazing, making painting and masking more complicated. I'm going to mask the glazing inside and out, paint the inner wall, then assemble and paint the outer frame. I looked to see if it was possible to open the door, but it's not going to be very straight forward since half of the hinge is molded into the fuze wall. I it could be cut out and glued to the door part it might work. I think about it.

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Until next time...

[Trainman 2001]

Started masking the various glazing needed to do the early painting. Then I found that the Eduard masks for the MH Blackhawk don't actually fit this version, as seen here.

If I'm going to have to add more mask to fill out the spaces, I might as well mask from scratch, which is exactly what I did. This was the exterior of the glazing.

 And I masked the interior too. The sliding door interior will not be seen, but the cockpit doors are viewable and will be painted black.

I also replaced the plastic door pull and the missing door handle with metal parts.

Lastly I spent a lot of time... to darn much time on making the scissors links. Here's me cross-drilling the link. My drawing was a little off making the legs too thick. In attempting to open up the gap I kept breaking the legs. I also broke a ton of these drills for various reasons including putting side pressure on the drill and actually bummping something when I put it down on the bench.

I ended the session without finishing this. At least I can print more. I'm post-curing one batch for the second time to maybe toughen it up a bit more. Not too much production for an afternoon's work.

[Joe flier]

The rectangular antenna (there are 4 of them) are the ALQ-142 Electronic Support Measure (ESM) system.  The fish eyes outside of the ESM antenna  is the AAR-47  missile launch detector.

[Joe flier]

The rectangular antenna (there are 4 of them) are the ALQ-142 Electronic Support Measure (ESM) system.  The fish eyes outside of the ESM antenna  is the AAR-47  missile launch detector.