Bell UH-1H 'Charlie Don't Surf' - Kitty Hawk 1/48

[mostrich]

Okay, time to get things done.
During my service as a corpsman in the German Army, I had the opportunity to fly with the "Carpet Beater" a few times.
It was a long-time wish to model one of them, but the lack of a proper, up to modern standards kit stalled my plans. But then suddenly, last year Kitty Hawk showed some mercy.

The Kit
Kitty Hawk UH-1D "Huey" (KH80154)
KH is known for their highly detailed kits of specimens, were no scale models were made from before. Sadly those kits are known for their inaccuracies, over-engineering and design hiccups.
I'd have passed on this one too, if it wasn't designt by the team of a certain Floyd Werner jr. from Werner's Wings, that provided the whole 3D CAD-drawings for KH. Primarily a release in 1/35 was planned, but the Chinese switched to quarterscale shortly before the start of production. A decision that's most welcomed by the thread opener.


Additional stuff to loose my mind in:

1. PE parts (Eduard)
2. Mask Set (Eduard)
3. Decal Sheet Ride of the Valkyries (Werner's Wings)
4. Pilot Helmet (Reedoak)
5. Pilot Body Armor (Reedoak)

The Original
I'll orient on a machine of C Troop, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment from 1970. She was a "Lift Bird" for the quick pick up / deploy of troops in combat areas. To facilitate her hop-on, hop off duties even more, all cargo doors have been dismantled. If you've seen the movie "Apocalypse Now", you'll be quite familiar with the unit. She's been Coppola's inspiration for the Ride of the Vakyries-Scene, that's equally disturbing and fascinating until today.


Source: https://usastruck.com/tag/1st-cavalry-d ... ir-mobile/

I'd like to thank Bruce for the inspiration on the build and Duke for the inspiration on the thread title.

[mostrich]

Post from France!
Delicatessen delivery service? Macron's abdication? Not at all, my order from the 3D print virtuoso Reedoak came in today. To pimp up the Huey's interior a bit, I opted for a pilots helmet and two body armor vests. As far as the quality is concerned, I better let the pictures speak for themselves:






To create the print data the original parts were laser scanned. More authenticity is hardly possible.
Of course I've already spilled some glue on parts. Shitty Hawk surprises us with a major glitch right in the first step of the instructions. Where in the drawing some supports for the base plate of the rotor head are shown, the actual parts present - wait for it - nothing!
Some search engine-yoga provided us with the knowledge, that the rotor head has a 5° tilt to the front in relation to the vertical axis of the fuselage. Now I just have to find out the proper height. How stupid is that?


Any more to complain about? Not much. Since in the past months only Eduard and Tamiya parts touched my cutting mat, I'm a bit annoyed about the high count of ejector pin marks (the prominent three on the picture below are none!). Fit is good to this point, details are great. Look at the slight waviness of the noise protection on the back walls. How cool's that?


Torben

[KSaarni]

This will be a really interesting project!

Congratulations with the Reedoak stuff! Is that the first time you actually have in your own very hand their stuff ?
One can make a lot of conclusion from the pics, but when you have the piece in your hand, only then you can tell if it's a perfect product or "njaeh" ...

- Kari

[BlackSheep214]

Interesting and following this one...

[speedgraflex]

I am subscribed, too! I mostly forgot what the differences are between variants 1C-1D-1H but I recall Werner stating the H is easily built from the KH kit. I will have to go back to school to learn the differences (Armor? Engine?) between the variants one more time. Hopefully, this time it sticks. I was initially excited because I was hoping for a set of figures inside, truthfully. The child within was excited, I guess. What are your plans for helmets and chicken plates? Hanging ready for use?

[Stikpusher]

UH-1 A, B, & C were short cabin Hueys being mainly set apart by differences in the tail boom and main rotor. The D & H were long cabin, with most differences being internal. There are some external visual detail differences between the early and late D, but they are minimal.

[speedgraflex]

Thank you, Carlos!!!

[mostrich]

So, did some tedious work the past weeks without having much to show kitwise. Some of the hours I spent could've easily been avoided by some carefulness during the mold production. One of those stupidities caused by lazyness I present to you in the following picture. Eduard obviously had the same CAD data provided to produce their photo etch set as Kitty Hawk. Both show a part for the cockpit ceiling panel (A17) peppered with details. Now Eduard wants you to cut them off to place their colored pe on it. But hey, no need for hassle, there is none. Thanks for that, KH.



The skids showed a senseless notch near the front end. I put sheet in it, cut the recess away and sanded with a coarse sanding stick. Than my trusty, self-made Sprue Goo came into play. I wiped some of it over the small seams and let it dry. The finish has been done with a polishing stick.



What's that Sprue Goo you ask? It's a nearly empty bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin with some molten styrene in it. I chose Eduard sprues, cause I like its quality. It's the best filler for small gaps I ever worked with. The characteristics of the filler are the same as of the surrounding material, what makes sanding and rescribing so much easier. It also melts everything together for a strong bond.



Next time more about the Huey itself, promised!

[speedgraflex]

Torben!

I am really excited about your project, and look forward to more. Your photography is just the bee's knees. I feel the most incredible memories when I think of your teensy tiny tank project, which is not only a superb model (it is scale-less, due to its incredible build by you), it is photographed superbly.

This is one of those kits... I was not ready for the amount of parts, and I am going to be following along with you closely.

When you wrote "molten sprue," do you mean "powdered sprue" or is there something I do not understand. You may know how much I despise resin pour stubs; the only reason I keep a baggie of these bad boys around is to turn them into "dust" which I use as a hardening agent for superglue. This was the only real way for me to tame ancient AMT-ERTL plastic nacelles on the TOS Enterprise.

Whatever you can tell me about your process of using the Eduard sprues in solution, I am curious, very curious to know how this is done!

Thanks in advance!

[KSaarni]

I made also once this Sprue-glue stuff...
(if I don't remember wrong, it was actually Lyle who introduced that on either these SPAM pages or the previous one that was closed down)

My problem was that I always forgot to use it, until one day I wanted, but then the Sprue-glue had become a big piece of sprue without glue...

Perhaps I would need to mix one set again, it's cool stuff all in all!

Thanks Torben brining this up again! Yes, I will mix some stuff!

- Kari