Turning our attention to the outer fuselage, the first task after priming is to paint the cockpit walls with NATO Black and the areas of the tail that can be seen with the Chromate Yellow primer.
The capsule is a snug fit into one of the halves and it’s nice to see the window ports align precisely.
The other fuselage half can now be joined, however to ensure good alignment and minimise the seam line I suggest starting at the tail and clamp it solidly and let that set, then keeping clamps in place glue the centre fuselage and lastly align the forward end.
Having chosen to do the HC-2 version, there are some details on the fuselage surface that need to be removed. One is the square aerial mounts around the locating holes on the upper port fuselage, the HC-2 has oval mounts and these are incorporated into the kit aerial part.
Next is the rear gearbox cowling, on top are two sets of moulded intakes with grills recessed, this is pretty unconvincing, so a dig in the spares box finds some photoetch grills. To install these I filed away the recesses and then rebuilt the edges with styrene strips. With a little sanding and shaping we get a much better representative effect, in an area that is highly visible on the finished model. Worth the effort in my opinion.
We can now fit the rear tail cowling and I added a raised access plate that could be seen both sides on my reference photos.
The forward gearbox cowling needs to have the inside painted in our Chromate Yellow before fitting.
Notice the fit is not very good and one side stood lower than the other. The simple fix was to add some styrene strip to the bottom edge and then trim it flush too the inner and outer faces.
Richard Allen says
Fantastic RAF Chinook, super detailed and great guide for my current Italeri 1/48 Chinook HC2 project. Can only wish I had that talent for building!
Al Parker says
The final build is fantastic; I’m so pleased to come across this, as I got this kit today. I’m so excited to start, but even more so with your guidance; great work.