Engines next
… and again not too convincing with the grills, the lower grills even have one rear one on each side missing. Marking out with a pen and then setting too with the trusty Dremel soon had me some recesses, into which I cut and fitted some of the gauze grill supplied with the kit.
The fit of the engine mounts flush to the fuselage wasn’t perfect either, but nothing some filler and sanding can’t take care of.
After spraying the inside of the upper canopy windows Clear Green and fitting the nose cone, it can be mounted to the cockpit area. The nose cone is missing a HC-2 grill, so again a dig in the spares box found what was needed. The fit of the canopy was poor and it needed some styrene strip to fill the gap above the central window and the port side needed quite a bit of fettling to get it flush to the fuselage.
The canopy windows are masked, I cheated and used the Montex set, then the frames can be sprayed NATO Black so they match the interior.
I find grey is the best colour to see surface imperfections, so a coat of Mr Color 1500 self levelling primer from a rattle can was the next order of business.
Note on the starboard side there are two more recessed vents, one on the tail and one in front of the cabin door. These also benefit from some of the gauze grill material.
All the seam joints were sanded flush, however on the spine there are seven raised ribs that appear over scale, so a little sanding down sorts them out. Similar story for the pair of raised panel edge detail on the forward gearbox front face, spend 5 minutes with a sanding stick and they look so much better.
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.