back | page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Before opening the box, the excellent art work conveys what a serious bit of kit this is with its full load of Gatling mini guns, unguided rockets and hellfire missiles. On opening the box there are 7 sprues, one of parts for the ‘L’ version that are not required for the DAP build, all of which show what a detailed thoughtful build this is.
I decided when I saw the film segments showing the in-flight moments that I would try to show how ‘full’ a busy cockpit looks with the aircrew and their flight gear and the various levers ,cables etc encroaching into the available space. Almost claustrophobic!
To this end, I decided that the front crew doors would be removed too, well, if you are doing the work, you might as well see it eh? It would also look more ‘businesslike’.
I always like to give whatever I build the ‘organic’ touch by putting figures in, on, or around the kit. To my mind, men designed, built, flew, drove, or sometimes died in these vehicles, figures give a model a little ‘life’ and also give scale where sometimes it’s a little hard to judge otherwise………oops, I’ll get off the soapbox now!………..
At the start of the build I was unsure how the finished model would look other than having crew in it and so started with no fixed display in mind with the main and tail rotors.
I had also bought the Eduard external detail sets for the Blackhawk, not really realising how good these tiny little bits of etched brass would make the final kit look. My god though, the work certainly has to be put into applying these details. A few mates in our club hate etched brass with a vengence, moaning that most of the time they end up wearing bits of it!, and on viewing the build would wander off muttering and shaking the head! I must admit to being a convert to this method of detailing, but saying this, I did leave some of the more ‘extreme’ silly bits on the sprue!
The two rotors went together as advertised, and the various Eduard items relating to them were glued in place, but the main hydraulic lines were missing, so I fitted these using solder wire and tube where required. When finished I decided to paint and complete the build of both, also applying the decals.
The decals were a problem….they would not soften, even with setting fluids, I don’t know whether they had ‘aged’ over the time that I had the kit, but they were trouble wherever required, silvering being unavoidable, even with a coat of Johnsons clear applied to the back before application of them.
To get around the problem partially, I had to over paint the stencilling to hide the silvering, and mask and paint the stripes on the rotor blades…..tedious!
A coat of matt varnish over the whole evened the finish acceptably.
Main and tail rotors finished I decided that the build would go ahead in finished modules, these would be landing gear, cabin, figures etc. I don’t seem to be able to do as others in our club, and work on different models all at once, some doing as many as two or three at a time, I have to finish the kit that I am on, (even though it can be sorely tempting to have a go at that Tamiya 1:32nd Spit’ sitting by the side of my bench leering at me) I have to be strong and plod on.
