Zvezda 1/72 MI-24P Hind

[Guest]

Decal Day, not one I'd been looking forward to, especially as even the guy that did the box art build wasn't crazy enough to fit many of the smaller ones!

When the whole decal is smaller than a single word on your scalpel blade you know it's going to be fun :smiling5:

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Two of the under-wing ordinance pods, about 1.5" long, had 6 decals each

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Each of the hatches or doors had something on it

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But I think it looks the part now.

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Only messed up on a couple, and they were on the pylons. They now just have markings on the outboard sides rather than inner & outer. No big deal and after my previous disasters with decals I'll take that all day long. There are yet more decals to fit on the main and tail rotor blades, but I haven't even started building them yet so there's more fiddly fun to come.

[Guest]

With those decals on, I kind of expect the side doors to pop open to reveal a TV camera

(The text actually reads VVS ROSSIY, for Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily Rossiy, “Russian Military Air Forces”.)

Getting all those stencils on can be a real pain, though the end result is usually () worth the trouble. It certainly looks the part on this one.

[Guest]

I feel your pain! My phantom had nearly 300 decals, the majority of which were tiny!
As Jakko says, they add to the scale effect....if you have the patience.

And that hind looks the business. Russian stuff has never appealed to me but you’re making it look fantastic.

[Guest]

Thanks chaps, but 300 decals! Remind me never to build one of those :smiling5:

[stillp]

Worth the effort Andy, it looks great. I must admit though, you can't see any stencils on the one at the Midland Air Museum in Coventry .

Pete

[Allen Dewire]

Aww, come on Andy,

You are now a semi master at the art of applying and the placement of decals tiny and bigger!!! After you do the rotors, you will get your master's degree in this in this dark art and the sky is the limit!!! This is really one bad Hind you have built here...………...

Prost
Allen

[langy71]

'Christ on a bike !!' this is a stunner to be sure, totally loving how this is turning out...

[Guest]

Worth the effort Andy, it looks great. I must admit though, you can't see any stencils on the one at the Midland Air Museum in Coventry .

Thanks Pete. That one seems to have a few other rather important bits missing too...

Thanks Chris, glad you like it.

Allen, you're going to make me blush if you carry on with kind words like that! :smiling4: I did manage to get the rotors together tonight but some of the parts were just too small to hold and clean up. Mould lines are virtually invisible to the naked eye but the camera shows them up when zoomed in so far so I'll give the glue plenty of time to harden up then I'll clean up where I can before paint.

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15 or 16 parts there.

[flyjoe180]

Coming along very nicely Andy. The camouflage scheme looks great.

[Guest]

Thanks Joe. It's got me itching to do something bigger, like a large scale modern jet, and put an outlandish colour scheme on it. :smiling5:

[Guest]

Disaster :smiling5:

Came home from work and decided to clean up the rotors and get some primer on. So far so good (apart from the picture, lol)

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I then thought I might as well get the first of several colours on, so they could dry overnight and be ready for masking tomorrow evening. This is the silver that goes along the leading edge. I did it first as it'll be a decent base for the other colours that will follow.

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Shortly after that picture is when it all went wrong. In my haste to get this done before I was summoned for dinner I had held the main rotor in a crocodile clip. The flexing of the blades as I painted them and the sharp teeth of the clip meant that as I flipped them over for a final check the clip chomped it's way through the main shaft that connects this lot to the gearbox. The rotors went one way and the offcut went through a wormhole into another dimension, leaving me with a little stub that's far too short :sad:

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I'm quite sure I can fix it with some drilling and a bit of wire, as a rotor-less helicopter definitely wasn't in my plan, but for now I've just cleaned my airbrush, locked up the shed, and walked away.

Lesson learned: Don't try and rush, there's always tomorrow :smiling3:

[scottie3158]

Andy,
I have also mucked things up by trying to go to quick, but the idea of drilling out and pinning will do the trick. It would probably paid you to do this anyway there is a lot of weight there.

[stillp]

Just when it was all going so well!
Just a minor setback though, the drill and pin won't take long.
Pete

[Guest]

I'm hoping so Paul, and Pete

One concern is that part was quite a long pin that runs all the way through, and was almost the backbone that the other flimsy parts fitted around. I'll just have to cross my fingers that drilling it out won't cause the rest of it to fall apart!

[scottie3158]

Andy,
My only advice is to start with small drills and work up to the desired size to reduce the chance of the drill grabbing and putting to much strain on the plastic.