Italeri 1/48 AH-64D Longbow Apache

[Guest]

I turned my attention to the seats. This is them hot off the sprue.




Didn't like the look of the belts or the lumbar support and looked up some references, very few of which showed this set up, so off they came.



There were a few additions made to the panels before I reprimed and blacked everything during the week and then detail painted this morning. Dry brushed with dark grey, painted on buttons & switches with a 4/0 brush and belts from masking tape which were painted dark grey and drybrushed light grey. Usefully most references showed the belts slung as modelled, meaning I didn't have to worry about buckles!

Hope you approve of the result. I'm just holding the fuselage together in the pics until I get time to glue. The fuselage casting is pretty thin and bendy so I plan to glue it progressively with Tamiya extra thin to ensure best alignment.

[minitnkr]

Will pay attention to your progress. Looking very strong so far. I have a couple in 1/87 stashed. PaulE

[Guest]

Thanks Paul. I am happy with it so far, but plenty of opportunity yet to mess it up!

1/87? Never heard of that scale, sounds interesting. Is it a war gaming scale?

[Guest]

Cracking on with all the sub assemblies, namely wings, engines and the 'cheeks' (or whatever their technical name is!).




Also got the fuselage glued up. This took about an hour or so last night of carefully lining up the halves as best I could and pplying extra thin cement in short runs, then holding firm until set. I don't like to use masking tape to do this as any surplus glue that splurges out underneath damages the surface and causes more work. I'd rather be patient.
This morning I used a cocktail stick to run surfacer 500 down the seams and in any gaps / sink marks before I attempt any seam cleaning up.
Pretty much all the access panels are either misaligned or have different gauges between each half, which means I'll need to attempt to fill and rescribe, which I am not looking forward to! Almost wish I'd got the resin sets for all the internals!




I also got the undercarriage legs in place. The large hole is filled with a panel you can see in the first photo. I say filled. It doesn't really fit so will have to solve that too!

[Jim R]

Hi Chris
That cockpit looks nice after your improvements. The fit of the body is going to take some work but I have no doubt you'll sort it.
Jim

[minitnkr]

1/87 is US model railroading HO scale. It was a popular wargaming scale in the 60s that morphed into a military modeling scale in the US & parts of Europe. All my modeling is done at that scale as it allows for units of items & broader vistas. PaulE

[Guest]

Aha! Makes a lot of sense!

Now I’m wondering how you’ll integrate apaches in to a railway:thinking:

Army base?

[minitnkr]

Afgan topography more likely. There is an amazing rescue story of a couple Brit Apaches carrying special operators on the sponsons into an ongoing Afgan village battle to rescue/recover two wounded Brit marines I think. I have the book somewhere. Truly amazing story. PaulE

[Guest]

Not one of Ed Macy’s by any chance? I’ve heard / read a similar story.

[minitnkr]

Yes, the battle of Jugroom Fort. PaulE

[yak face]

Great work on the seats and cockpit chris , the misaligned panel lines are a bugger arent they . Cheers tony

[Jack L]

Not one of Ed Macy’s by any chance? I’ve heard / read a similar story.

A really good read! Funny when you read the pilot's account of Jugroom Fort, and then how it differs to the Commando's account.

[Guest]

Great work on the seats and cockpit chris , the misaligned panel lines are a bugger arent they . Cheers tony

They certainly are. Still playing with thoughts & ideas about how to tackle the access panels. The biggest problem I think is the difference in width of lines and how to balance this out. The only thing I can think of is to fill and rescribe the whole panel. I'll think on.

A really good read! Funny when you read the pilot's account of Jugroom Fort, and then how it differs to the Commando's account.

Both his books are great! A number of years since I read them though.

[Guest]

Adding a little update...because I feel like it!

Got the vast majority of the main fuselage seam cleanup done yesterday and corrected (at least I think so) the wonky access panel lines.

I had to paste on a load of filler to the section between the rotor housing and the gearbox(?). You can see it in the second photo of post #19. Once I got it all sanded down to it's level it reappeared, but at least it's all flat and smooth now. I also scribed in where the two access doors meet in the middle.




Moving to the underside I replaced to little misaligned circular mouldings with equally uncircular platicard bits. As above, also straightened the poorly aligning panel lines.




Here's the really poorly fitting panel under the cockpit. If I were building the 'A', this would be a problem.




Since I'm not, the additional cheeks (sponsons?) cover the vast majority of it. Maybe my luck is in!




...or maybe not. Take a look at the exhausts aganst an image of the actual thing.




I am considering removing the entirity of the area that should be black, saving the mesh top and bottom and making everything else up from card. An alternative might be to just chop out the vertical bits in situ and replace with card. Hmm.... :thinking:

Anyone that might have an alternative perspective on how to approach these exhausts please pipe up!

[Jim R]

Hi Chris
Great effort you're putting into this. The filling and rescribing on the fuselage is looking good. As for the exhausts - could you replace the front? Cut a new front and cut/drill/sand the three openings.
Keep up the great work.
Jim