Rick’s Airfix Sea King HC4, 1/72, Operation Mikado, Falklands war

[papa 695]

Coming along nicely

[rickoshea52]

Decals applied to the cab tonight. Getting the right stencils has proved to be a best guess exercise. The current Airfix decal sheet has more subdued black lettered stencils. My online research suggest early cabs had white stencils but I think these might have gone through a “field” paint job on the journey south like the Sea Harriers had their white undersides painted over.
I pinched a few stencils from various other decal sheets and kept them to a minimum in the end.
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One of the issues with the Airfix decals for the exhaust and non slip paint on the fuselage sides is that one of them doesn’t match the window frame! While the left hand exhaust decal doesn’t conform to the bulge on the side of the fairing. I had to cut this and touch in with black paint.
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A trick I use for the sponsons is to paint maskol into the recesses where the struts attach. This allows for the maskol to be removed after painting and a plastic to plastic join possible.
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[rickoshea52]

Time to deal with the main rotors. As mentioned before I need to back date this cab with early blades. The set I pinched from the Cyber Hobby (CH) can be modelled in the folded position but the blade sleeves are nothing like the real thing.
I struck on the idea to cut and shut the CH blade to the Airfix sleeve. The photo shows the idea can work.

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I’ll complete the rest later when time permits.

[JMARC]

Pretty neat so far !....keep it up !

[rickoshea52]

I took the plunge and had a go at replicating the pipe work for the automatic blade fold system on the main rotor head. Using a 0.5mm drill, superglue, tweezers and copper wire I knocked this up. Hopefully it will look better with a coat of paint.

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If anyone is wondering why I have only added one wire to a single blade this is because this blade does not fold, only four of five have the hydraulic pipe work. However, all five blades have a drag damper and blade sleeve which are fed with oil from reservoirs on the top of the rotor head.

[Geoffers]

Great work so far Rick :smiling:

I like the idea of using Maskol to keep the part free from paint ready for gluing.

Geoff.

[Guest]

Very nice work with that wire. I’m guessing it was fiddly

[rickoshea52]

Very nice work with that wire. I’m guessing it was fiddly

Not too bad once I got used to it actually.

[JMARC]

I took the plunge and had a go at replicating the pipe work for the automatic blade fold system on the main rotor head. Using a 0.5mm drill, superglue, tweezers and copper wire I knocked this up. Hopefully it will look better with a coat of paint.

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If anyone is wondering why I have only added one wire to a single blade this is because this blade does not fold, only four of five have the hydraulic pipe work. However, all five blades have a drag damper and blade sleeve which are fed with oil from reservoirs on the top of the rotor head.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCOOL !

[rickoshea52]

A dab of yellow for the main rotor tips and some blue grey on the rotor head, with a wash this will tone down.

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[rickoshea52]

Some light weathering confined to exhaust, oil streaks and comp wash streaking then unmasking. The sponsons have been added.
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I prefer painting the tail rotors rather than using the decals. First a coat of white , some masking then red. Next will be more masking followed by black. Finally I’ll do the rotor hub in RAF blue grey and aluminium for the rotor tips.
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[adt70hk]

Rick,

Coming on VERY nicely indeed. That looks very good!

Agree with you on painting over decals for the rotas.... Only ever done one chopper and the decals were a pain!

ATB.

Andrew

[JMARC]

YYYYYYYYYYou getting there ... Keep it up ....

[Tworrs]

Another great book on the Falklands war which featured the Sea King extensively, is a book I have just read by Corporal Mark "Splash" Aston and Stuart Tootal called SAS Sea King Down. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
At one point Splash escaped the Sea King he was on, which had crashed into the sea, via the broken off tail rotor folding section, unfortunately a large number of those on board were not so lucky and lost their lives.

[rickoshea52]

Got this finished a while back and finally took some photos. Better ones to come later.