Sunday 30 October 2011

15mm Helicopters 3



More progress on the helicopter front, the middle picture shows the start of the Vietnam Loaches with the craft broken down into their component parts, I have rubbed down the fuselages on the right hand side with wet and dry paper ready to undercoat them with grey primer spray. I have also cut out the back doors ready to take a peter pig door gunner with an M60 machine gun. I drilled the door with a power drill and then used the rat tail files in the top picture to finish of the doors.

The bottom picture shows progress on the Israeli gun ships, the painting of the window supports was made a lot easier by using masking tape to mask of the strut areas. It worked quite well. They will deed a bit of tidying up with a brush, but on the hole it worked well.

I'm currently reading "Low level hell" the biography of an Aero scout pilot flying loaches in Vietnam. A great book, packed with incidents and events. Giving lots of inspiration for scenarios for gaming. TTFN Airhead.


Sunday 9 October 2011

15mm Helicopters 2



Good progress on the Israeli 500MD TOW armed gun ships, They are shown with new tail assemblies made from plastic card replacing the original ones. Also plastic card was used for the small radio aerials along the tail booms. The small stub exhausts are made from cut down sections of cotton bud sticks. Also shown in the top picture is a test Tow pod shown along side the Helos made from two cotton bud tubes with green stuff used to create the casing.

The bottom picture shows one of the main rotter blades in position, with dry brushed on yellow high visibility rotter tips. Quite pleased with how this has turned out so far.

Things I have found out so far from this project, Its very difficult to get the paint I'm using to give a good covering of the body work. Im using a Humbrol enamel paint and it has taken at least 3 coats so far to get a good flat coverage. It would also be much easier to paint the body work If I had taken the models apart first. So for my Vietnam Helicopters I have got some matt Grey enamel spray paint to give them a base coat first. And as they will be having internal detail and crews added they will be taken apart first.