Zulu Up! - 1/48 Kitty Hawk AH-1Z Viper - FINISHED 4/15

[doogsatx/]

Yeah, if I'd been smart I'd have waited for masks. Some kind of awesome aftermarket sensor ball would be appreciated, too.

I just found the ink cups on Amazon or eBay. Ridiculously cheap.

[JimD]

Mar 19, 2015 12:12:22 GMT -5 doogsatx/ said:

Yeah, if I'd been smart I'd have waited for masks. Some kind of awesome aftermarket sensor ball would be appreciated, too.

I just found the ink cups on Amazon or eBay. Ridiculously cheap.

Thanks...I'll look for some. [Edit: just looked...500 for $5 bucks? Take my money...great find!]

Yeah...resin sensor ball would be great...probably as soon as you finish it a bunch of stuff will pop up.

[doogsatx/]

PAINT!

Gunze 338 Light Gray FS36495 going down on the under and side surfaces. Don't feel like I got all that much done with it last night, but hey, it's a start.



Back to it again Sunday when the rain moves out.

[coro69]

start looking great with some color on it...

[JimD]

At least the paints flying Looks great. Gunze sprays so beautifully. Awesome stuff.

[doogsatx/]

Beautiful, clear night last night, so, MOAR PAINT! Just about got through the light gray (still have to carry it out to the rotor blades).





Frustratingly I've been getting a bit of rough finish in places...may need to do some polish sanding and retouching. I suspect it has to do with the primer coat - my Grex has been shooting a bit funny and I wonder if it's not a slightly bent needle or something that's throwing things off.

[doogsatx/]

On to the upper gray! Gunze C335 Medium Sea Gray (as called for in the painting guide), lightened with a bit of C338 Light Gray. Honestly I probably could have stood to lighten it a bit more and may revisit that tonight.







Next up - if I don't go back for lightening or blending of any kind - is painting the non-slip surfaces on the wing stubs and tops of the engine doors. Some Vipers also have non-skid on the skids, but that seems like a super pain in the rear so I may skip it.

[JimD]

Looks great. How far do you plan to go with weathering? I've seen some pics of these things being fairly used, but you could almost slap decals on and do a wash and be at a nice spot as is.

[doogsatx/]

Believe it or not I'm actually going to take a fairly light hand weathering this one. Definitely want to do some light exhaust staining and the like, but probably not much beyond that.

[JimD]

Can't fault you there. The paintwork is already pretty dynamic...it's going to look great.

[wbill76]

Now that's a nice contrast between the two grays. Looking forward to the next phases on this one Doogs.

[doogsatx/]

Got into some of the smaller painting concerns last night.

First up, non-slip areas. Black cut back a bit with some light gray, but not too much. These are pretty new birds after all.



Also tackled the base metallic for the exhausts last night. This is Alclad Pale Burnt Metal mixed with Alclad Steel.



The exhausts test-fitted. Also masked and sprayed the hard upper/lower dividing line on the rotor cuffs to match the real thing. I've seen a few AH-1Zs with some dark gray stripes on the upper surfaces of the rotors and am thinking about reproducing those, but still sorting out how to get distance and perpendiculars aligned across all four.



While I'm posting - anybody know what color Hellfires are painted? They look way darker than your usual olive drab.

[coro69]

Mar 25, 2015 9:51:36 GMT -5 doogsatx/ said:

I've seen a few AH-1Zs with some dark gray stripes on the upper surfaces of the rotors and am thinking about reproducing those, but still sorting out how to get distance and perpendiculars aligned across all four.

what is about using dividers, measuring the distance on all four rotor blades.

[doogsatx/]

Yeah that's kinda what I've been thinking. Cutting a strip of styrene to the right length, using it to guide the first tape placement, then working out from there. Keeping it perpendicular to the blade will still be the biggest challenge I think. Good thing is, I've seen several without stripes, some with two stripes, some with three, some with four, so it doesn't seem there's any real standard that has to be conformed to.

Then you have ones like this - where it doesn't seem like the stripes are on every blade...

[doogsatx/]

Crap. Looking at that pic made me realize I need to make the non-slip areas A WHOLE LOT lighter!

[coro69]

you cannot use a square at one of the rotor blades edge to get your stripes perpendicular?

[doogsatx/]

Mar 25, 2015 10:35:53 GMT -5 coro69 said:

you cannot use a square at one of the rotor blades edge to get your stripes perpendicular?

Well, they've got a slight contour to them, and they're quite floppy that far out. And the actuators on the rotor hub are a bit fragile.

Not a matter of "can't" so much as "it's going to be a PITA"...

[coro69]

hmmm, whats about making a template out of styrene following the curve of the rotor edge on one side and straight on the other side. so you could glue perpendicular strips of styrene onto the template and it would be not so heavy, so the danger of breaking the fragile rotor would be less...

[doogsatx/]

Remasked and resprayed the non-slip areas last night, and also masked and sprayed stripes on one of the rotor blades. 90% of the pics I've found showing the tops of the blades show only one of them striped. And the pattern seems to vary, so I just decided to wing it. I try to ration how anal I get about accuracy, and this strikes me as an area where it's just not worth it.

[deafpanzer]

Looking sharp!

[JimD]

I think the re-spray...given photos...was time well spent. Looks great. I sure am curious about those stripes though...I can't even hypothesize the purpose of those...and it does seem they are entirely random.

[doogsatx/]

Last night was lots of piddly work. Final cleanup and priming on the rocket cans, priming and painting some little bits I'd left off (pilot and gunner steps and such).

Also got the first paint on the AIM-9s and their launch rails. I have to say, I'm rather impressed with these Sidewinders. I was going to use some Eduard ones, but when I cracked the package I found they were all horribly warped. Ugh. That's what happens when you shove things into packaging that tightly. Anyway, the Kitty Hawk AIM-9s are actually rather good and probably some of the better injection Sidewinders I've seen. The only ones I can honestly put above them would be the beautiful Great Wall AAMs that come with the F-15.



Paint is Mr. Paint Light Gray FS 36375 (Light Ghost Gray, basically). I LOVE this paint. It's the only paint I've used the sprays better than Gunze or Tamiya. But man do I hate the supply chain. So far as I know, you can only order from Uschi or from Mr. Paint itself. Shipping from that part of Europe is expensive, and slow. I only got this paint yesterday, after ordering it way back when I was gearing up for the Mirage 2000. With US distribution and a stable supply, I could see switching largely over to this stuff.

[JimD]

Better than Gunze...don't tease...wow. I'll just hold off trying it until it (hopefully) becomes a little more easily obtained stateside. Lets hope.

[doogsatx/]

Mar 27, 2015 10:27:09 GMT -5 JimD said:

Better than Gunze...don't tease...wow. I'll just hold off trying it until it (hopefully) becomes a little more easily obtained stateside. Lets hope.

Believe it or not, yes. The stuff is phenomenal. But yeah, sourcing is a huge issue.

[doogsatx/]

More ordnance fun...details on the Sidewinders and paintwork on the Hydra cans.



Working my way up to the seeker heads on the AIM-9s and more aggressive weathering on the rocket launchers.

[JimD]

Man hopefully someone pics those guys up as a US distributor.

The rocket cans look great. This is a seriously cool piece of machinery.

[TRM]

Some really great stuff here Doogs!! I have been catching bits and pieces f this along the way...but all caugh up now!!! Ordinance looks fantastic btw!

[JimD]

Matt, I saw you were looking for Hellfires with clear noses and mentioned the Hasegawa Apache. I have that kit. Because I started it years ago, I won't be finishing it I don't believe since I'm not keen on what I did in the cockpit. Anyway, the kit has 8...you're welcome to them. Just shoot me a PM if you like.

[doogsatx/]

Mar 29, 2015 12:02:10 GMT -5 JimD said:

Matt, I saw you were looking for Hellfires with clear noses and mentioned the Hasegawa Apache. I have that kit. Because I started it years ago, I won't be finishing it I don't believe since I'm not keen on what I did in the cockpit. Anyway, the kit has 8...you're welcome to them. Just shoot me a PM if you like.

Thanks for the offer - looks like someone else in the same situation is already sending some my way, but I'll let you know if they flake out!

Seems like unfinished Hasegawa Apaches are relatively common...

[doogsatx/]

Okay...got about 85% of the decal work done last night. Mix of Werner's Wings with some Kitty Hawk stuff thrown in as necessary. Overall the WW decals are lovely, and the low-viz markings look a lot more on-color than the KH decals, but I've found them kinda resistant to setting solutions. The KH decals, on the other hand - despite the complaints I've heard about the Bronco's decals being too thin and prone to folding and tearing, these are great, sturdy, and settle down well. Granted, I'm only really using the stencils, but still, I find stencils are more often than not the most painful decals to deal with.

The markings I opted for are for AH-1Z #44 of VMM-161 (AH-1Zs get attached to either CH-46 or MV-22 squadrons), which is a deployed vs. stateside unit.