Bell H13CX Coaxial Helicopter

[frank2056]

I went with Doc Yo's suggestion and used some more Kotobukiya detail parts to build up the rotor heads. They're much sturdier now and look believable, I think.

Rotor mast before primer:



The blades are held in place with a straightened paper clip, cut to size. I probably won't need to glue them in.

Here's a detail, after a primer coat:



The two thin rods go all the way up to the top rotor. While not clearly visible, I wrapped some 30 gauge wire wrap wire around the now thicker plastic rod that acts as the axle. It looks like a spring and acts like one.

All together:


Now I have to clean up all the scratches and gouges on the blades and start on the cockpit.

Thanks for all the comments!

Frank

[Pablo1965]

Fine work, well done, is a brilliant idea and cool

[frank2056]

I've started on the cockpit. For the seat belts and harnesses, I used a laser cut paper set (in 1/33 scale) from Avant Card. Probably more expensive than PE, but I wanted to try them out. The belts are made from painted Tamiya tape.
The cockpit floor and seats have not been glued in. The strip that holds the seat back in place is in a different green, just to have some color contrast. The camera really magnifies every spec of dust!


I also made the instrument panel. I wanted to make decals for the instruments, but making a CMYK separation on the computer (to avoid dithering when printing) then hauling out the ALPS was more work than it was worth. The Revell instrument panel is good enough. I painted it black, then went over the dials with a white pencil, followed by red and green. After brushing off the excess pencil dust, I put a drop of Future over each dial. I did some light highlighting with some Tamiya gunmetal weathering powder. It looks OK (cat hairs are for scale. That's my story and I'm sticking with it...):

[sotoolslinger]

Very nifty

[John Howling Mouse]

You just made every IP I've ever done suddenly look like junk by comparison with yours.
Wow.
Oh well, something to aspire to...

[frank2056]

Thanks JHM, but remember that this is a 1/35 scale IP... the picture is at most 3x - 4x.

[MiB]

G :cheers:ood idea! Seems like real!

[frank2056]

Here's the cockpit, with all of the major assemblies installed and most of the details, but not weathered. I still need to add a few cables:





I removed the fuel tanks because I'm just not happy with the exterior color (Tamiya IJN Gray). I'll try either yellow (which I tried before) or olive drab.

[Old Wombat]

OD would suit its origins better; or you could try a brightly coloured civil version for some little Carribean helo joy-flight company.

[Pablo1965]

Fine works of the cockpit 

[frank2056]

Thanks for the comments!
I was going to go for OD, but the paint I wanted to use - Gunze Sangyo OD - was a couple of mm or less of goopy paint in the bottle. I have some Acryl OD, but I'm saving that for another project. So I went with yellow. Just in time, too - my good compressor gave up the ghost just after I finished the last coat. The ubiquitous cat hairs are courtesy of my modeling buddy, Espresso the Cat. She "helps" me model by keeping her sister away from the model bits.



The fuel tanks are slightly off in color; they were the last things I managed to paint. Some parts are missing (I took them off before repainting) and the tanks are a bit askew, but that's because I snapped them off to paint and are now only pinned in place.

This picture is interesting because there's light shining through the rear panel. I don't think it would have been fabric on the "real" thing, but it's too late to paint it a dark color on the inside (I thought I had):



I'll probably add some black stripes to the rear panels and call it the Bell H-13 "Hornet"

Frank

[Weaver]

Excellent project Frank - looks really good.

I'd leave the pale tanks: who's to say they'd weather/fade the same as the fuselage anyway? Yellow (and orange) are notorious for fading quickly.

[GTX]

 

[Old Wombat]

Excellent project Frank - looks really good.

I'd leave the pale tanks: who's to say they'd weather/fade the same as the fuselage anyway? Yellow (and orange) are notorious for fading quickly.

... and unevenly.

[NARSES2]

Fantastic work