Fire Spotter

[Tophe]

 

[kerick]

url="tel:1006337"]1006337[/url] date=hull At first I was just going to stick half a fuel tank on the underside of the Bk117 cabin but that looks silly.

I thought it would look silly then I googled a pic of the Argosy!

[NARSES2]

url="tel:1006337"]1006337[/url] date=hull At first I was just going to stick half a fuel tank on the underside of the Bk117 cabin but that looks silly.

I thought it would look silly then I googled a pic of the Argosy!

  

[kerick]

The UV resin part worked out pretty good. Just a bunch of filling and sanding for now.
For the main gear I grabbed the leftover gear from the Airfix P-40s I used on the WW2 chopper project. I used the kit wheels. It's coming together. These details are more complicated than I expected.

[Wardukw]

The UV resin part worked out pretty good. Just a bunch of filling and sanding for now.
For the main gear I grabbed the leftover gear from the Airfix P-40s I used on the WW2 chopper project. I used the kit wheels. It's coming together. These details are more complicated than I expected.

Ken mate it's always the smallest things which take the longest time..as the old saying goes...the devils in the details 🙄 😉

[kerick]

The UV resin part worked out pretty good. Just a bunch of filling and sanding for now.
For the main gear I grabbed the leftover gear from the Airfix P-40s I used on the WW2 chopper project. I used the kit wheels. It's coming together. These details are more complicated than I expected.

Ken mate it's always the smallest things which take the longest time..as the old saying goes...the devils in the details 🙄 😉

That's for sure!

[Wardukw]

Don't worry mate..the little things do have a finish line..just seems some times the bugger is a long ways off..man do I know that all to well 😉

[kerick]

I have to start thinking of paint. The lightest grey I have will be the primer. I suppose acrylics will work although I have a bunch of Testors white. Plus some acrylic international orange. Some of the early fire bombers had a bunch of natural metal so we'll see about that.

[royabulgaf]

Kerick, where did you get the UV resin?

[kerick]

Craft store. They sell it for making jewelry. They want you to buy the UV light to cure it but a uv flashlight is cheaper and you can use it to find where the dog peed. It cures really fast in direct sunlight. No mixing required. Just don't try to fill the mold in the sunlight as it cures as it's coming out of the bottle.

[Rick Lowe]

Would you have the same problem pouring it under artificial light?

Seems like that might be a good way of getting quick castings.

[kerick]

Would you have the same problem pouring it under artificial light?

Seems like that might be a good way of getting quick castings.

Artificial lighting doesn't affect the resin. Sunlight on a clear day cures it very fast. The UV flashlight takes longer but gets the job done. Sunlight in the winter seems to take a long time or the resin gets cold and doesn't react.

[kerick]

Just realized I haven't posted pictures here in quite awhile. So here's a photo dump.



Here's with the UV resin casting in place with mucho putty applied. As I sanded off part of the existing underside to attach the casting I removed a couple of pieces of lead as I figured I had put in more than enough.
I skipped the other pics of gobs of Bondo as once you've seen one, you've seen them all.





And we have the cabin finally attached to the rest of the aircraft. Plastic cement where the plastic touches plastic and ca everywhere else.



Underside with lots of Bondo in place. It's going to have to stay that way. You can see the nose gear well and the new main gear arrangement. The cabin placement and the spacing of the prop tips worked out well.



The rest of the parts I need to deal with soon. Mostly just painting at this point. I need to lengthen the horizontal stab the same as the center wing. You can see the metal straight pin pieces I'm using for attaching the former P-40 legs to the P-82 wing.



This is the AH-1W Cobra conversion to a fire site command and control helicopter. This does have one foot in reality as the US Forest Service used AH-1H Cobras in that role for several years. I went with the Whiskey Cobra as I felt the USFS needed an upgrade and two engines would be good in the rugged terrain. Plus its the kit I had on hand anyway. I started a thread on it a while back. Hopefully as they will both be white I can at least paint the basic coat for both at once.

[Tophe]

wow! looking good!

[PR19_Kit]

Now THAT'S different!