GrrrrrrrrrrrRiffon

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Greetings to you all, hope you are all doing well in these troubling times!

Well I found this group build by accident and found it too hard to turn down a Helo GB, so I am in with this beastie!

I bought this kit a couple of years ago at the Shearwater Hobby show here in Nova Scotia. The kit it self is rather very nice, even if it is a tad blue!

At least it makes a difference to the usual grey, and a close up of the detail

And the glasswear and kit decals

Ive read some good reviews of this kit and looking forward to building it up, but alas I do like to build kits that I have a connection to (albeit some rather tenuous links!) and as I am into Canadiana it has to be finished as a CH-146 Griffon. I have some Belcher Decals for the yellow version, but some doubled up on my Cormorant build a few years ago so to be on the safe side I also bought this set

It looks like you get 2 complete schemes in the pack so if this goes well I may have to go out and get another kit! This build will be the Yellow Peril

So it was a good wash and I built up most of the internals ready for a prime to get things started

 

Once that was dried I looked up for some info on the internal colours. From what I can make out the cockpit is black and the rest of the cabin is some kind of various shades of med sea grey. I thought it would be easier to do the black first, then mask up for the greys

Not a great fot, looks like the camera focused on the bulldog clip rather than the kit lol but we have the floor, controls, seats, roof and sides done in black. I also did the outside of the windows to represent seals and will try and include that in the masking later. Ive never really been able to happily recreate the seals, but normally try to add them at the end. We'll see how this goes. That's all for now!

Thanks for looking in

Laters!

Bob

[Grunhertz 17,460]

Watching with interest bob 

[Invictaag 2,636]

Nice one Bob, from loud blue to loud yellow that's quite a colour change.

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Hi again all, thanks for looking in and chipping in. I managed to get a bit done last night and I seem to be making good progress. From my last update I masked off the cockpit and sprayed that Medium sea grey, using Vallejo air, I do like Vallejo Air but the finish isn't very strong, as will become apparent later, or maybe its because i'm impatient and just want to crack on with it as soon as it dries. So as I said I sprayed the internal and the rear seats and then built up the rest of the internal structure. For the cockpit areas that were black I gave a quick dry brushing of silver to try and highlight some of the detail, and then assembled the fuselage together, meanwhile forgetting to take some nice shots before a smudged it all in!

So here we are with the internals

I then joined the fuselage halves together

 

You can see around the seat and definitely the top deck, areas where the paint has worn away, again im not sure if this is the paint or just my impatientness. The fuselage fitted together not too badly but I had problems getting the internals to sit right as well as the cabin roof to bond, not really happy with this, so I decided that I will keep those HUGE cabin doors closed, I may revisit it again after a few days but its so much easier just to hide that all away.

It was at this point I decided to fit the forward side windows, yep I totally missed those out, it was also at this point I checked the instructions and found that before you install the roof you need to fit the skylights (so that's what instructions are for!) so duly slotted them in and they fitted a treat. For these type of drop in windows that fit well I like to drop them in and used Tamiya extra thin around the edges. Normally a quick dab next to opposite corners does the trick and they stay in nicely.

So then I slapped in the roof

 

 

And with the roof came the canopy, no real joining problems, just a little bit of persuasion and pressure in the top corners of the pilots doors as the isn't a lot of meat for it to stick to, but all in all not bad. As you can see I also put together the upper fairings, these were quite fiddly and fragile so have left them to harden for a couple of days before I smooth them down.

Looking oh so very blue, hopefully for not too long though! The one thing that I did notice was the pitch change links on the rotor head, these look very thick and out of scale so I will chop them off for a slimmer more appropriate version. Well that's all for now, I cant model tonight as my daughter has been sent home from Uni so is using my desk for her lectures, I do hope this isn't going to be a regular habit! Although she is studying viruses and brains and stuff so it may be worth while me just letting her get on with it!

Hope you are all doing well and safe! Keep washing them hands!

Bob

Edited March 24, 2020 by Blue Noser

[Grunhertz 17,460]

You move quick dont you bob well done 

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Greetings again fellow builders!

Following the build up I then set about the fuselage with some wet n dry, the joins weren't actually that bad but after hitting it with some rough stuff first and then smoothing it out the nature of the blue plastic made it look a lot worse than it actually was.

 

 

And with the upper fairings just dropped in

 

 

 

My next task is to add primer but before this I will add the cabin doors, but before that I needed to paint them so gave them a coat of Vallejo Med Sea Grey

I didn't bother removing any of the ejection marks as through the kit glass it will be difficult to see them, another important part of this kit is not to forget to do the forward small doors to the cabin entrance, so tomorrow I will fit the windows and then doors, mask everything and it will be time to give it a good coat of primer and then we will see where we are with that.

So until then, stay safe, wash your hands and keep building!

Bob

Edited March 27, 2020 by Blue Noser

[Blue Noser 3,549]

I had a wee bit of progress on this, first up was to install the doors which went on really nicely and fitted well, then it was the monotony of taping off all the windows, this wasn't too bad as it was easy enough to lay the tape on the window and cut it out with a new blade.

 

 

I also looked at the airframe as I was doing this as there are lots of greeblies stuck all over the place and lots of small modifications. First was an access door on the tail cone, this needed a kind of vent filled

 

 

Also there are a lot of handles and hand holds that I wanted to fit. The internals will be quite bare and the doors closed so I want to do a lot of detail on the outside.

 

Whilst doing this I gave the fuselage more of a polish and then decided to have a coat of primer to see how the joints fair

 

 

All is going well so far but there are a lot more bits and bobs to manufacture, thankfully there are loads of pictures over the web for me to study, I just need to be able to replicate them!

Until the next time keep washing hands!

Bob

[Grunhertz 17,460]

thats looking really tidy bob nice one 

[Miggers 7,769]

That blue reminds me of the teeny-weeny Heller Alouette 3 I had for years in the stash and finally flogged off a couple of years ago.

Saw one of valley's resident 412's last year on SARTU(not sure what he was SARTU-ing though seeing as the RAF don't do SAR anymore)

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Greetings all once again, progress has stalled a bit on this beastie due to still working and also trying to get another project smashed out. For the fuselage I have added a load of stickie out bits and bobs that have been added (photos to follow later) and I have also looked at the skis. The Canadian version has shoes which I assume is for landing on the snow covered wilderness. I couldn't find any drawings of these so plumped for plain old estimation going by lots of photos that I've found on Flickr and the like. I am only after a rough estimation that looks similar and both skis have to be exactly the same but opposite. I have used the thinnest plasticard that I had

For the aft end I need to add a bit more structure as it isn't just a flat plate. The bonus being that by extending the skis I don't have the tail sitter problem any more so don't need to try and find a space for more weight!

On a side note I did manage to get this helo finished for our customer after a strip and rebuild, can I put this in the GB as well 😁

 

Ironic that I can complete a real one quicker than a model one!

Until next time!

Bob

[Jessie_C 11,318]

47 minutes ago, Blue Noser said:

Ironic that I can complete a real one quicker than a model one!

Until next time!

Bob

Ah, but you had help doing that one

[RWG686 33,100]

8 hours ago, Blue Noser said:

I did manage to get this helo finished for our customer

I was quite annoyed when these were mainly delivered up the east coast of Scotland. It was a version of the Merlin I was keen to model.

Good job with the bear paws on the skids!

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Good day to you all, hope you are all doing well. Its been quite a traumatic couple of weeks for Nova Scotia since my last update, but we battle on and try to get a sense of normality back. Yesterday was quite a bright spot as the local government announced opening up of parks and trails and today has been chucking it down with rain, still at least it keeps the crowds down!

So back to the modelling and this has stalled a little since the last update but I got a few things done to it and should hopefully be in a position to move ahead. Below is a shot of the underside and fuselage mods that I made, Flickr has been good to me in this case with a lot of nicely detailed photos taken by lots of good photographers. The advantage of photgraphing helicopters is that you get a lot of nice underside shots so using them I have recreated the antennas that don't come with the kit. I also noticed that the cargo hook attaches to the internal structure as opposed to the skin so opened that up and then I had to crack the join to get some plastic in there to blank off the opening to a vast space. I noticed that there are some appendages to the tail boom. No idea what these are for but they do appear on the particular model I am doing 146493, I was half way through thiese mods when I came across a pic of the aircraft without them but though blow it and carried on. You can also see the modded skids, I still need to fit a bit of a fairing to the back end. And if you look closely enough you can see the rotor head pitch change links which have been replaced with much finer wire for a more scale look.

 

 

I am now able to assemble the kit loosely to check her out. She sits quite nicely.

Here are a couple of other mods, above the door is a much larger nav light fairing and on the windscreen there are a couple of wire deflectors and a central strengthening bar added and another coupe of nose protrudances. Luckily I haven't had to add any extra weight to balance her out, the 'snow shoes' seem to help with the balance.

Well that's all for now, hopefully get some more primer down and then white primer and then …….. some proper colour!

Until then, stay safe!

Bob

Edited May 2, 2020 by Blue Noser

[Grunhertz 17,460]

That's coming on nicely Bob 

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Just a quickie update for today, I had a little bit of time on this over the weekend to throw some colour onto it, I gave her another good grey primer coat and then added some black into the picture

This was then carefully masked for some white primer and then yellow top coat. Italeri do give you a decal for the black area on the nose but I wanted to be a smart arse and just painted it, all well and good until I try to mask it off. Even using the decal as a template it was tricky. It looks ok so far with the masking but only when I strip off all the tape will I know. So like I said , masked her up and now she is, as Coldplay would say, all yellow!

 

The flash has bleached it somewhat but the yellow does look right. I used Model Master Acryl and the right FS numbers so looks good enough. I have coated the whole aircraft as I am sure I read somewhere that painting red over yellow gives it a nice richer colour. so in the interest of uniformity that's what I have gone for. Next will be to mask it, hopefully tonight, and spray on some red then it'll be time for a gloss coat and then decals. She is starting to come together now, although I still haven't done the fillets for the skids yet. So until later, stay safe!

Bob

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Well here we are now, all coloured up ready for a bit of gloss. I added the red areas using Model Master Acryl as per usual going by the FS numbers called out, I thought this was a gloss coating but it seems to have come out slightly dull. Not a problem, I can just give it a gloss coat. I've removed all the masking apart from the windows so I do screw up the windows during glossing. So here she is:

There are a couple of ragged edges that need touching up as well as a small area of non skid on the top deck but other than that I am quite happy with the way it turned out. Now I've just got to decal without pushing any more windows in and Ill be happy! The black on the nose turned out ok, a bit fuzzy but I think it will do.

So until next time, gloss on, decals on, will be nearly wrapping this up!

Bob

[RWG686 33,100]

Lovely job of two very difficult colours.

[Grunhertz 17,460]

Yes you couldn't have picked two worse colours really well done 

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Thanks for the compliments! I do find yellow to be one of the worst colours to use even with a good white undercoat, but I find that the Model Master Acryl goes on very nicely, when I did my CH149 Cormorant a few years ago it really surprised me. Even though I bought a new jar for this build I ended up using the remains of the last batch which still sprayed well …. Once I had spent several hours trying to get the lid off the bottle! But alas there was sad news yesterday as it was confirmed Testers have finally killed off this brand which is a shame as I loved spraying with it, brush painting was a big NO but spray was good, so now I need to go through my stock and try and hoard a load, I was late with the toilet paper hoarding so I don't want to be too late for this opportunity!

Back to the build, I glossed the Griffon using Micro gloss (the same people who do micro sol and set) and let is sit for a couple of days and then last night I set about decaling. I am using a set from the Aviation Workshop, the first time I have used these  I think. They went on fine and I gave them a coat of Micro Sol to bed it all down, Here are the results

 

 

 

Initial results were favourable but then things started to niggle, the numbers on the door are way way too big! Same as the number on the nose (which you cant see), if you look at my previous post you can see Model Alliance's instructions and they have a more realistic size depicted there. I was going to let this go but no they are too big and to me spoil the look. Also the tail insignia doesn't look right, everything else looks good and crisp and bedded down well, so I had a look for a some inspiration. I found it in my left over Belcher Bits decal set for the Cormorant, It comes with a more appropriate size of decal for the door and nose, and provides a full serial for the tail. So I can easily replace them, the only snag is the tail serial is slightly slanted in the same style as the doors, which by rights means the flag on the tail should be slanted as well (If we are going to do this right!). So I have the serials to change it and I looked and found ONE slanted tail insignia that was appropriately sized! Looking at Belchers website there should be another spare one as I don't remember screwing them up on my Cormorant. I am hoping it was snipped off and fell into the abys of my decal storage box (I NEVER throw anything away lol). I will hunt for that later.

In the mean time it was about 30 minutes after I had finished decaling and had applied Micro sol and as I had decided to go for a different serial I now attempted to remove the offending decals. Now if this had been my final scheme touching the decals would have led to a soggy mess of smushed up decal and Sol on the end of my finger tips. But as I wanted to remove them, that right, they were bedded down good and proper, the best I had ever seen! So I will let it all dry and then mechanically remove them and try not to damage anything else. It will need some paint touch up but that will be fine as the real thing gets touched up all the time so you have different shades all over the aircraft. So that is tomorrows plan and until then stay safe and clean!

Bob

Edited May 9, 2020 by Blue Noser

[Grunhertz 17,460]

shame Bob because it looks great, considering the nice shade of blue th eplastic was to get a yellow finish like that is impressive 

[Blue Noser 3,549]

It took a couple of days but I have rectified it, its not spectacular but I suppose it will do, having removed the number decals I had some damage that needed repair, the problem being the yellow and white went through to the blue so it was not going to repair nicely! So I needed some appropriate masking.

Itll be interesting to see how this works and whether I can remove the masking without destroying the decals

Looks ok but in real life to my eye it looks horrible! I saved some of the decals for the dashes around the door. I then gave it a quick rub down with 4000 micro mesh just to remove that ridge, and then on with the final few decals

 

Now I forgot to take a nice pic of the new decals so will post one of those later, in the meantime I finished off the main rotor, tail rotor and removed most of the window masks, I left the main windows on as I still want to matt out the glare panel. So her she is now

I was also quite pleased I only popped out a couple of windows but I have had to remove the side door (its just hanging in position now, I need that open so I can pop in one of the skylights, I'm tempted to leave it open but will need to do a bit more work in the cabin though.

On the other side you can see the lack of a Maple leaf on the tail. I couldn't find my spare so at the moment I have left it blank rather than put a straight one on or an oversized one, it will go on the list of things I need to correct despite being finished

I then looked at the skis and finished off the lumpy fairing at the back and gave it all a coat of black

 

Its all ready now for final assembly and touchup, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, in fact I hope its the end of the tunnel and not a train coming along to steamroller this build! Hopefully have more done tonight!

Laters!

Bob

Edited May 13, 2020 by Blue Noser

[Grunhertz 17,460]

Great recovery bob 

[Blue Noser 3,549]

Well I finally managed to get the last few bits of this done, refitted all the windows that I popped out, fitted all the remaining ancillaries but lost those serials on the door again after an unfortunate incident with some tape. Still I'm knocking this one on the head and calling this complete. In the end it felt a bit of a chore, the yellow and the repairs looks a bit pants now but it does look better in pictures than real life. So here she is!

 

 

 

And here we go with the Yellow Duo, an earlier Cormorant and the Griffon, I need one more yellow peril to do but cant think what to do next ….

although I don't know if I can stomach another yellow one!

Now to concentrate on that Corsair!

Bob

[Grunhertz 17,460]

Brilliant work bob, looks like you know what's the other one woof! 

Finished the corsair yet? 

[Blue Noser 3,549]

6 hours ago, Grunhertz said:

Finished the corsair yet?

Lol, nowhere near 😆