Zvezda 1/72 C-130H Hercules

[rtfoe]

Andy, the dreaded see-saw test can be a little stressful so to avoid that I'd have stuffed the cheeks of the landing bay, the roof of the cockpit and front loading bay...areas that are not within eye-shot of any openings. Still your escape plan of the loading bay door will work nevertheless.

At this point it looks like a 'Herky' and neatly done.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks Richard. I've actually been fixing the weight issue this morning.

I made a small compartment with card at the front of the landing gear bay. I added a few strips of lead (~7g) then the rest of the Zero Gravity I'd weighed out. Coupled to what's already under the cockpit I think that should be plenty.



With the bay door in place (which is closed once the gear is down) no one would be any the wiser

 

[Tim Marlow]

Nice hack on the weight there Andy.

 

[Jakko]

Good fix

 

[rtfoe]

Well done on that Andy....test should be positive.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Archetype]

Always better to go overboard on the weight. I'm sure all us planeys have learned the hard way!

Looks a great bit of fixery too that will be well hidden.

 

[adt70hk]

Great work yet again Andy!

ATB

Andrew

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks chaps. Busy day yesterday but will get around to checking the balance this morning.

4°C in the shed right now so I'll let the heater do it's thing for a while before I venture out! I'm hoping to paint the undercarriage parts & bays today, but it'll have to warm up a bit first.

 

[Archetype]

4° is well below my optimum operating window, I don't blame you at all.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Andy
Up to your usual high standard work. To prevent tail sitting I have drilled the front wheel and used a short length of wire to pin it to the base - only works of course if you are planning a base
Jim

 

[Steve Brodie]

Wow that is awesome

 

[rtfoe]

Last resort is to drill any cavity that's left unfilled and pour in those lead beads you have and seal with CA so they don't shift or move and just cover up the hole just like I did for my F-18.

But I guess you've got that covered but just in case.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks for the comments chaps.

No pictures today you'll be glad to hear

All of the landing gear and their bays are painted up now, but being plain (or should that be plane?) white, they aren't very photogenic yet. Hopefully they'll look better with some dirt & grime.

I've masked up all the glazing, which didn't go particularly well but I'm not doing it again so it'll have to do. Trust me to buy a circle cutter that doesn't go small enough for my needs and the cockpit frames are very faint, making following their lines tricky.

The wing assembly and tailplane are now nailed on. Fit isn't 100% on the top of the wing, but close enough that I'm not going to bother filling/sanding/rescribing. All of the antenna and pitot tubes are now fitted too. It'll give me something to knock off when I'm masking for the camo.

Just the props to assemble now then it's on to the colouring in bit. As mentioned earlier I'm going for the RAF version, with it's 3 colour scheme.

 

[Deleted member 7181]

After a few finishing touches it was ready for primer. You can see my temporary spray set up here, at the side of my main work area, so that my bench light can be swivelled to cover either. Still one hell of a mess, but there's no point getting more storage to tidy tools and stuff away until I decide what I'm doing about my new shed.



And primed. Stealth transport?



Will hopefully get around to painting the underside later.

As for the upper colours, it looks quite a vivid green in the above illustration, as do the suggested paints, but most of the real images I've seen show a much more muted colour, almost like olive drab, so I'll be going somewhere in between I think.

 

[prichrd1]

Andy,

You may have already picked your "green" color for this camo scheme - but this page:-

RAF Paint

is quite a useful page - transport aircraft, scroll down there is a section towards the bottom of the page
"Hercules 1976-Present"

There is also a paint guide listing different manufacturer's colors below the text.

HTH,

Paul.

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks Paul, that's a very handy site. Wish I'd found it sooner!

I've already settled on Dark Sea Grey (Mr Color C331) so that's good, and the lighter grey and green I've picked aren't too far away from the suggestions, which is more than good enough for me.

Thanks again, I'll bookmark that for the future.

 

[Deleted member 7181]

First colour on.

That white tissue blew out the camera a bit so I've had to mess around with the pictures brightness, but you get the idea. I haven't gone to town on the belly as it'll be practically invisible once the model is on it's wheels, but just enough to break up the big slab of grey.

 

[adt70hk]

Looking very good Andy.

She's not small is she?

ATB

Andrew

 

[Tim Marlow]

Imposing build this. Great finishing as always...

 

[Ian M]

Like what Im seeing here.
Big ol bird.