lmagna

You need to watch out who you allow to come in your door these days Jack. After all you never know where they have been! Interesting looking fellows though.

If you have some or can possibly get some you might try using Future floor shine:

Nice work EG I agree with the others. Without RL we would have little else. It always takes priority.

Like you say Tom they look the part and will do just fine when placed in the bomb bay ready to go. Besides, all evidence of sloppiness will be eliminated shortly after dropping!

I thought you had switched to the real thing as well, until I saw the picture where it is sitting on top of the white appliance. Amazing work and detail.

Why not use the same method as you used on the radiator?

From the looks of the pictures here the radiator looks just as good if not better than the hood vents.

Thanks Jack and OC Still a ways to go.

Nice to see that you are able to get back to building this incredible model Robert. Are those Clothespin Shrimp being hauled in on the sides? I don't think I have ever seen that species before.

You will be done with them before you know it Edward. And by that time you will be well practiced in cutting neat holes!

Thanks Edward I was kind of fond of that solution as well. It is thin, almost translucent before painting. It has a kind of paper consistency so at this scale anyway kind of looks like cloth, and certainly twists and bends like cloth. After painting it looks 100% better than PE and much easier to work with

Thanks EG. While I am no color expert and OD Green is pretty much just that to me, I do know that it takes on MANY shades when applied to assorted vehicles, or exposed to different lighting. It seemed that no two Hueys looked the same as you went down the line. The aircraft were not the same color as the vehicles we rode in, or for that matter the other things around the compound. Tents were one color, vehicles another and choppers still a third. Then there were all of the OD people as well. Every uniform was a slightly different color yet EVERYTHING was OD. A standard joke all the way from Basic on was that "If the Army wanted you to have a wife/girl/etc, they would paint them/it OD and issue you one". Believe it or not I was thinking the body color at this point was just slightly too dark and possibly should be a little more yellow or brown or whatever shade would pull it out of the green a little, and make it a little more sun faded. But then I would be relying on a memory that has already proven a little faulty on this build.

"Zero Tolerance" is just another set of words to replace "Zero Thought Process". By having it down on paper the officials no longer need to exercise common sense. It relieves them of a considerable hardship and the possibility of actually showing some kind of intelligence and possibly offending someone even less capable. Great looking wheels Craig. I am glad the eBay thing worked out.

Nice work EG

OK here is proof that I have not just been letting my poor Huey just sit in the hanger and languish from lack of attention. First off when I left you last I was not all that happy about the PE shoulder harness straps on the pilot. I am pretty sure they would have looked OK laying on an empty seat, but for what I have in mind on this build, having a crew is necessary. While I was somewhat reluctant to totally backtrack on the pilot I also didn't want to repeat the same thing on the co-pilot. So I went to the first aid box and pilled out a roll of surgical tape and cut a strip the same width as the PE belts and applied them to the shoulders of the co-pilot and behind the seat. Not only did it go MUCH faster than the PE had but after painting I think it looks much better. Here is a rear view of the First Class Cabin to show how it turned out. Still not perfect but nothing in this build is. Next I went to the Padded Cell and did a bunch of other final installs. It does not look like I did much but it is proving that mixing kit and aftermarket stuff comes back and bites you. Nothing fits exactly as it should and has to be customized taking three times as long. It also looks like there is a lot of dust and stuff from filing and cutting that I need to clean off. Then I cut off the kit overhead console and glued on the aftermarket piece. This will almost be invisible in the finished model but the aftermarket is MUCH more accurate. Here is how it will look in place: I kept the kit foot pedals, not because they were better, as they were not, but after trimming down the foot bars considerably they fit the best and were a perfect fit for the pilot's feet. In all other respects they are FAR too thick and out of scale. I did break the pilot's cyclic stick trying to get it cut off properly to fit the handle that was built into his hand, so I had to take a piece of brass rod and bend a new stick and glue it into place. You can just see the bottom between his legs. I still need to paint it. I then went ahead and put the first coat on the fuselage. Not certain if it was the exact color I was looking for but I have a lot of stuff I have learned from looking at your guys builds that I of course am now obligated to at least try out. If it all fails, then I guess there is always Super Clean or failing that brake fluid and chlorine. So here are a couple of other pictures to close out this update. None of it is glued in place but it looks at least a little like progress. Thanks for looking in

Nice find Edward. Looks like you are off to a great start.

I guess I am a little different than others here. In my opinion, (For what it is worth) you can't go too far wrong for $20. There are so many ways you can make up for missing parts on this kit it is ridiculous. Between PE, 3D, and resin, and brass aftermarket you could possibly build the entire ship with little more than the hull. Your picture does not show all that much but it does seem that at least all of the major parts are there. Just one opinion, and not all that knowledgeable at that.

Don't get me wrong. I continue and will continue to build my Huey and with any luck it will be done sometime this year by the end of my "Anniversary". One could even say that I am at the slowest part of the build at this point because in the case of a Huey the most visible detail is in the cockpit. After that it is just a green bug shape with a couple of rotors! I know that I will never be totally happy with my building skills in relation to my visionary ability, but it will be what it is, and I can live with that. I am not looking to be better than anyone here, or anywhere else for that matter. Just taking the opportunity to share the journey in hopes that someone else enjoys the comradery in my build, just as I do in following theirs.

Well I guess I have some rough times ahead because EVERYTHING I want to build is in my mind as a diorama. A point in time snapshot so to speak.

With all these years of not building pretty much anything, combined with some of the additional physical limitations of resent years, I have my doubts. Even if it did come out better I am pretty sure it would be a long way from "good". If I am learning one thing from my Huey build it is that there is a considerable gap between what I see in my head and what is sitting on the table in front of me. It is obvious from the pictures posted in the builds here that most of the people showing their work do not have have the same problem.

Nice clean build EG. I wish the one I built back in the day had looked that good.

Maybe that was why they didn't work all that well. We were always loosing power it seemed.

I am not in any way a generator person, but those look just the same as the generators we had scattered around the compound when I was in the service 50 years ago.

Nice progress

I always thought of them as floating flat irons. But at the same time I have always been drawn to pre-dreadnoughts that somehow seem to be so ugly yet appealing at the same time. Kind of like English Bulldogs I suppose.