1/32 Eurocopter EU-135

[Adam Baker]

Considering where this turd was 24 hours ago, I didn't expect it to look like this any time soon, but after Bob's suggestion on how to deal w/ the windscreen, I decided to push on with the build, and glued the fuselage together and started working on cleaning up the seams.

Just set it in the skid's to take a couple pics & see how it looked. I like it.

 

[moon puppy]

Now you got it sealed up test fit the windscreen and see how it fits.

 

[phantom II]

In that case, let's hope that the windscreen narrowing scheme works out . :coolio

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[Adam Baker]

That was actually the very first thing I did after the glue set. It fit pretty much like it had when test fitting the two halves. Trying to decide when to start working on the windscreen. Right now the best method I've got for cutting the windscreen is w/ a razor saw. I'm thinking about holding off until I can get a set of photoetch saws so that the cut is a lot thinner.

Now you got it sealed up test fit the windscreen and see how it fits.

 

[moon puppy]

Thin cut is not really what you want. I'd half it down that seam/frame line then build the frame back up from scratch.

 

[ij001]

Looking very good, Adam. Well done.

Coincidentally there was one of these helo's over the village for around two hours yesterday. Painted a beautiful dark metallic blue, and trailing a lifting cradle, seemed to be working over a couple of the farms about a kilometre south of my house.

Ian.

 

[Adam Baker]

Bit of an update. Things are progressing slowly. As I expected, overall fit was mediocre, as best, and horrible at worst. It's taken quite a bit of putty to smooth things out, and a lot of places still arent great, but better than they were, so I think I'm getting close to the end of cleaning up, and getting close to priming. B/c of all the fitment issues, I'm going to prime everything first, to check and see how bad it looks before I consider moving on to the color coat. At least w/ primer, its easy to go back & work on cleaning up joints & such. Also have had several pretty deep sink holes to fill from where the alignment pins are located, which surprised me a bit.

I've also cut the windscreen in half as suggested by Bob, but haven't spent any time working on them, spending my time so far focusing on cleaning up the fuselage.

 

[Swordsman]

I think it's going to turn out okay Adam you've done a fine job so far I think it's going to be very very good ......... ldguy

 

[moon puppy]

Should help with your sanding skills huh? :pinch:

 

[jknaus]

Coming along.
James

 

[Adam Baker]

Oh man, thats the truth! It's real interesting to have to go blow my nose after sitting at the bench for awhile, and I end up w/ Bondo on the tissue, haha.

Made some progress last night. Started working on taping up all the window openings to put down some primer. Sometimes I think masking stuff off for paint is harder than any assembly or clean up work.

Should help with your sanding skills huh? :pinch:

 

[Adam Baker]

A milestone for this build I think, finally got paint down on it. Should be turd brown but went with primer grey instead. I keep hoping at some point that this thing will turn around and start getting better but so far its never ending, haha.

Overall I dont appear to have to do as much clean up work as I was expecting, a lot of the seams cleaned up more than I thought they would. For the troublesome seams I cant get to blend away, I may try blending in w/ milliput instead of Bondo, but we'll see I guess. The worst seams to get to blend so far are on the bottom, so I'm not overly worried about it, but I do have one area in the tail rotor housing that I would like to blend a bit more.

 

[moon puppy]

Did I miss something? Did you try the windscreen yet?

 

[Swordsman]

Oh man, thats the truth! It's real interesting to have to go blow my nose after sitting at the bench for awhile, and I end up w/ Bondo on the tissue, haha.

Made some progress last night. Started working on taping up all the window openings to put down some primer. Sometimes I think masking stuff off for paint is harder than any assembly or clean up work.

Should help with your sanding skills huh? :pinch:

TMI ....... :dude ........

 

[Swordsman]

Did I miss something? Did you try the windscreen yet?

looks good man ........ great job .......... keep up the good work ....... ldguy

 

[ij001]

Good to see, Adam. Got that thing at your mercy, now.

Ian.

 

[Adam Baker]

Fitting of the windscreen has started, and your suggestion has helped a lot. I wanted to get all the work done on the fuselage done before I started working on final fitting on the wind screen, but I have worked on it some, and it's definitely fitting a lot better, I just haven't taken any pic's yet of what I've done.

Did I miss something? Did you try the windscreen yet?

 

[moon puppy]

I didn't know if you were going to have any sanding and filling issues before you painted the fuselage.

 

[Adam Baker]

I did work on fitting the windscreen to the fuselage, and I had to sand some off the center windscreen brace to make it fit like you suggested, and it appeared to fit pretty good after doing that. I've had half the windscreen curing after coating it w/ future. Had to polish out some accidental sanding marks that happened when I was trimming the sprue off.

I'll try getting a couple pic's of the fit tonight after the future has dried completely.

My concern now is the chin windows dont seem to fit very well, those are going to take some creative sanding as well to make fit. It just never ends w/ this thing.