UH-1 Huey Helicopter Platoon - Team Yankee

[mikeh]

Looking real good Em. Really like the figures.

[Whiterook]

A short session at the workbench today, adding the skids to each Huey…



…and then working on one of the Huey’s main rotor blades assembly; trouble started with the one rotor blade that would attach to the mast’s top peg (a small square peg), where the tiny tab with the square hole started to snap off! I used TETC to remelt it before it snapped off and got th rotor on the mast, followed by the top rotor blade that caps it with a solid cap. It’s quite precarious and even without the tab mishap, I wonder as to its longevity with repeated handling of the miniature in gaming… it makes me long for the days when Battlefront made it’s miniatures with some solid metal and resin components, where this whole rotor and mast assembly should have been one solid piece in metal. I’ve got it propped up overnight and will work on the other main rotor assembly tomorrow, hoping for the best on this one.





Wish me luck!

[Whiterook]

Tail rotors put on…



…and the second set of main rotors and mast…



…this set was a bigger disaster than the first set; when I cut the rotor blade with the square hole in it, it sheared the tab in half, with the loose bit flying ing into the wilderness of my furnace room workshop area’s floor never to be seen again by human eyes! I glued both blades and mast together best as possible but time will tell if it holds! If not, one Huey will be converted into a downed wreck.

The good news is, the other set done yesterday seems to be pretty solid!

[Whiterook]

Well surprisingly, the main rotors cured up pretty solid! It’s so frailty built around the connections of blades to mast that I was figuring this a 50-50% result at best, but these must be enough overlapping and abutting to have made the melted plastic, mold solidly enough…on quick inspection, anyway…time will tell as these are gamed with, but I’ll always try to remember these rotors are a bit delicate.

So yesterday, I glued one sides’ gunner/crew bay’s “sliding” doors on (they of course, do not slide), and I did the other side tonight; San while I did the main rotors paint work, I got the tail rotors while I was at it.





On the paint, I used Tamiya Semi-gloss black, but I think I’m going to switch to Citadel Chaos Black for the second coat, mainly ‘cause I want to see how they look with that. Note that the black is still wet, as is the Tamiya Dull aluminum. Next up, I’ll finally be able to get some paint on the exterior surfaces, and then a toned-down clear coat… and these should be done!

[Whiterook]

First coats on the exterior!!! Base color is Vallejo Air “Gunship Green”, applied in a thin coat with a wide artist brush. I was planning on airbrushing them burn my workshop area for that is under reorganization at the moment. Hand brushing is actually fine with me, as these are for 15mm gaming after all and I’m not looking for 100% realistic paintwork necessarily. The color was just slightly (and I mean, not by much) lighter a hue than the plastic the kit was molded with…



After that latter dried sufficiently, I went back in with Vallejo Air “Light Green”…





…the new workbench light I have is awesome for building, providing amazing light… but the paint job comes across brighter than on the bench; I wasn’t sure when I came back upstairs after that latter of painting, and I had to go back down and take a look…looked darker to me, but still bright. I took some time to work on the windows, where I used Folk Art acrylics blue and white to fill in the window areas, and after fried, went back in with Vallejo in a hand-made mixture of dark greens to paint in forest reflections. I had to go back in and touch up some of the hull and window frames from a few errant brush swipes… but the final result seems pretty good to me and gets the suggestion across. Ironically, they very last step of this build, after dullcoat is applied, will be to go back in on the windows with Tamiya Gloss to get the “glass” look…



So I took a chance on, rather than trying to tone the color down with a new coat hand mixed darker, I tried an application of Citadel’s “Devlin Mud” wash…



…I’ll have a proper look after everything dries appropriately, and with a fresh look, probably tomorrow. I really can’t say if I’ll darken the overall color or not… I’m kinda frustrated at the moment and don’t want to let that ruin things. The exterior color has been somewhat elusive so far! Here’s a good reference shot I’d saved as inspiration…



On another subject, the decal sheet that came with the kit is NOT the one pictured on Battlefront’s website! Ticked me off, actually… the decals that come with the kit are minimalistic in content. I went ahead and ordered a decal sheet from Miscmini for $5 ($1 shipping) that has 1st CAV emblems in two sizes and great markings that look better than Battlefront’s. The build is pretty much on hold (other than tweaking the exterior color) until the decals come in.

[Whiterook]

So, one question has been answered… why do the Huey’s look lighter when I come upstairs to post pics? Lighting. The difference from the past is, I use a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, which has a phenomenal camera, but perhaps in combination with my new LED super bench light, something’s off on the color…like, color correction going on I don’t know about programmed into the phone. I used to snap pictures with a digital camera and transfer those pics to my laptop, and color correct with Photoshop Elements to mainly take out the white noise… cell phone cameras don’t seem to get hung up with white noise, these days. Anyway, going downstairs for a short session today, the Huey’s look darker, so I doubt I’ll do anymore colors atop.

Today was pretty simple, paint the machineguns with Tamiya “Gun Metal”, but in the process, I snapped a rear rotor blade off the boom! Son-of-a-gun (no pun intended), Battlefront’s design truly sucks with its rotors!!! I mean, I’m not that Gorilla-handed. I glued it back on, but gosh knows the longevity of that once I start gaming with these… I’ll have ti remember to be VERY careful in handling.

Next up was the exhausts, done with Citadel “Chaos Black” and a little Tamiya “Gun Metal” to highlight. Then, a first coat on the bottom cockpit windows…I might tweak those later. Lastly, a thin re-coating of chaos black to the main rotors.







This is a painfully slow project, turns out… I figured these would be a quick build, but they are trickier than they look! I wonder how Battlefront’s tanks are!

[Whiterook]

Phewie, I’m almost there on these! So the decals that came with this do NOT match up with what Battlefront advertises on their website, including no sharks teeth, not unit emblem seen on their example pictures… the box art is actually, extremely vague in comparison so, what’s their game? (…no pun intended). Ah well, I went ahead and found new decals (<— see link) on the secondary market from Miscellaneous Miniatures, which arrived yesterday, which are super nice; I was looking specifically for 1st Cav Division emblems and this set had them. The owner is extremely good, and actually called me to offer a discount on shipping in card envelope rather than box (…was $5 shipping, which went down to $1!).



I put a coat of Pledge (Future alternative) floor acrylic on the areas to receive the the decals last night… spent time today putting the decals on. Man, these suckers are TINY, but they are nice quality. Printed on the entire sheet, the numbers, wording, and symbols must be cut individually, and at this scale, that alone is tough. My hands aren’t as steady as they once were, I’m afraid and it can be aggravating. But, I got every decal I wanted on both units, except for the tail ID numbers… it was just too damn tight to squiggle them in there, based on a dry-fit, so I skipped those… there are plenty of examples of Huey’s without them. In fact, while researching the usage of IDs and unit emblems, I came to find out that it was all across the board in the ‘Nam, so there’s a lot of wiggle room in what goes on. Remember too, that these are for gaming so, literal iterations aren’t typically the name of the game with these!

The hardest decals were the red arrow prop blast warnings; followed by the United States Army decals, which probably should have been cut in half, but they are so finicky to place, I figured I stood a better chance as a whole… there were plenty provided so, I did take off one that didn't go on too good, placement-wise… same thing for the nose number for what ended up being “818” (…which started out as 809 and then “624”, but of which had issues in placement). The 1st Cav emblems went on nicely on the nose, but the tiny ones on the tail wing were a challenge, to say the least! All of these look pretty good in the final result, though… I used Solveset to place, and Micro Set to seal (…yeah, I figured better safe than sorry). 









The last bit will be for a dullcoat, which will likely be airbrushed on later this week, once I get some squeeze bottles I ordered from Amazon…like the one you get with Vallejo or AK Interactive; I’ll make my own concoction of 70% Pledge/30% Tamiya Flat base, as I like to stay as non-toxic as possible in my hobbies. I’ll finish with Pledge on the windows to better simulate “glass”, and then assemble the flighty stands for gaming.

Stay tuned… this project is winding up shortly!!!

[Whiterook]

Oh, forgot top mention… I did try a brushed on coat of my home-brewed dullcoat concoction, but ran into trouble. I applied it just to to the underbelly of one Huey, and inadvertently hit the side of one boom and crew bay door… but it had several fogged areas 





After some butt kicking on myself for not properly testing on a test piece, I days later, went back in with some pledge and it corrected the finish flaw, though now quite glossy! Thinking on what may have gone wrong, and talking about it on the forums, I figure…

1. The main culprit may have been too thick an application with the flat brush?
   
2. The Tamiya Flat Base I used is a bottle that’s probably well over a decade and a half old and had gone bad? It was gray and clumpy on the sides of the inner bottle; when preparing the mixture, it came out kinda like thickish yogurt into my clean mini-jams bottle and probably had bad play with the Pledge (Future).

The correction went well enough, thank goodness, so I ordered a new Tamiya Flat Base and will see what the contents look like… and try a new mix. I did try the old mix with a thinner application by brush on a test area and it was fine, so idk. I’d rather be safe than sorry! New flat base due in this coming Thursday. Stay tuned!

[mikeh]

Nice all around Em. I've been not around the past few days and this is my first time seeing your progress, nice job on those window!

[Whiterook]

Nov 8, 2023 18:30:00 GMT -5 mikeh said:

Nice all around Em. I've been not around the past few days and this is my first time seeing your progress, nice job on those window!

Thanks, Mike! Thank goodness the trick of putting a layer of Pledge (Future) atop that white haze cured the problem!!! My new bottle of Tamiya Flat Base came in earlier this week and I can now make a new mixture…small batch this time, lol…and I’ll test a dullcoat on my dried paint palette, and if good there, a second test on the bottom of one Huey; yeah, I’m being super cautious now, hahaha. If everything is Go for Green, as the astronauts say, then I’ll have a fairly good sense that the concoction works…I mean, it has in the past so it should be OK now; I was just freaked out by that ghosting!

I need to lighten up the exhaust on the back of the main prop housing… can’t remember the name of that, as I believe they were painted green, but blackened with the exhaust, based on pictures I’ve seen online.

I also need to see if I can get rid of the decal edge on the “United States Army” decals… I think if I put some Pledge on it, it may take care of that?

Then, I can finally dullcoat the entire surface on both birds.

I’m heading down to the Compass Games Expo the next two and a half days so, all building is on hold. Luckily, it’s only an hour and twenty away so, it’s not a long trip. I’ve at least four items I want to pick up (map upgrade set; paper Wars magazine #103 with the game Second Fallujah in it; and two…maybe three…boxed games) and play Lock ‘N Load Tactical pretty much the whole expo, with some downtime gaming of Unmatched. Next week, I really want to finish these two Huey’s up and get them on the battlefield. I’ve started a draft of the rules for The Legion and want to start playtesting what I’ve come up with, including these helicopters.

[Whiterook]

Sorry for the hold up everyone… I’d gone to a wargaming expo the end of last week and came home Saturday, testing positive for COVID

I’m looking forward to finishing these up and getting them on the game battlefield! My Tamiya Flat Base came in and I’ll try a smaller, new batch of dullcoat, trying in a test piece first, I’d course! …I still think a non-toxic version is still worth a go, especially where it’s worked in the past on models. stay tuned!

[Whiterook]

Nov 4, 2023 16:44:31 GMT -5 Whiterook said:

Oh, forgot top mention… I did try a brushed on coat of my home-brewed dullcoat concoction, but ran into trouble. I applied it just to to the underbelly of one Huey, and inadvertently hit the side of one boom and crew bay door… but it had several fogged areas 





After some butt kicking on myself for not properly testing on a test piece, I days later, went back in with some pledge and it corrected the finish flaw, though now quite glossy! Thinking on what may have gone wrong, and talking about it on the forums, I figure…

1. The main culprit may have been too thick an application with the flat brush?
   
2. The Tamiya Flat Base I used is a bottle that’s probably well over a decade and a half old and had gone bad? It was gray and clumpy on the sides of the inner bottle; when preparing the mixture, it came out kinda like thickish yogurt into my clean mini-jams bottle and probably had bad play with the Pledge (Future).

The correction went well enough, thank goodness, so I ordered a new Tamiya Flat Base and will see what the contents look like… and try a new mix. I did try the old mix with a thinner application by brush on a test area and it was fine, so idk. I’d rather be safe than sorry! New flat base due in this coming Thursday. Stay tuned!

I can’t say I’ve ever quoted myself …but I figured it was a good way to show the fogging issue I’d had previously, and report on the next steps. I’d luckily. Salvaged the miniature by reapplying a coat of Future Floor Acrylic, which got rid of the white splotching; and then ordered a new Tamiya Flat Base, as I figured it was the main culprit…

PHASE 2

I’d received my new bottle and sure enough, it was lighter and more watery than the old snot stuff in the previous bottle bought back when Clitin was president (or thereabouts). So I tried once again, with a trial in the bottom of one Huey, in a very small section. NOTE TO SMART PEOPLE: Do this on a test scrap, not your build! (A.k.a, do as I say, not as I do!). Well, it fogged up again! …not as bad this time, but dead white where it fogged. Looking at the bottle of Furure, I’m figuring that it is the main instigator… it has a slight yellowish tinge, so being old as the hills, I’m sure the manufacturers guidelines that it should have been tossed many years ago is correct. As an aside, I’m hesitant to trash it, and may try a couple test runs as just using it alone to see if it still works as advertised, but we’ll see.

PHASE 3

Well, I’d noted a few weeks ago that somewhere along the line, I red red a bottle of Vallejo Matt Varnish, so I gave that a go. Initial try showed no fogging, but I’ll give i some cure time a recheck.

[Whiterook]

Well OK then! The Vallejo Matte Varnish worked a peach!





It took the shine off the regular acrylics, as well as the spots with straight Future gloss on the noses. I think this stuff is Brilliant!!! Applied with a quarter inch flat brush, it glides on and leaves no brush strokes. I am half thinking of applying some gloss on the windows… I may try that with Tamiya gloss. What surprised me the most though, was how it brightened up the rotor blades, smoothing out the overall finish.



Of course, something had to go wrong, as has happened throughout this build… I learned a valuable lesson however, which will serve me well in builds down the road: Magnet polarity only goes one direction!!! You see, I glued one magnet disc into the top engine cowling atop each Huey, and one on each end of the main rotor booms that mount into the engine cowling’ however, I didn’t think to check if I glued them in the right polarity direction. When I went to mount the main rotors, they repelled away!!! Ugh.

I couldn’t get the magnet out of the cowling, or cut it off the rotor boom mast. Doing a quick read, I saw you can soften CA with Acetone, so I brushed some on the mast and let sit a tad… then, I was able to use a craft knife with #11 blade to carefully cut the magnet off the boom masts. Much to my amazement, I was able to do so and keep all my fingers intact! The only hiccup was snapping a blade off one of the rotors… UGH. I set that blade back on with some CA. I then grabbed new magnets and made sure I popped thm into the engine cowling in the right direction; opting to glue the rotor booms onto the double magnets instead…trickier, but I didn’t want to chance gluing the magnets onto the mast in wrong direction again.



I had to prop (no pun intended) the rotar on a TETc bottle. I’ll check on the remounted blade to boom mast tomorrow after the CA hopefully cures tight …given success, I may have to flip it over and apply CA on that side and wait another day. I’ll consider the window glossing tomorrow.

[Whiterook]

The CA glue seemed to work well on the damaged rotor blade junction and seemed fairly secure… turning it right side up, I noted a channel between the blade attachment and the mast…



I figured I’d try to fill it with a patch of sprue; cutting a small sliver from a piece of soft sprue tree, shaved to a small diameter, I dropped it in the channel and applied TETcement, and then another sliver and repeat…



The blade was then mounted in the engine cowling and propped up as the previous assembly…



We’ll see how the repairs worked out tomorrow.

[Whiterook]

So the main rotor blades on the second Huey appear solid! I put a little CA glue on the top blade junction for a little extra hold. 

I was going to use “Tamiya Clear” (which I assume is a gloss), but I decided to throw caution to the wind and try my old “Pledge with Future Shine” acrylic, which is old as the hills, for ALL the windows on the Huey without all the rotor blade issues. Applying it with a thin artist brush, it looks amazing at the moment… we’ll see as it levels overnight and see if it fogs or cracks; I anticipate all will be OK with it, and I love the glasslike look! The Huey on the right has the Future glass…



The Huey on the left in the following two pics has the glass look…





We’ll see how they look later!