1/48 AH-64D with ground crew

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 12:00 pm

Hi all,

I've chosen the Italeri 1/48 AH-64D kit along with the Airfix British quads and crew. I'm hoping to depict the Apache and crew as a diorama.

Not only is this my first GB, it's also my first 1/48 scale subject, first helicopter, first AFV/crew build and first diorama! It's been many years since I last built a model, I've followed the forums for a while now and have learnt a lot over that time, so I'm eager to jump into the deep end and put everything into practice. It wont be a fast build and I predict it will take most of the time allowed to complete. Any hints, help or constructive criticism is most welcome

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Post by **Nige201980** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:27 pm

Best of luck with the build mate.

Post by **Coen** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 1:22 pm

Wow!
You're not going to make it easy on yourself are ya? Haha.
Cool subjects though, well chosen. Very A-team ish.

I love it.

Post by **Mylightweight** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 5:42 pm

I love those quads, saw one when I visited Bovington, it would be cool to have a ride on one.

Good luck with the build

Website · Post by **Gav0909** » Tue Sep 08, 2015 12:36 pm

Should build into a cool diorama. My only gripe is that the kit probably doesn't depict a British Apache. Ours differ from the Yank "D" variant in a number of ways. Main one being the cheek avionics bays are different on the US and Brit ones (if I recall correctly), our rocket pods have domed fronts, and there are various countermeasures pods/aerials which differ as well.

Its not the most important thing though, and its your model, do with it what you will!

Post by **chief5437** » Tue Sep 08, 2015 11:47 pm

Wow, you're taking a lot on, definitely jumping in at the deep end! Hope it goes well for you and good luck

Post by **gaz45** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 11:00 am

nice choice good luck with this build mate

Post by **MarkVerploeg** » Sun Sep 13, 2015 1:48 am

I see some big plans here and i like it
If i may ask , wich version can you build with the Apache kit
I had a Revell kit once and that could be build into a Dutch version
Can this be used for that aswell
Any way good luck with the build

Post by **mincemeat** » Sun Sep 13, 2015 12:46 pm

Good luck with this. I'm very interested to see how an Apache from another manufacturer turns out. I've been working on an old Revell kit with my kids posted on my blog and it's really a rubbish kit. Flash galore, raised details, the Revell name on the outside rudder, poor fit and everything you don't ever want in a model kit.

Post by **Dunhill2005** » Sun Sep 13, 2015 3:41 pm

So much for the first time!?!
If it would be easy, then everyone would do it...

Good luck

Post by **DC87** » Sun Sep 13, 2015 6:17 pm

Best of luck, nice idea to combine the kits.

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:37 am

Apologies for the delay updating the thread. Been busy with life and researching my proposed build

As a few have noted, the British Apache is slightly different to the standard "D" model. I'm hoping to do the British AH1 variant the best I can. The Italeri kit only makes the AH-64D, there are 3 decal options in the box, US, Dutch & British. Heritage Aviation do make an AH1 conversion set that suits Italeri kits, but the all up cost to acquire it is to expensive (Approx $60Aud shipped)

There are differences between AH-64D's and AH1's, CRV-7 rocket pods, extra lumps, bumps and sensors are some of the features. There are lots of pictures out there featuring AH1's fitted with CRV-7 pods, but there are also plenty showing mixed or no weapons loaded on the stub pylons, so the options are open. It's also fair to say not all AH1's are the same!

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For those interested in reading more into the history, development, specs etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_Apache

I've found 2 sites that I will use as references, very detailed images of the British AH1.
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... -1-apache/
http://www.ukapache.com/

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:47 am

Looking over the Apache kit, there are 3 drab coloured sprues, 1 clear sprue, decal sheet and instructions. All sprues come in 1 bag, with the clear parts in their own separate bag

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:49 am

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:07 pm

Quick flick through of the instructions, which are pretty straight forward, and a look at the few decals there are.

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Sprues have pretty good panel lines and hundreds of raised rivets, there is a small amount of mould flash on the smaller detailed parts, and some pieces have mould lines, nothing a sander wont sort. Step one involves the cockpit assembly and straight away it's obvious that the instrument panel is the ancient round gauge type. I've managed to source an Eduard PE set which will address the instrument panel issue, provide more detail in the cockpit and also enhance some external details. The PE set is being posted from the UK, so will take a week or two to arrive. So I'll put the Apache on hold until that arrives and will make a start on the quads which looks like a promising little kit!

Cheers!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 7:30 am

First part of the build, the British quad bikes & crew from Airfix. There are 3 sprue trees molded in light grey. Two sprues have the quad bikes, which are identical and the other has the crew figures all posing differently.

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The instruction booklet consists of seven, A4 pages in a booklet, plus a separate A4 sheet painting guide for the quad bikes. There is colour coordination in the instructions to aid with locating certain pieces, the graphics for each step are very large and easy to read! The decal sheet has 4 decals, which can only be used on 1 quad bike? As all 4 decals get used per quad

No issue though as I don't plan I using them.

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 7:30 am

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 8:19 am

Looking over the quad kit, the moulding is excellent and the detailing is crisp, I'm impressed! Into a warm soapy bath, where the plastic was washed and dried thoroughly to remove any leftover moulding residue.

To make it easy for priming, I've left all parts connected to the sprue.

Into the booth for priming. I went with Vallejo's desert tan primer which sprayed really nice and even, I'll let it dry overnight before continuing with paint and assembly.

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 9:24 am

The quad bikes in the kit are the same, so I'll focus the build on one quad.

I've given the primed parts over 24 hours to dry. I've begun by removing parts that will get airbrushed from the sprue. As these parts are going to be fiddly, personally for me, it will be easier to paint everything first before assembly. Probably a time consuming method (careful use with glue and scraping away paint to expose plastic for gluing) but hopefully the end result is good!

The wheels are attached to a toothpick with blue tac, and all the other bits have been stuck to masking tape. Airfix call for humbrol paint 237 desert tan, but my paint collection on hand is Mr Hobby. Best substitute that I have is Mr Hobby H27 Tan, so into the airbrush that goes

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 11:04 am

Parts all sprayed, I'm happy with how the paint went on. Colour is maybe a whisker on the darker side than I had hoped for, will be able to confirm once in natural light.

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Meanwhile, as the tan coloured parts dry, I made a start on the chassis/motor area. The chassis and motor are black while the exhaust is painted "rust", so I thought I'd give the exhaust some detail by trying out the dry brushing technique! First up was painting the exhaust the rust colour for the base, which was hand painted with Mr Hobby H453 Rostrot. Once dried, it was into tamiya's gunmetal for the dry brushed coat. Even though the exhaust isn't really exposed, it was good to try a technique and bring out some of the smaller detail. Chassis/motor were brushed painted with model colour black.

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Post by **chief5437** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 4:38 pm

Nice start buddy.

Post by **Nige201980** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 4:53 pm

Great start buddy.

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:19 am

Continuing on with vallejo black, everything under the quad painted and the assembly process has begun!

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:22 am

Starting to look like a quad bike now, so far the fit has been great.

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Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:36 am

Very cool work bud. Very cool build too!!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 12:07 pm

Bit more progress tonight, the bottom of the quad is all completed. The underside did require some slight trimming in areas to get a nice flush fit. Carrier racks & seat painted and glued.

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 12:13 pm

Made a start on one of the trailers. There are two in the kit to make, this one will have the tailgate closed with one stretcher fitted.

Part fit was excellent and went together with no issues

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Post by **EricM** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 2:34 am

looking forward to the end result! Ill be doing the Hasegawa boxing.

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 10:54 am

Today's update - second quad almost done & painting lots of wheels! Tyres painted with Tamiya rubber black, thinned enough to allow capillary action to do its thing. 2 hours later, the 14 wheels were completed!

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Post by **InvalidUsername** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 11:11 am

Second quad bike almost done, just have the detail painting to do before getting the clear coat

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I've started to prepare the figures for paint. Once again I've left them on the sprue, the moulding lugs are at points that get parts attached so that makes everything super easy! Areas of exposed skin (face, arms, & hands) have been covered with blue tac to keep excess overspray off the light primer.

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Post by **Coen** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:12 pm

Very cool show of your painting method.

Love those wee bikes! Those are Soo cool?

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 6:38 am

Made some progress over the weekend (Even worked out how to use photobucket!) Figures have started to take some shape and colour. Will be able to fully complete them once they are fitted to the quad bikes

Another attempt at dry brushing, this time for a wear and tear effect on the trailer areas. I used Tamiya flat aluminium and am rather impressed how they turned out!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 7:07 am

With the only Australian supplier of Ultimate sand weathering wash out of stock, and needing to get these quad bikes finished, I had to work out how I was going to create my own sandy effect. After some research I stumbled along a Youtube video how to make a mud wash, mainly for armour. I used similar techniques to the video, with the exception of not using coloured pigments and decided to give it ago. Pretty basic recipe, no measurements, just trial and error.

Small cup, PVA wood glue, paint in the colour you want to use as the "wash" (Mr Hobby H85 sail colour) and some fine dirt out of the garden! A good blob of glue, a couple of drops of paint, and a sprinkle of dirt, mix it and hey presto! As I was going for more of a finer type of wash, I added a small amount of water to the mix to thin it out, which made the wash easier to apply and also make it look subtle, rather than thick and clumpy.

The glue does the adhering, the dirt gives the grain effect, and the paint does the colour. The glue dries clear so the outcome is hopefully going to resemble a sandy like appearance! Adding additional paint or dirt will vary the effect, all depends on what one is going for

One thing I don't have is a test piece to trial it, so I'll apply it to one wheel, if it looks like it's going on okay I'll run with it, if not - a quick rinse in water will wash it off, fingers crossed!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:14 am

So my home job sand effect went on my test wheel without any issues, so I went ahead and applied it to all wheels, undersides of the quads, over the trailer etc, everywhere sand gets kicked up and spread.

Left everything to dry for roughly an hour, before assembling everything together. Overall I couldn't be more pleased with the effect that the home job sand wash has created, definitely adds to the detail level. Pictured below are how the quads are shaping up. Will add more wash once I've got the crew fitted to their bikes

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 5:08 am

Crew taking shape and colour

Painting the extra bits and pieces

Should be able to have everything fitted ready for clear coat by tonight!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:15 am

Figures and miscellaneous items have now been fitted!

Small amount of camo paint left to be applied to the quad bike figures (around the shoulders and arms where they were joined) and a splash of home job sand wash to dirty the bikes, will see the quads and crew just awaiting a clear coat to complete

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 10:52 am

Quad bikes and crew now complete!

Time to get cracking on the Apache build! Will make it the British AH-1 variant as best I can.
First place to start is the cockpit, looking at the kit, the cockpit is basic. The instrument panel depicts early Apaches, and there's no instrument panel decal provided either. Bit of searching revealed Eduard used to make a photo etch set for the Italeri Apache, which really enhances the detail and also provide the cockpit to be more modern looking. Being discontinued, finding a set wasn't easy unless I was willing to pay a price more than the Apache kit itself, plus international postage.. After weeks of checking ebay all over the world, someone listed a new set for a couple of dollars! A week later I had it in my hot little hands!

As if my build wasn't full of firsts, PE can be added to the list! I have a few kits in the stash that have it, so this will test the skills and patience to see what it's like to use, and if I can cope with the frustrations, because there are some tiny pieces on them frets!

Here are a few photos showing the PE frets and instructions. I'll be going over the PE instructions with the Apache kit instructions to see what needs doing where!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 6:22 am

After a 2 week holiday I'm back into the build.

Started work on the cockpit section, removed all necessary pieces from the kit sprue and worked with the PE instructions to see what detail needed removing from the plastic pieces. Instrument & side panel along with seat belt detail was removed.

Once that was completed, the cockpit parts were primed and left to dry.

While my primed parts were drying, I started on the PE parts, removing them from the fret and cleaning up the edges.

The steps show some bending of the PE is required, I don't have a PE bending tool so I've gone with a coaster, blade and a steel rule

Hopefully it works out ok!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:02 am

Photo etch bending, gluing and cockpit painting done today

Post by **rwsmith14** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:25 am

lOOKIN' GOOD !!

Photo etch,,,,

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:35 pm

Managed to get the cockpit completed over the last week. Very happy I chose the PE for the cockpit, so much more finer detail and "life" than the basic kit one, well worth the pain and patience!

And finally some dry brushing to enhance the detail and give it some wear and tear

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:51 am

With the cockpit complete, time to move onto the fuselage.

Fuse halves were removed from the sprue and dry fitted to see how the fit was going to be. There was a small gap where the fuse met the horizontal stabilizer and an odd moulding ridge and thinner panel line on one side near the top (See red circles) which I'd sort once it was all glued up.

Somewhat happy that I couldn't see any other issues, I primed the inside of the fuse and also the base and tail rotor assemblies

Once the primer had dried, I added 2 small pieces of PE(forgot about them before priming!

)to the cockpit to see how they would go with the canopy dry fitted. No issues with the PE contacting the canopy, just a gap under the windscreen wiper that shouldn't be there.

Easy fix, a couple of small pieces of scrap sprue, cut and sanded to fit!

I'll aim to have the cockpit in and fuse halves glued tonight

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Tue Nov 24, 2015 8:53 am

Painted the inside of the fuse & the base of the rotor housing, fitted them into the fuselage halves then glued her up!

Post by **Avgas** » Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:07 pm

Pit looks great.

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Fri Nov 27, 2015 6:56 am

Avgas wrote:Pit looks great.

Thankyou

Filler in, dried, sanded & buffed!

Next up, lots and lots of photo etch to glue on

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sun Dec 06, 2015 9:19 am

More progress!

Stub wing & PE

Canopy looked like it was going to be a pain to fit, lots of test fitting and sanding, then on a lucky fit it just slid right on in

Fuselage PE getting put in place

PE took longer than I thought it would to apply, very fiddly and time consuming! Time to move onto a few other sub assemblies and some scratch building and then it will be ready for paint.

Post by **Twokidsnosleep** » Sun Dec 06, 2015 6:58 pm

It is looking great, coming along nicely
Have never used PE before , like most things devil is in the details....a pain but worth it

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Sat Dec 12, 2015 9:39 am

Going with a mixed load under the pylons, I needed to make two fuel tanks. I went through my box of spares and found a sprue of 2 bombs that I thought were almost ideal. I worked out the measurements required and begun to assemble, hack, glue and bog until something resembled a fuel tank.

Halves joined, middle section cut out and then rejoined

Cut the ends off, added spare sprue to fill the gap, and then filled in all the gaps with putty

My attempt at a CRV-7 pod

More scratch building made from spare pieces of sprue, flare dispensers, and sensors as featured on AH-1 Apaches

Rotor head assembly went together very well

Some minor sanding and a few extra small additions then I'll be onto the painting stage!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:59 am

After a busy week, I've managed to make good progress to get this build completed!

First up was priming everything with vallejo desert primer, as that dried, I finished filling and sanding the drop tanks. I used 2 weapons pylons from another kit("Spares box") which I think suit the drop tanks pretty well.

The Apache paint scheme had we worried for a while. The instructions called out for a green that was almost the same colour as the kit plastic, which was too light. For weeks I tried mixing my own, using different colours and quantities, with no luck. For hours I searched the internet for models coloured in every shade of green there was available, trying to look for that correct tone of green... And then I came across Tamiya XF-51 Khaki Drab, it is almost perfect, green with a brownish grey tone, right out of the bottle! A quick trip to the local and away I was with paint!

It looks a little dark in the photo, but with some decent light, the colour is spot on

Moved on to painting other various things with various colours (Wheels, rockets, exhausts, rotors etc)

I've sprayed down the gloss coat for tonight, will give it a day or two to dry. Decals shouldn't take long as there is only a handful

then I will attempt to try first hand a wash on top of the paint, I've got a few Ultimate washes, but no sand colour. I tried a test piece with light dirt and it didn't come out too bad, it dried a shade or two lighter than the bottle colour so it just might work for a sand/dust effect... we shall see!

Post by **InvalidUsername** » Thu Dec 24, 2015 10:13 pm

Decals have been added with the use of micro set & sol. They went on really nice, easy to apply and conformed to all the raised detail as expected. The only minor issue was the british roundels were ever so slightly bigger than scale.

As soon as the decals set, I applied Ultimate light dirt wash over the entire helicopter and left it to dry for a few hours.