Author Topic: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch  (Read 8601 times)

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« on: May 07, 2019, 11:25:47 AM »
I just ordered decals from Drawdecals.com for the US Forest Service AH-1 Cobra in 1/72nd scale. I have a Whiskey Cobra in the stash that would make a great upgrade version. Twin engine power and safety flying in the mountains and such. Sounds good to me. The website states that the order will take three weeks or so. That gives me time to start building. Drawdecals has several other firebomber aircraft choices plus lots of airline schemes. A guy could go nuts there.

Offline elmayerle

  • Its about time there was an Avatar shown here...
  • ワber Engineer...at least that is what he tells us.
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2019, 12:15:40 PM »
And if you want a special "tweak", he will do that.  I have 1/72 and 1/48 C-21A sheets from him with the blue cheat lines changed to OD for use on a slight whiff of the ones transferred to the US Army (I know two were, but only have the serial of one  :( ).

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2019, 06:38:54 PM »
He seems very accommodating. I知 looking forward to seeing his products.

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2019, 03:30:58 AM »
Just got an email from drawdecals saying the order is in the mail. It should arrive in a couple of days. That turned out to be really quick. I知 looking forward to this.

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2019, 03:25:03 AM »
The order from Drawdecals has arrived. Everything looks great! Printing is sharp and the ink looks to be think enough to not let the background paint show through. He recommends the Fujimi AH-1S kit but I知 sticking with the Whisky Cobra upgrade version. There is a nice video on YouTube showing the changes made inside and out. Rainy today so I値l get started.

Offline Buzzbomb

  • Low Concentration Span, oft wanders betwixt projects
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Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2019, 03:17:49 AM »
Oooh.. goody!
I have the same set and have recently done the CDF Bronco, so waiting to see how you tackle this

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2019, 05:18:31 AM »
Well, I haven稚 gotten started until now. All the materials needed are in hand so no excuses. It痴 really a simple kit so this could still happen.

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2019, 12:59:37 PM »
A little less talk and a lot more action!
Fuselage is assembled.



Apoxiesculpt is applied to the nose to fill in the gun and FLIR locations.



I had to add three lead buckshot under the cockpit floor to help it stand on the skids. I removed the RHAW antenna and IR device. There is a chaff dispenser under the fuselage I'll remove next. The real Firewatch Cobra has all weapons equipment removed to save weight.
I found photos of Cobras being used by the Forest Services of Florida and Washington.





Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2019, 12:35:17 PM »
Got some more progress today. If this keeps up I might finish this in time!!! Still plenty of opportunity to botch the paint job.
I need to photo copy the decal instructions and figure out how to enlarge the image so I can print it out and use it to mask the white and orange.

Offline finsrin

  • The Dr Frankenstein of the modelling world...when not hiding from SBA
  • Finds part glues it on, finds part glues it on....
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2019, 01:30:26 PM »
Got some more progress today. If this keeps up I might finish this in time!!! Still plenty of opportunity to botch the paint job.
I need to photo copy the decal instructions and figure out how to enlarge the image so I can print it out and use it to mask the white and orange.

After your fine building:  Careful - careful,,,  I know the woes of botched paint jobs.

Offline Robomog

  • ...had a very bad experience with [an] orange...
  • Would you buy a used kit from this man?
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #10 on: June 25, 2019, 02:30:47 PM »
Got some more progress today. If this keeps up I might finish this in time!!! Still plenty of opportunity to botch the paint job.
I need to photo copy the decal instructions and figure out how to enlarge the image so I can print it out and use it to mask the white and orange.

After your fine building:  Careful - careful,,,  I know the woes of botched paint jobs.

Story of my modeling life !   ;D ;D

Mog
>^-.-^<
Mostly Harmless...............

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #11 on: June 25, 2019, 09:45:45 PM »
I致e had so much trouble with painting these days. Even on this project I sprayed the top of the main rotor white so I could mask it and then paint black. After several days the white left fingerprints. I think I値l set it out in the sun today and see if that helps.

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #12 on: July 07, 2019, 06:36:52 AM »
Two coats of white on the fuselage so far. Things are progressing in fits and starts.
On the RW Firewatch Cobras the IR suppressing equipment was removed from the engine exhaust. Does anyone know what a Whisky Cobra would look like without it?

Offline elmayerle

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Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #13 on: July 08, 2019, 10:41:21 AM »
Two coats of white on the fuselage so far. Things are progressing in fits and starts.
On the RW Firewatch Cobras the IR suppressing equipment was removed from the engine exhaust. Does anyone know what a Whisky Cobra would look like without it?
Probably just a couple of round exhaust nozzles, you could probably use the nozzles from a SH-60B, though you'd want the nozzles pointed upward to prevent the exhausts from flowing around the tailboom.

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #14 on: July 08, 2019, 01:34:52 PM »
These have an oval shape that probably would be more trouble than its worth to change on the real aircraft. I'll look at just trimming it down to look like part of its been removed. The story will be that it was an attempt to improve fuel economy and save weight. Thanks for the suggestion.

Offline elmayerle

  • Its about time there was an Avatar shown here...
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Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #15 on: July 08, 2019, 01:42:21 PM »
Actually, if you take that oval shape and just do a 90 degree bend upward, you'd have an exhaust that was studied, but not used, for the AH-1W.  SH-60B exhausts start out round and bend a bit and are scarfed so they don't look it at the outflow end.  Got up close and intimate when I contracted at Sikorsky.

Offline kitnut617

  • Measures the actual aircraft before modelling it...we have the photographic evidence.
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Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #16 on: July 08, 2019, 10:30:38 PM »
For the model railway crowd, there's Plastrut which have all sorts of plastic shapes. Even long radius pipe elbows of various diameters  -----

https://plastruct.com/about/catalog-download/

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #17 on: July 08, 2019, 11:03:37 PM »
Thanks for the suggestions my friends! I'll look into these.
Painting in progress. More coats of white than I want to think of. Orange is next.





Canopy mask is good old Scotch tape. I've really got to get the airbrush system back up and into operation again. Once I brush on enough coats of something like white I lose a bunch of surface detail and it starts to look like an old Matchbox kit.

Offline Brian da Basher

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Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #18 on: July 09, 2019, 03:51:16 AM »
White an orange are huge challenges for me, with orange being even worse than the Dreaded Yellow.

The white and black look great.

Brian da Basher

Offline Robomog

  • ...had a very bad experience with [an] orange...
  • Would you buy a used kit from this man?
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #19 on: July 09, 2019, 06:01:55 AM »
I'm with Brian there, also add red to that list.

I tend to whimp out and use a rattle can to spray base white or primer coat.

Recon thats gonna look pretty cool in orange.

Mog
>^-.-^<
Mostly Harmless...............

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #20 on: July 09, 2019, 07:04:10 AM »
The canopy will be painted orange but the black will show on the inside. Hopefully the orange will go on in one coat over the white. Spraying white has not worked for me lately. Always ends up crazed and crackled in spots. At least both colors are glossy so decals should go well. Now I知 on jury duty so we値l see if I get this done in time.

Offline Old Wombat

  • "We'll see when I've finished whether I'm showing off or simply embarrassing myself."
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Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #21 on: July 09, 2019, 09:04:58 AM »
For my money nothing beats a couple of coats of Tamiya Fine White Primer over a coat of Tamiya Fine Lt Grey Primer - may cost a bit more but the ease of use & result are worth it.

And I'm never going back to a hairy stick for yellow, orange or red, airbrush all the way!
"This is the Captain. We have a little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and, ah, explode."

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #22 on: July 09, 2019, 11:46:13 AM »
I'm going to have to remember that system. Sounds pretty good.
I've been meaning to build a spray booth out of a large plastic storage tub and a bathroom fan. If I switch altogether to acrylics I might get away with spraying in the house.
I also scanned the decals and the instructions for them and printed paper copies to use as masks.

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #23 on: July 10, 2019, 12:48:58 AM »
Some orange.



Its propped up on some paint bottles to lay horizontal as it dries. Otherwise there will be runs all over. The orange does work better over white. My son's friend's grandfather was a very good car painter and was asked to paint an airplane once. He said he would never do it again. All that white!

Offline Kerick

  • Reportedly finished with a stripper...
Re: AH-1 Cobra Firewatch
« Reply #24 on: July 15, 2019, 12:19:52 PM »
So many coats of paint on this its ridiculous. No way is this going to be done in time. I'm thinking of getting a new kit and starting over. It will be a good reason to get my airbrush out and set up. Right now it looks more like a toy than a model. I would hate to waste the decals on it. Perhaps move this to the "Clear Your Workbench" group build.