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What-If Sikorsky S-61/SH-3 Sea King WIP

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Jeffry Fontaine:
I have been working on this for quite some time, on again, off again with little to no progress most of the time.  The kit was acquired in a partially built/trashed condition from the collection of a modeler that passed away several years ago.  Not sure where Gordon was going with this model but it was in a sad state when it came home with me.  The main rotor was in a shambles and the tail rotor was destroyed so this was pretty much going to be a what-if, like it not.  Now some of you that have known me from the halcyon days of what-if modelers might recall that I had a similar situation with another Hasegawa Sea King that was eventually donated to another modeler on the forums as he had expressed an interest in the project and I was only too happy to share the idea and let him take it on.  Sadly he never did anything with that project and it may well be in a land fill by now.  That was a long time ago and my wallet still whinges about the amount of money I spent on postage to send the package off to that wanker.  Such is life. 

So having another Sea King in the stash that was off and running as a what-if had me looking for ways to fill in the void in the bottom of the Sea King fuselage where the dipping SONAR resides.  Having no desire to use that sensor I was more than happy to fill in the hole and managed to do that with a gun turret blanking cover/plate from the 1/48th scale Monogram (Revell) B-29 kit.  That required splitting the cover plate down the middle and then attaching it to the inside of the Sea King fuselage over the hole.  That took care of the inside but the outside was still a depression within the fuselage surface and had to be addressed.  Several months had gone by since I had filled the hole on the inside and this evening I was cutting up some of the plastic stiffeners from worn out sanding sticks after removing the foam and sand paper from the things.  I decided I was going to square off the rounded ends of the sanding sticks that I was working on and realized that I was getting a pair of semi-circular shapes from each of the sanding stick stiffeners and not wanting to just throw the things out I decided I had to check and see how the things would work for filling in holes such as the one that was on my Sea King fuselage.  The plastic stiffener is 0.75" wide and as luck would have it, the SONAR hole in the Sea King is also 0.75" in diameter.  Wow!  How things just fall in to place some days, eh? 

I did some quick fitting to make sure there was no excess overlap between the two semi-circular pieces and did a bit of sanding to smooth the outside edges and it was looking like we were going to have a quick fix.  Nah, the fuck-up fairy had to step in and the CA glue came out too fast and it ended up with fingers stuck to fuselage and the parts.  A quick clean up and some sanding of my fingers to get rid of the dried CA glue and then back to filling the hole.  Second time was a win and then it was time to start sanding the area flush with the rest of the fuselage since the thickness of the two pieces was standing proud of the surrounding surface.  Some rough sanding followed up with some wet sanding and soap got it to where I feel it should be, there is still a feeling under the finger tips when you run it across the repaired area but not severe enough to really worry about. 

Attached images to show the inside and outside of the fuselage along with close up images to show the inside and outside in more detail. 

***Edit: Subject title changed.--jjf

Frank3k:
It looks like a good fit! Doesn't even need any more filler. You should check the joint by running a marker over it or putting some rub n' buff on it.

Jeffry Fontaine:

--- Quote from: Frank3k on July 25, 2022, 02:09:43 AM ---It looks like a good fit! Doesn't even need any more filler. You should check the joint by running a marker over it or putting some rub n' buff on it.
--- End quote ---

Too late for that now.  I applied some water soluble putty to the area right after I uploaded the WIP images and it has been curing for almost a full day by now.  Will sand it down and see how it looks.  There were some small gaps on the outside that I could see with the cover in a couple of spots that needed to be addressed.  Hopefully the one putty application will sort that out. 


Addendum

I sprayed the area of the part with primer and it is now outside drying in the shade.  First inspection about an hour ago showed it to be drying rather well but the outline of the plugged area is still visible though that is not the concern.  I was more interested in getting the tiny gaps around the plugs to filled in to not be as noticeable which at this point appears to be accomplished.  Yay!

apophenia:

--- Quote from: Jeffry Fontaine on July 24, 2022, 11:15:57 AM ---...  Wow!  How things just fall in to place some days, eh?   ...

--- End quote ---

Doncha just love those moments of serendipity?  :D

Watching with interest ...

Jeffry Fontaine:

--- Quote from: apophenia on July 25, 2022, 08:56:58 AM ---
--- Quote from: Jeffry Fontaine on July 24, 2022, 11:15:57 AM ---...  Wow!  How things just fall in to place some days, eh?   ...
--- End quote ---

Doncha just love those moments of serendipity?  :D

Watching with interest ...
--- End quote ---
So you enjoy watching paint dry? :smiley: 

I sanded the painted area down to bare plastic and left it for the night.  Just applied another coat of spray bomb primer gray to the part and it is now drying on the front porch in the shade. 

One of the other issues I had with the fuselage was the sponson/float attachment points to the sides of the fuselage several months ago.  This consists of two "pockets" on each fuselage half that are intended for the attachment pins from the two sponson supports.  While doing some check-fits, these things broke off and left me with a situation that for a time I felt was going to put the kaybosh on any progress to be made with the Sea King.  This too was another one of those "serendipitous" moments that resulted in a quick but awkward fix to the problem.  I had ignored the problem for quite some time and while working on something else that left me with a couple sections of parts runner that were a bit small in diameter I realized there might be some use to these pieces so I pulled out the Sea King and did some quick guesstimations and set about drilling each of the sponson supports to accept a length of that plastic runner.  The Cock-Up fairy must have been on a break as I was successful in getting the holes drilled and the runner sections glued in place without any significant issues.  I cut away the pockets on the fuselage halves to ensure I had an ample amount of room on the inside and glued the sponson supports in place.  The only real issue was that the original placement of the sponson supports left a small gap between the fuselage and the support and my repair left no gap as they are now attached flush to the fuselage surface.  Not sure if that will come back to bite me on the backside later but what is done, is done.

Attached images showing the effort made to fix the MLG support pylon issue on the fuselage (internal and external).   

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