AH-1Z Body Work

After the two halves of the fuselage were glued together I cut the rest of the body work from the sprue. I essentially wanted to get the basic body made up so I could tackle all of the seam work at once.

The fuselage before additional work.

The boom is in one piece.

The tail in two parts, requiring additional work

A couple of alterations had to be made before I put it together. First I removed some pin marks from the inside of the air-intakes with a grinder. Second I added some bolt heads to the frame that attaches to the skids.

A 0.5 mm punch and die was used to create the bolt heads.

Nine bolt heads inside and out for each bracket, seventy two in total.

Grinding away the pin marks.

It then all went together, intakes, engine, skids, wings, boom and tail. A couple of areas I drilled were on the wing pods to allow the missile rail to be mounted and the loops on the skids needed to be opened.

Drilling 1 mm holes for the missile rails.

Hollowing out the loops on the skids.

By building the basic body I could get all of the unwanted seam lines filled all at once. Filling them with Tamiyas basic type putty. I used three varying grits of sandpaper to remove the excess and then polished with a 2000 grit sanding sponge.

Filling with Tamiya Basic Type Putty.

Sanding away excess putty.

Using a file for awkward surfaces.

Next I added the smaller details. Sensors, cameras, alert systems and mounting loops.

Small parts are now added.

Missile warning system.

Underside of the wing.

I had a photo-etch detail set which I used instead of some kit parts, first I removed some of the molded on detail that I was to replace using a fine chisel, then sanded it smooth.

A 0.2 mm chisel removed the bulk of the material.

Thinning down this part.

Eight of these rectangles had to be removed.

Sanding away the remaining mold.

I then preceded to add the PE parts. They were mostly grills and vents (which there are a lot on the AH-1Z), some wire cutters, some pulling rings on the skids and a cage on the underside.

Aftermarket photo-etch sprue.

These round vents were quite a challenge, the fins on them could only really be moved once as the metal around them was so thin. I took my time and they turned out very nice looking.

Fragile vents.

Adding the vents into place.

Engine grills.

Photo-etch wire snag cutter.

Vents above the exhaust.

A toothpick with Blue-Tac was used to position the grills into place.

Pulling rings added to the skids.

I moved on to the Gatling gun, which I had an upgrade set from Def. Model of brass turned barrels and some photo-etch parts. It was a pretty straight forward graft onto the kit parts. I removed some of the inner detail that holds the barrels with a Dremel tool and then replaced it with two ptoto-etched disks with fine detail and pre-made holes.

Def.Model gun barrel upgrade set.

Grinding away the molded detail.

Cutting out the photo-etch gun base.

Through those holes I drilled into the kit part to accommodate the brass barrels and they were secured in with CA glue.

Drilling 1 mm holes to accommodate the barrels.

Gluing the barrels into the base.

Next were the supports. The first one I secured a tiny disk onto the front and then it was bent into shape. It was then put over the three barrels and positioned half-way down the length . The second, was in four parts. One central tiny bolt to which I Fed the other pieces onto, glued them and then put the set over the tip of the barrels.

Middle support.

Middle support secured into place.

The tiny parts of the end support bracket.

End support secured to complete the Gatling gun.

The gun was then put into its protective housing and attached to the main body via a peg so it can rotate.

Moving forward I will concentrate on the rotors, missiles and canopy detail last.

View of the work so far.

Left side view.

Right side view.

This is a long model, over 16 inches.

Rear view.

The TTS system and Gatling gun.