The Viper has fangs

To get this bird Fully built I had to make up the canopy, rotors, rockets and missiles.

I started with the hardest of the lot, the canopy.

The clear parts had to be taken from the sprue and then I cleaned them up and polished them ready for masking.

Cutting the canopy pieces from the sprue.

Five parts to the canopy trimmed and cleaned.

To make things easier I purchased an aftermarket set of masks from Eduard. This set included an outside and inside sheet.

Aftermarket masks from Eduard.

Applying masks, I'm using gloves to avoid fingerprints.

Canopy pieces masked inside and out.

Once these were all in place I glued the parts together over the cockpit with the doors in the open position so I could take it off and work on it as one piece.

Canopy glued together and held in place with tape.

There were no parts included for the inside of the canopy so I had to make everything from scratch.

I started with the hydraulic cylinders for the doors, I threw the kit part away and made them from some brass rods and tubes. The tubes outer diameter was 0.8 mm and the inner diameter was 0.4 mm with a 0.4 mm rod fitted into it. I had bend the rod at each end so it would fit into some brackets I made from some spare photo-etch parts.

Scratch made hydraulics.

The brackets were glued onto the frame of the doors and then the cylinders slotted into them. I felt that this way would be a much stronger connection than if I tried gluing the cylinders directly to the frame.

Scratch making brackets.

A finished bracket for the hydraulic pistons.

Installing the brackets.

The pistons plug into place.

Next I added the connection boxes and the cabling/tubing going up the frame in the middle of the canopy and stretching to the front and back of the ceiling.

Adding the connection boxes.

To get the thick cable look with thin connections I used some wire casing with copper wire going through it. Some of the cables were tied to the frame, for this I cut some rings from wire casing and attached them to a small base of styrene.

Adding cables.

Feeding the cables trough the ties.

Some cabling goes from the ceiling down into the cockpit.

Tie downs made from wire casing.

The small fixtures I added were the fabric grab handles and hooks. The grab handles were made with a brass sheet strip folded over to make them look like thick fabric. I added a wire ring at each end and then glued it to the frame using some small brackets. One handle was added above each door and one on the pilots door.

Scratch made grab handles.

The grab handles installed over the doors.

Adding rivets to the handles.

Adding rivets to the handles.

The hooks were made from spare photo-etch, one on each side of the ceiling. Then, they each got some 0.5 mm rivets.

Scratch making hooks.

The finished hook.

Adding the hooks to the canopy ceiling, with rivets.

I moved on to the door handles, There were kit parts for the outer handle, the inside one I had to make.

for the gunners door I used a 0.8 mm brass rod, bent it 90 degrees and filed it flat and added a styrene knob. I then drilled through the door and connected the other end of the rod to the handle on the outside. The pilots door handle is more like a lever So I still used the 0.8 mm rod and connected it to the outside handle, but the inside handle was made from a strip of styrene with a small piece of brass rod at the end.

A side view of the gunners door handle.

A view of the pilots door handle.

The armor plating for the doors were cut shapes of styrene sheet, they will be installed once the model is painted. That was the canopy finished.

Armor plating on the gunners door.

Armor plating on the pilots door.

I then started on the tail rotor, making up the gear box and attaching it to the tail. I wanted to add all of the wiring, of which I had to scratch make.

Cutting parts to the tail gearbox.

The tail gearbox.

I drilled a few holes to fit the wires in and made some tie downs using brass loops.

Scratch made brass loops.

Once the loops were in place I fed the wires through them and into the pre drilled holes. This was not the easiest option as the wire took a lot of convincing to put into place through the loops. A few of the brass loops popped off during the process as well.

Installing wire through the loops.

A lot of loops needed to be installed on the gearbox.

Left side of the gearbox with all of the wires.

Right side of the gearbox nearly finished.

I moved on to the rotor assembly which was pretty straight forward. Once that was done I tacked it in place.

Tail rotors being made up.

For the main rotor I needed to make a few alterations on the main hub. The mass balancers had been molded onto the beam so I cut a triangle of plastic away from underneath them to make them stick out like rods.

Cutting free the mass balancers.

All eight mass balancers after trimming.

I also added some brass rods going from the beams into the rotors.

Brass rod was used to make these wires.

The rest of the assembly went together and the blade grips needed a good sanding to hide the seams.

Making up the main rotors.

Installing the main rotors to the fuselage.

The sensor on the nose was molded in solid plastic, to fix this I drilled out the center with a Dremel and made up a cross section using some brass parts, I then filed it until it fit snug into the drilled out hole.

The sensor on the nose needed to be drilled out.

Using a Dremel to drill through.

Adding a scratch built cross.

Making the sensor.

Installing the sensor with its arm.

Lastly I made up the hell fire and AIM 9 Missiles, the rocket pods and the M299 launchers.

The finished missiles and rocket pods.

That's as finished as it can be before being painted, the Viper now has fangs. All of the glass covers will be installed after it has been fully painted.

I will be moving straight into painting this model before any other projects, so stay tuned for the final product coming soon...

Finished model, a view from the front.

Finished model, side on.

Finished model, close angle.

Finished model, right side.

Finished model, top down view.

Finished model, close up cockpit.

Finished model, wide angle.

Finished model, low angle.

Finished model, tail rotor.

Close up of the gearbox wiring.