Fun-Key MH-6 Little Bird Rapid Insertion Helicopter

[Keyrigger]

I have been working on this since the last post and have finally got the engine doors ready and the cone set to be removed. The 5 appendages on the boom needed to be removed and the process actually took three days to complete. I spent a lot of time waiting for Hysol to set and patching the inside of the boom became a bit tedious at times. Once Hysol has had a few minutes to begin curing, it becomes tacky and that lead to new patches lifting previously set patches (only be a few minutes, mind you) and driving me bonkers. It did finally work out but I had to lay in a couple of extra patches where there were some spots missed as I could not see down the boom very well.

All in all, the engine doors needed some support put in as there was a lot of material removed to allow me to leave a layer of fibreglass under the Hysol extensions to the doors. I am not taking the cone off until I have a bulkhead ready to install which will hold the exhaust outlet. I was able to final sand the body and fill in the few holes in and around the body seams and the boom patches. For those of you that have not seen one of these fully kitted out and ready for take-off, here is one that is set up for heavy rope rappelling whereas mine is not. It is the same vintage and from the same combat area, Somalia 1993. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

More progress to report. I have been busy fixing quads for the past week and have finally caught up with the work as far as parts availability will let me. One of the things about this build is that I must glue all doubling/tripling gussets and plates on before I put the first coat of primer. In order to do that properly, I need to have every last rivet line marked so I see where everything is. The job is massive as the entire model must be gone over with the pictures to match. It is a constant job just to keep the pencil lines from being rubbed off. I had hoped that the three inspection/assembly covers on the left side of the boom would be in the right place but as per usual, no, and more dust had to be made.

The only remaining original detail is the fuel inlet depression but even that needs a proper cap made for it, sigh. The forward boom was a particularly good challenge as the lines are not level to the ground or inline with the rear part of the boom. I had to double check every last line even if I thought I was sure it had that angle to it. As well, there are a few off-angle lines thrown in for good measure. I am not sure how many of you have ever started a fibreglass model from one in the "white" but just because the fuselage is two halves does not mean they are actually joined in the middle. If you are putting any lines or graphics that demand precision, measure the body and ignore the joining line. Mine is offset 2mm to the right so the actual true middle is that amount to the left of the join line. You can see that in the picture of the underside of the body between the rear struts.

I should be able to get at the mounting of the chassis as I need to do that before I can cut the rear doors out. I think by the time I get the new floor in, I will end up closing off access to the spots where the blind nuts will go. From previous building jobs, I know they will need to be glued in with Hysol so they stay put, permanently. I will bring this along to the meeting this week so you can see how complex this job is turning out. The landing gear is very different to the TOW Defender and this model will not sit in the same place inside the travel box. It might finally be time to rebuild it and convert it to a rack system. Take care and see you soon.

Don

[Keyrigger]

It's time to resurrect this one from the back burner. I have been looking at this one since February and every time I think I am going to get going on it, I look at the reference pictures, see something I have not taken into account, and back on the rear element it goes, sigh. I am nearly petrified to glue the landing gear in just in case I want to try reshaping them or splaying out the landing gear a bit more. Wishie, washie, I know. The doors have given me fits as every time I go to make a cut, I look at the pictures and find something I have not taken into account. Hundreds of pictures on the computer and they are not enough.

I had just about as much as I was going to take so out came the Exacto knife and the body scissors. I tried way to hard to keep the cut out from the 500D canopy perfect and nearly screwed one cut on the pilot's door so be damned the torpedoes and full steam ahead I go. Once I had the offcuts in hand, I traced them onto the inside of the TOW Defender canopy from the kit that this is constructed from. Heavy copper wire was fitted so it stayed inside the window cut out and door jamb. Hysol will be used to form the door panels and retain the wire. Another piece will be added to the lower part of the door before I cut the doors out of the donor.

The windows were to be formed from sheet polycarbonate or acrylic but that went away when I saw the shape of the Heli-Baby canopy. I have a few crashed canopies on hand so I tried a trial cut from each door and they were perfect for the now oversized cut outs of the final doors. The glass is quite a bit larger than the openings of the Fun-Key fuselage but you have to remember that it is a sport scale body, not a perfect scale representation and that is what my objective is. I may not get there but I am going to get as close as I can.

I got up the nerve to cut the inside openings and then start to fit the copper wire to the donor doors. They will be very much oversized when cut from the canopy so I don't think that the remaining part will be even useful as a crash repair nose. Oh well, it had to be done. The opening for the doors will be higher up the canopy than the factory outline as shown in the pictures above this post but the downside is that I might need to do some surgery on the figures to get them to stay off of the windscreen. Maybe a bit more fudging of the seats might be in order but I hope not. The last picture shows the curvature of the windows and why it was so fortunate that the Heli-Baby canopy was the perfect fit. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

While the idea of the wire support was a solid method of keeping the shape of the door and allowing adjustment later, I felt I had the positioning wrong. The window should support the door skin well enough but there was too large a gap between the wire and the edge of the door panel. The donor shell is where the door panels will be formed on and the actual door edge is a thin lip that overlaps the actual canopy. I had made some bottom supports for the door and they looked proper so I took the window frames and cut them so they became part of the edge of the panel. Those are now tacked into place, awaiting the Hysol that will bond the wire to the door and become the inner door panel. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

This is turning out to be a slower build than I thought it would be. There are a number of changes to the build compared to the TOW Defender that have kept things at a crawl from the beginning. The windows are very, very different as they have been extended beyond the normal boundaries as provided in the kit. I had three canopies on reserve and so far, I have used two to get this fitting. There is a small sliver that was cut too far but I can fill that in and keep the last one in the event that it doesn't work out. The cheek windows were a major concern as I was not sure how much excess plastic there was going to be. As it turned out, there was more than enough.

I began the landing gear strut fairings about two weeks or so ago but the strut portion was giving me doubts on how it would turn out. Well, it did past muster and the only item left is the Hysol glue blending of the strut to the body panels. That will take some time as a lot of work is now planned to open up the doors and rework the wood structure inside. I did some reworking of the bottom of the struts so they would look a lot more like the full size. I can't pull any more material from the area that surrounds the skid pipe but this should be convincing enough as it is. Take care and see you at the field.

Don

[Keyrigger]

This weekend, I took Friday off so I could get a bundle of work done on the body. There are many details left to manufacture and one of them is the panel doublers all over the helicopter. I have yet to work out in my mind how I will cut and shorten the "Doghouse" (air filtration box behind the rotor) but I am working it out in my mind very quickly as I need it done before I can do the mechanical installation. I redid the right side gear fairings as they were not up to my standards so they were the first order of business on Friday. 14 hours later, I had all the panels I could find done with only one or two left as they are too close to the doghouse area for installation now. The last of the holes in the body was patched yesterday and I can thank the old body for the donor backing panel. I will finish the job a bit later today when I get back from the flying club. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

Lots more work done these past many days. I did get the bottom patch blended in but a day late, sigh. Since then, I did a late shift this week and had Wednesday and today off as I started very late Thursday afternoon. Wednesday, I was able to start on the door openings which are very wrong from the factory molding. The front is somewhat closer but still not as good as I wanted. On the full size, the rear doors are off and that makes replicating that aspect of the model, very difficult as part way up the door is where the model's floor runs. To make it right, I cut off about an inch of floor which will be redone underneath. I will place a whole new scale floor that will be used to re-enforce the original floor (now doubled in thickness) and base any other modifications to the structure from. I hope to make the bench seats removable and have a weapons set that can be installed in place of the benches. I will use the new TOW Defender nose as a temporary one while I am building the new MH-6 cockpit. It might be in flying condition by the end of the month, I hope. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

This weekend, the rear floor was finished but that is only the start of the work coming up. The support walls have to be installed and I am working on a four piece bench seat that will come out to install an M134 Chaingun and 2.5" rocket tube system just for fun. I think for the most part, it will be outfitted that way but I will have a box that will contain the figures and bench seats. I am keeping my eyes open for a good heavy duty cardboard box for that. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

It's been a while since I have done any work on this one. I will be posting occasional pictures during the build as it will be kept on the "QT" until it is finished. I am fully documenting the build and will post it after its unveiling. I have 5 of the 6 figures ready for installation and Bruce is back in the house. His position in the Heli-Baby has been given over by GI Joe. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an ideal of what is happening. The panels were donated from a brand new canopy, which is now destroyed structurally, as the doors overlap the body on the original. Every scale body manufacturing company has overlooked that very important detail. The green line on the exterior is the original scribed in outline on the canopy which is much smaller than the door should have been. The interior panel is made up of Hysol (industrial slow cure epoxy) and copper wire. The window opening is the black line you see and the door panel will be larger than the Hysol by about an eighth of an inch or so. The window will be made up of windows from a Heli-Baby canopy. Hinges and door closures will be made from brass. I could use magnets to hold the door closed but should not need them for that purpose. Take care.

Don

[Keyrigger]

Here are the door hinge parts before silver soldering. I did a sketch from the original door hinges.

Don