CH-53E

[Adam Baker]

Well, I finally got a chance to work in my new area, and the very first kit pulled out was my CH-53E.

Dont really have any progress to report yet, and just a single pic. But like a good book, you gotta start w/ the cover, hahaha

Im really stuck at the moment. I dont know how detailed I want to attempt to get w/ this build. I had thought about buying the PE that Eduard has available, but I just cant afford it. My modeling is being done on a shoe string budget, so I wont be buying any PE for awhile, thats for sure.

I do know that I'd like to remove the molded in screening over the rear drive train where it makes its bend up to the tail rotor. I'd also like to do some detail work on the interior. I have copied a lot of the walk around images from ARC, and saved them so I can use them for my build.

One question I do have, is about these pictures here:

My question is are these jump seats common on -53's? I think I like the look of those better than what Im assuming are gurney's that come w/ the kit. I think that Ive got the skill to at least attempt building the seats & frames. But I dont want to do it, if its not a common item on a -53.

Hopefully I'll have progress to report by the end of the weekend. Building will be slow, since I only have a couple of days each week where I've got any free time to even think about building.

Edited June 28, 2008 by Adam Baker

[53 Marine]

First off, welcome to group build - Not only is it great that we have another, but I am really happy that there will be another 53 build going on.

As to your question, those are the new crash worthy seats that were retrofitted to the CH-53E fleet. I am not sure when the implemented that change (or even if it is 100% now on the entire fleet) since the last time I flew in an Echo they did not have the FLIR Boom and they still had the bench style seating. (For that matter MCAS Tustin was still a pretty active base when I got out)

Lots of guys here that can answer your questions - looking forward to seeing your progress. (btw- nice shot of the box - yes, you have to start someplace)

[Adam Baker]

So then chances are, the 3 bird's that the kit decals portray may have those? And do you know if there are any schematics or anything available for those seats, that would make building them a little easier?

Im not really worried about things being 100% accurate. Im more concerned about having a good looking model when Im done.

Right now, Im looking at either going w/ Iron Horse, or the Grey/Black/Green that the directions say was at MCAS New River in the '90s.

Im also considering the new decals that were just posted in the helo forum. Thought they were some really nice looking decals, so those are an option as well. Its going to be quite awhile before this things get to the paint & decal stage, so Ive got time to decide on decals. However, I know I wont be doing the solid green bird that the kit decals can do. Just dont like the look of that one, haha.

Edited June 29, 2008 by Adam Baker

[doupnik]

Looking forward to your build.

Regarding the seats, I'm pretty sure the 53 that is the subject of my build had the benches and I can't recall seeing too many 53s with the new seats. But I am only an air show observer, not an expert.

mason

[Adam Baker]

Well, after giving it some thought, I think that Im going to give the Crash Worthy Seats a shot. Does this look like the correct seat? Im trying to find a schematic or design to work from, and so far this is by far the best Ive been able to come up w/. The website gives dimensions & such, that I may be able to use to create a jig. Looks like it would be fairly easy to build the frame, and lord knows that right now Ive got plenty of Evergreen round stock styrene in which to build them with. The part that I know will give me the most trouble, will be the canvas seating.

http://www.martin-baker.co.uk/Products/Cra...unner-Seat.aspx

If anyone has any more shots of the Crash Worthy Seats, especially in the open position, I'd be very greatful for them. I think that I'd probably build several in both positions, and then mix & match them for some variation.

Im also probably going to try scratch building an engine, but havent decided on that one. I may have some connections through work, to be able to get pic's of the engines, since the company I work for deals pretty heavily w/ General Electric, but on the Aerospace & Power Generation divisions.

Edited June 29, 2008 by Adam Baker

[Adam Baker]

Well, no pic's to show, but making a little bit of progress. So far Ive spent all my time working on sanding the mold seams off of the rotor head components. Im stuck right now, on whether I want to build the rotor deployed, or stowed, so thats really holding up progress.

I have a question for anyone that may know. What panels are openable on these things? Ive seen a build done where the hatch under the pilot was opened, and I noticed there's a hatch on both sides, also noticed there's a hatch dead center on the nose. And then there are some hatches up high where the engines & drive train are located.

I'd love to try my hand at building & detailing at least one engine, so that will be another project for me.

For the Crash Worthy Seats, Im going to see if I can get any information on them directly from Martin Baker, and then go from there. Im hoping their construction will be fairly straight forward. According to the MB website, apparently each '53 is supposed to be supplied 31 of the seats. Dont know if I want to attempt to make 31 of 'em, haha.

[53 Marine]

The hatch on the nose, and one under each side window are all avioincs bays. They house radios, radalts, encryption gear, afcs gear and a bunch of other things. Lots of wiring and lots of neat looking equipement. I plan on doing one myself at some point.

On the echo, all of the engines can be opened up, along with the doghouse (the fairing that the rotor head is sitting on top of) From Front to back inside the (folding and sliding) doghouse you should have the APP, Accesory Gearbox (which has generators and engine start motors), then the Main Gear Box. There is alot more up there, but that pretty much covers all of the major components. You should have some fold down panels by the Main Gearbox as well - some of these will double as maintenance platforms.

Another good thing to open up are the maintenance platforms that fold out forward on each sponson. Plenty of reference sources should be available should you want to tackle these conversions.

[Adam Baker]

Well, I just downloaded a ton of pic's from DefenseImagery.mil, that I think will help. Got a few engine shots & the like. But very little in the way of avionic's & that sort of thing. Also dont think I really saw any of the maintenance platforms.

But Im still looking for more, hahah. Think Im going to look into the Landing Zone book. Wish I had airshow's closer to me, where I could take first hand pic's.

Did get some really excellent pictures of the rotor head, that I think will come in very handy. Im going to upload all the pic's I have found, to my photobucket account, for anyone thats interested.

Edited July 2, 2008 by Adam Baker

[53 Marine]

I will see what I can do to get a few pics illustrating what I am talking about.

[Adam Baker]

Well, my first progress shots. Not much, but its definitely progress, haha. So far Ive spent the vast majority of my time just working on cleaning up the parts for the rotor head, all 46 of 'em, hahaha. The rotor head is a model almost in itself.

Did get the fuselage dry fitted together also. This is a big beast, haha. Be quite awhile before this thing looks like this for good, haha

Also thought that I'd share that I found a lot of really good reference images, especially of the rotor head. Downloaded probably two dozen images from DefenseImagery.mil last night of the '53. Just put in the subject your looking for, and it pulls all images matching. It pulled about 400 images containing a '53 in it, and I dl'd everyone that I thought I could use for my build.

Here are a couple of the images I found last night of the rotor head, that will come in very very handy. Most of the images are huge (3000x2000 on a couple of 'em). If anyone is interested in what Ive found, let me know and I'll be more than happy to email 'em out. Also found a handful of pretty good engine shots.

Also did some looking locally today to find a pounce wheel so that I can work on the rivits for my model, and came up w/ nothing. Gonna try a couple more local places in hopes of finding one locally, before I go online & buy 'em. Found a few places online that sell the same things at Micro Mark, for cheaper.

*edit* Something I just remembered that I wanted to post, from a couple pic's I found last night. There's a discussion in another '53 thread about the color coding of the rotor blades. Some of these pic's have excellent shots of the color coding.

Here's a perfect shot of the tail rotor w/ the color bands

And here's a couple shots of the main rotor head

If you look at the top of the rotor hinge, just under the top plate, you can see the red stripe

An awesome top down shot that will definitely be useful, here you can see the stripe on most of the blades

And I could be mistaken, but from this shot, it almost looks like that the colored stripes are also on the swash plate (man, I hope thats the correct term, the large disk under the rotor, that controls the pitch of the blades). The stripes appear to be on the bottom side, where the links that run between the plate & the rotor blades, bolt to the horns on the plate, I hope that makes sense. The full size image is huge (3504x2336), so its easier to make out the details, than it is in the 1024x768 image that Photobucket downsized the image to. The horn directly to the left of the guy in the center of the image has a red stripe, and the horn to his right almost appears to have a yellow stripe, but its hard to make out. However, if you look at the first rotor head shot, there are no stripes on the bottom of the plate. So if there are stripes in the image below, it would appear that its not something done to all airframes. Could be something that was done up to a certain date, or was instituted at a certain point. Who knows. Just wanted to share this info, as I thought it was good to get out there, since it was discussed elsewhere.

Edited July 3, 2008 by Adam Baker

[Adam Baker]

Well, was able to make a lot of progress this weekend.

Spent all of my time working on the rotor head, and so far I think its looking pretty good. Im using the top shot I posted above, and working to get my rotor head to match as closely as possible, so I have, or will, rework most of the parts.

The first thing I started out doing, was drilling the hinge joint on all of the folding blades. This was done for 2 reasons. First, if you look at the top shot pic above, the bolt hole in the hinge is fairly visible, so I wanted to add that. But by doing this, it also helps add support to the hinge joint. It concerned me once the model was done, that the hinge joint would be very fragile, and not be able to hold up to much.

So it was drilled out using a .018" drill bilt (#78 I believe), and then a 26 gauge wire was inserted in the joint. Also note the color coding on all 7 parts, to help make sure that they get positioned correctly. Thanks a ton for who ever posted up the mnemonic about remembering the blade color.

A little bit closer shot

Once all 6 hinge bases were drilled, I started on the next step.

The part that the rotor blade attaches to, has a notch in the center, and 2 holes for the pins that secure the hinge joint for flight. Was very concerned about this, but it turned out to be a lot easier to pull off than I had expected it to be. Probably less than 5 minutes per part. Used a small modeling file to get the notch in the center, and a .028" drill bit was used to drill the holes.

Sorry for the kinda blurry pic, Ive had a ton of trouble getting pic's of this part to come out clear, b/c of its size.

And then once this was done to all 6 of the pieces, I began the next step.

After really looking at the reference picture, I figured out that the raised portion in the center of the hinge base was going to have to be removed, b/c Im going to bite the bullet and scratch build the linkage that controls the hinge of the blade. Not sure how difficult its going to be to build the linkage, but I think that it will be worth the effort, since its such a visible area.

Again, was expecting the modification to be difficult, but it turned out to be pretty easy.

And now all of them are finished up, waiting for the next step, which will probably be the start of building the hinge linkage. The biggest issue I can think of, is I dont know what the final position of each blade is going to be yet, so I may have to wait to build the linkages till almost the very end, so that I can get the linkages done correctly, and make sure that the blades are in the correct position. With my luck, I'd do it now, and then get the blade angle off really bad, and either have to live w/ it, or have to break apart the linkages and try again.

[VG 33]

Hi

What a nice Rainbow

Patrick

[Adam Baker]

haha, thanks. I did that so that I could make sure the rotor ends make it into the correct position when its built. The 53 uses color codes on each blade to notate its position, the colors being Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Green, White and Black. Figured I'd use the same colors to help make sure they get into the right spot.

[TaiidanTomcat]

Great start!

[marine4 ever]

very well done adam. the open engine bays and Dog House would look great! can't wait to see another $hitter built in this GB. i think i have some real nice pic's of the avionics bays and other areas of interest. i'll look through my files and PM you for an e-mail addy.

Semper Fi

Dan

[53 Marine]

Great start Adam. Really looking forward to seeing what else you plan on doing with this bird.

[X-RAY]

Talk about some serious TLC! This is going to be a good build.

Jake

[doupnik]

Awesome start, I can't wait to see your progress.

mason

[Adam Baker]

Well, last bit of progress for the weekend.

Spent time working on the 8 rotor blades that came in the kit. I know that only 7 will be used when Im done, but I figured I'd go ahead and clean up the 8th, just in case I need a spare or something down the road.

Started by cleaning off all the mold seams & such, then moved on from there. At the root of all the blades, are 3 pairs of ridges, that are molded there to represent straps that hold down a wiring harness that runs down to a sensor at the root, and then down to Im assuming probably de-icing boots on the leading edges or something else.

Here's a shot of what I did to the blades

And here is a nice upclose shot of the root of the blades, showing the wiring that Im talking about. Down the road, I'll add this wiring. Not sure at the moment what Im going to do, to simulate the straps that hold the wiring down. Im thinking the easiest method would be to take thin strips of decal paper, and laying it down once I have the wire layed down, so that it will go over the wiring.

[doupnik]

I haven't taken a good look at my blades, but the kit is definitely lacking detail there as well. I am thinking more 32 gauge wire and Tamiya tape.

Nice pics, those will be helpful.

mason

[Avus]

Veeeery nice progress!

I love how the hinges turned out. looking forward for the next progress pics.

[marine4 ever]

And here is a nice upclose shot of the root of the blades, showing the wiring that Im talking about. Down the road, I'll add this wiring. Not sure at the moment what Im going to do, to simulate the straps that hold the wiring down. Im thinking the easiest method would be to take thin strips of decal paper, and laying it down once I have the wire layed down, so that it will go over the wiring.

i'd use thin strips of aluminium foil. it'll conform to the bend better than decal paper and gice you a little more definition. the progress on those rotor ends are fantastic.

semper fi

Dan

[Adam Baker]

Oh, yea. Maybe use something like Bare Metal Foil, since its adhesive backed. Think that would definitely work better than decal paper would.

[Adam Baker]

Ok, finally have a little bit more to post up. Been long enough I had to go digging to find my thread, haha.

Started riveting my Echo, and screwed it up royally. Was supposed to be using the 21 TPI pounce wheel, but didnt pay attention to what I was doing, and grabbed on of the 15 TPI wheels, and layed down 2 lines before I realized what I had done. Had to get a hold of Mason, and beg/borrow/steal the other fuselage half that he got when he got the replacement parts when he had a problem w/ his riveting.

So I have to give a very huge gigantic shout out to Mason for saving my butt. Told him I'd screwed mine up, and within just a few days, a nice shiny brand new unmolested fuselage showed up in the mail.

Got a couple lines layed down as soon as the fuselage showed up, but then work & school got in the way, and I wasnt able to do any more, until this morning.

Here's where she stands as of right now. I think that Mason's riveting looks better than what Ive got so far, but Im still pleased with it. But there's still plenty of time for me to screw it up, haha.

Im really hoping to make some serious progress on 'er tomorrow. While I was working on laying it out, I decided to pull out my dial micrometer, and make a good guess as the distance between the rivet lines, and came up w/ .130" between the horizontal lines, so that little tid bit of info will make laying out future lines a lot easier, and gives me something to work with once I get the first lines layed down. Wont be bad for the other half of the fuselage, but Im kinda concerned about the bottom plate. But I guess I shouldnt be too incredibly worried, since the bottom plate wont be all that visible.

Still trying to decide on a paint scheme & decals, but after talking w/ Mason about the Flying Leatherneck decals, and the CD provided w/ them, Im strongly leaning toward getting those, particularly b/c of the CD. Mason said there are some real awesome pic's that would probably come in very handy.

I know its still way to early to predict things, but at this point, between what I have planned, the time I think IM going to have to work on it in the future, and the amount of time left, Im predicting that Im not going to make the deadline. I dont think it'll be done by Jan. 1, but Im sure going to work on it like crazy to do it.

Edited July 26, 2008 by Adam Baker

[doupnik]

Nice start. You are putting a lot more thought into this one than I did and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Your lines look fine, I like how they are showing an even set of holes, mine don't.

Your rivets look great, keep it up. Those 53 fuselages look great with riveting.

mason

Edited July 26, 2008 by doupnik