Saturday, April 25, 2015

Helicopter Resurrection

I decided to invest in a test purchase of some Hurlbat etched rotor discs to help resurrect some tatty old helicopter models.

I ordered two of the rotors designed for the Westland Lynx and two for the Mil Hind or Hip.  I also ordered a single AH-64 Apache rotor.  Sadly I completed the order without remembering to add on some tail rotor discs.

The discs come with one side covered by a blue coating that you need to peel off.  This can be a little tricky.  I get the impression that heat used to cut out the disc may slightly weld the plastic coating to the disc.  Here are a couple of four-blade Lynx rotors, one with the coating removed.


I tried a Mi-8 Hip first as it had a nice, clean surface into which I could drill a hole for the length of pin I intended to use to mount the rotor.

I snipped about 5mm off the head end of the pin to act as the rotor head gear.  I carefully superglued the pin to the disc (which comes pre-drilled) and then superglued the pin into the drilled hole.  The result was OK I think.



Note, that's the original tail rotor disc that came with the model.  It's noticeably yellowed compared to the Hurlbat disc.

Among the helicopters I need to upgrade are a couple of Pumas.  Hurlbat don't make a Puma disc (it wants to be four bladed and 52mm in diameter but I thought I'd have a go trying out the smaller Apache disc.

Below you can see a Puma with an Apache disc next to one with the original, cast, white metal rotors.


I think that looks OK.  I shall invest in a couple more as well as the large number of Chinook discs I need for my seven Boeing Sea Knights!

More photos to come when I get the rest of the current batch of helos upgraded.



4 comments:

airhead said...

They look really good.

all the best

Airhead

Counterpane said...

Thanks Airhead.

Andy Canham said...

Excellent, I shall be ordering some for my Lynx for the game in September. Might even upgrade the US Marine helos for Jo6. Cheers, Andy

Tales from Shed HQ said...

They look great!