AREA 88: "The Olive Grove" (CH-54 Tarhe)

Greg Baker
Ok... so all the parts are here. Of course there's no instructions, so it's hard to be sure...

...
..
.

Now what do I do? I'm thinking I might need to crowd source this one a bit...

Greg Baker
After looking at it a bit, I think there's no danger to glue on the main part of the legs to the body... nothing seems fiddly there.

I also think there's a choice to be made... use the resin closed cockpit, or the vacuum formed clear one... that might be where to start.

Bart Goesaert
and following...

Patrick Hagelstein
I once built a Revell 1/72 Tarhe. Wouldn't the instructions be here on Scalemates, so you can use those to check?

Donald Dickson II
Honestly, at 144 I would just go with the resin nose and blacked out windows.

Donald Dickson II
When I get home I will scan the instructions on the one I have

Rv
Nice and interesting subject, I'm in !
For the cockpit... the clear part seems to be quite ugly, so I would go for the resin nose.

Erik De Smet
Motorizing the rotor, Greg ?

Greg Baker
That is also up for debate... but it's being considered.😉

Matthew A
241 photos and a video walkaround may help

net-maquettes.com/pi..ikorsky-ch-54-tarhe/

Matthew A
I foresee a lot of drilling if motorising the rotor - and how on earth would you get a pulley or something into the tail of 1:144 resin

Matthew A
What volume is this partofthe story in? [mustgetanewkeboardthespacebaristurningancientgreekorjustplaindying]

Greg Baker
So, after a bit of a test, i'm Confident I can insert a motor that will be small enough to fit within the rotor housing/fuselage. Shouldn't be too much drilling... one hole down from the top for alignment, and a larger one from the bottom up to slide the motor in. Only the thin wires should be visible in the end.

I was feeling confident, so I got the main part of the legs on, and the tail, but then I stalled. I still haven't figured out where all the small parts go yet. I'm also a bit confused by the cabin. The vacuum-formed bit is shallower than the resin part, so i'm wondering what's supposed to happen here. There's a bit of clear plastic sheeting, which I assume is for the pod windows, so I'm guessing the vacuum formed parts are for the same. Do I need to drill and trim out the windows on the resin and then cut out and glue in the clear panes from the vacuum form?

Bart Goesaert
when looking at the parts, isn't it possible to keep a part of the resin cabin (Cut off the front) and keep the rear, so you have some resin to glue to the body of the chopper? Then the other vacformed piece to the rear of this part? Just my 2 cents. When it isn't clear, I'll try to make a drawing...

Greg Baker
That might work... if I can manage to cut it in a straight line.

Bart Goesaert
You can do it 😉

Matthew A
looks like you are ment to cut our holes in the resin to insert the vac too parts to me. examples of their other kits [img1] [img2] [img3] [img4] [img5] [img6] I notice they haven't tried glueing it in on their own builds

Donald Dickson II
Argh, forgot to post the instructions. I promise I will do so tonight.

Greg Baker
Yeah... that was my first thought. Let's try that first... if I butcher the windows, then we still have a chance to try to glue the whole thing on the front. I'm feeling a bit confident because I was able to drill out a nearly perfect slot for the motor.... so let's roll some dice!

Patrick Hagelstein
I'll keep my thumbs up! 👍👍

Matthew A
If it all goes wrong it's only another £50+ to replace it

Greg Baker
No worries Don. One of the Revell kits has instructions... which only partially helped since "resin blob" is not clearly marked...😉

Matthew A
Glad those rotors have rod in them otherwise they would have broken when I sneezed

Greg Baker
Geez Matthew... no pressure! I'm well aware of the replacement price and tag!😉

I carefully started cutting out the windows, and even though it's slow going, I feel we're heading down the correct path. Let's hope! Thanks for the support though, you've been a giant help on lots of my builds lately. It's much appreciated!

Patrick Hagelstein
No way Greg, looks like you nailed it again! 👍

Greg Baker
It's a long way to go before I'll be ready to call it...😉

I'm still having some trouble figuring out where some of the parts go. In the latest pic I know where everything should go roughly except the pieces along the bottom. There's a little box with wings, and a pipe (that goes up near the rotor, but attached to what?). There's also a few mysteries on the parts held together by flash. I can figure out the three wheels easily enough, but the wire "V" shaped bits i'm guessing are the four anchor points that go on either side of the legs along the fuselage. But the two hammers and the four little squarish bits are a complete blank.

Bart Goesaert
V-shapes (small) oleo scissors main legs, Hammers seem to be mounted right behind the engines, connecting to the main rotor gear box, squarish plates, on the revell box, there are some plates behind and above the engines: scale-rotors.com/gal..skycrane-revell.html

Bart Goesaert
That build from scalerotors is a stunner by the way...

Greg Baker
Thanks Bart... that does help a bit. And that build is a stunner!

Donald Dickson II
OK, perhaps these for the pieces in the middle. Still trying to figure those rhomboid looking parts
[img1]

Greg Baker
That's what I thought as well, even though those ones have three legs and these are only two (or three if I find some wire). I'm glad I'm not the only one who's not quite sure what to do with all these bits and bobs.

Bart Goesaert
Did you try to contact the company: ruporator@yahoo.com? Only thing that comes close for the rhomboid structures, are the guards in front off the engines... Quite expensive stuff on their site, but looks very nice

Greg Baker
Ok. So, after some careful looking and studying, I've come to the conclusion that the 4 little bits I couldn't figure out are, in fact, un-used extras. They don't appear on the website/eBay parts photos (although apparently I didn't get a full complement of brass wires either... but I can work around that easily enough). The only one of the three kit versions to list the parts is the Daisy Cutter, but their location in the mould leads me to believe that there was no real point in trying to remove them.

With that settled, everything else now makes sense. So I glued a few more of the bits on, lest they become wayward snacks for the carpet monster, and I kept doing surgery on the cabin windows. So far (SO FAR) I've only snapped one bit of framing, but it was easily replaced with a bit of styrene and some CA glue. Still some more windows to drill out, so... fingers crossed!

Matthew A
Good work!?!

Bart Goesaert
looks good so far...

Spanjaard
Wie, no instructions.....but you will figure out

Greg Baker
Ok. Back at this one now... got some of the clear parts cut out CAREFULLY and glued in place with the resin parts. It's some tricky patient business, but so far so good... (famous last words!)

Matthew A
Well done

Greg Baker
Thanks Matthew. It's getting there...slowly.😉

Matthew A
Can't be any slower than my projects - I've a star wars A-Wing I started in 1996

Greg Baker
It's.... alive!

Matthew A
I'd forgotten about this one 😛

Alex K
I hadn't! But that's the great thing about Greg: he never disappoints the audience! He can go on a spree of 3 or 4 parallel builds for the same collection, or resurrect a long forgotten project, or come up with something completely different but devilishly original!

Greg Baker
Hah! Thanks Alex! The show must go on! There are relatively few projects I've actually abandoned, but sometimes they get pushed aside for whatever reason. I'm working on this project, my Macchi C.202, and my Area 88 dual Crusaders project actively. But I've got a couple of 1/72 Tintin projects that need some love as well, so they're likely up next.

Anyway, I uploaded a new pic to prove this project has been rescued. Cutting out tiny vacu-formed windows and carefully putting them in frames cut out of solid resin is a challenge, but we're almost through those rough waters. So I anticipate smoother sailing on the other side... 🙂

Alex K
A prolific builder, a gentleman modeller - and a great showman😉 Respects!

Greg Baker
We're starting to get on a roll now. After I got all the windows cut and inserted, things became a lot easier. The cabin is now attached and I can start figuring out where all the bits go. With absolutely no instructions, it's a bit of a mystery, but I think I've got it. I added some extra wire to give the load-bearing hook holders a third leg. I also had to just sort of guess on the tail - but I added some wire there for support struts.

Spanjaard
👍

Greg Baker
So what colour do you paint a CH-54 that only appears in a B&W manga? Well, the name of the project is the Olive Grove... so there really is only one colour...😉

Amazing how that first coat of paint never seems to take any prisoners, though, innit? Needs some sanding touch ups.

Greg Baker
Ok, we're all wired up and spinning! We're now rolling down the other side of this project towards the finish line.

Slavo Hazucha
I can feel it lifting off already! 👍

Spanjaard
Houston, we have lift off!

Greg Baker
We're getting close.. might work better if I put some blades in the propeller though...😉

Nikolaos Kouzinis
Good luck Greg

Daniel Klink
Unbelievable in this small scale.... Fantastic progress Greg...

Greg Baker
Thanks guys! This one was a long time coming, and I have to admit... that resin CH-54 kit cost more than I usually want to spend, so I tried to make an extra effort with this one. To that end, I decided that, since it was landing, I should try to slow the rotor down. I almost slowed it down too much by having too high resistance on the 5V circuit, but after a bit of fiddling to make sure it doesn't rub on anything, it looks like it worked.

Youtube Video

Nikolaos Kouzinis
Bravo Greg!

Slavo Hazucha
The little F-5 is seriously jealous of the spinning rotor, turned away and won't look that way for anything in the world!😉

Great finish Greg! 👍

Donald Dickson II
Wow! You wrapped that up quickly once you got back to it. And, as always, fantastic job.

Erik De Smet
This is what we like in your work, Greg

Greg Baker
Thanks guys. You're right Slavo... the indignity faced by a sleek jet fighter having to get a ride back to base in the trunk of a lumbering helicopter. They probably had to blindfold it.😉

Don, after cutting out and glueing in all the tiny windows, there really wasn't much else to it. It's just a stick, a block and a rotor. I didn't dare to let it stall again though.

And thanks for the watchful eye, Erik. You'll notice in one of the pics I broke the motor wires. Lucking there wasn't really an "inside the fuselage" this time, and I had a spare, so it was easily just replaced. Oh, that they were all that easy. I did almost solder the wires to the base backwards - which usually doesn't matter that much to me since they're spinning so fast you can't tell. But with this one spinning so slowly, you really don't want to reverse the rotor spin. I caught it by doing "one last test" and I'm glad I did.

Greg Baker
OK, so my blog is updated - strobez.ca/wp/index...rove-pickup-area-88/ - feel free to check it out to see all the pictures and read a few pages of the manga upon which this project is based.

Alex K
And who's gonna pay for all those destroyed olives, eh?😉

Greg Baker
Hehe... yeah. That always makes me smile. When I visited Athens, the people seemed pretty serious about those olive trees. Besides, Shin didn't break a single branch landing an F-5A, so it would be a shame to spoil his effort by using a rocket-booster for takeoff. 😄

Matthew A
Brilliant

Spanjaard
excellent result Greg

Nils Steyaert
excellent work 👍

Greg Baker
Thanks guys!