AH-1G Cobra Vietnam

Sy Bar
A builds of firsts, my first Helicopter and first use of 3D decals. Turns out the kit was originally a HobbyBoss kit and looks great nice details and combination of fine panel lines and rivets where need, I have high hopes for this build. 🤞

Villiers de Vos
Coming along nicely. That 3D interior set looks beautiful.

Sy Bar
Cheers #Villiers, the 3d decals are fantastic and really elevate the tubs to a new level.

First real issue with the kit is the fit of the main body, it does not want to join easily and I can find a cause but most can be fixed by gluing a small section at a time and working down the body.
However the bottom section is far too narrow for the kit bottom part, creating large hangovers. This may suggest the bandy has a warp in it but this is modelling not assembly.
I've added a stretcher of sprue to force the side apart hopefully this will help and not cause more issues later.

Sy Bar
Another sort of issue although a little troublesome rather than true issue.
The instruction contain a couple of templates for both inner and outer glass masks (a great idea I wish more kits had). However they are way under scale, I resorted to old skool and used Tamiya tape and fresh blade with bright light behind (phone light 😁) and cut my own.
While right this it occurs to me they may be 1/72 scale and were not rescaled to 1/48 will check later.

Jens J.
It was not a Hobbyboss kit. It was a Special Hobby kit.

Sy Bar
Great spot #Jens J it is indeed Special Hobby plastic, my apologies to both Special Hobby and HobbyBoss for the confusion.
Just completed a HobbyBoss and had them on my mind, this would be an excuse if the sprues where not so well labeled and on the Quinta 3D decals 🤪

Sy Bar
The decals have been interesting. The look great and are nice and thin. I normally apply a gloss coat then decals but reading/watching so much about how this is not necessary I tested this out on an un-required decal and it appeared to be true so I pressed on without a gloss coat. They went down fine however for the first time ever I got some silvering and I'm not sure if I did something to cause it or not. So I glossed coated them and the rear tail half then applied the remainder and not issue of silvering, guess I'll be continuing with a gloss coat 🙄

The hardest decal was the shark mouth very tricky but going slowly I just about made it

Sy Bar
I thought the decal shark mouth was the hardest thing on this build, wow was I wrong…
It's the open canopy's they are but jointed and there not that much surface to but them either added to that the struts are so finicky to place makes the whole process a right royal pain in the butt. In the process of fitting the pilots front canopy strut it pinked off to another dimension. I did my best to make something similar but I sort of wished I'd buttoned it all up 🤔

Sy Bar
Decided to leave heavy weathering until/if I combine with other vehicles and figures in a diorama to ensure the weathering is consistent with in the scene.

Miguel Vaquero
Beautiful model mate!!

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work.