WIP: Eurocopter BK-117 "Space Design" D-HBKS
The Kit
Sprue "1"
Sprue"2"
Clearsprue
Decals
Instructions
Details Exterior
Details Inside
Detail Seats
I started by removing the ejector pin marks on the cabin inside...
... and assembling the tail.
The seats gor open backrests...
wich I closed for the first 2 rows.
I don't like tail-sitters -> some lead inside of the pedestal
The step in the roof section is closed with sheet, the gaps filled with putty.
OOB the rotorshaft would go down inside the cabin, so I had to modify it a bit. The rotor control also looks quite monolithic.
So I removed some unnessasary material and replaced the shaft with a 0.8 mm hypodermic needle
While I was at it I started assembling the main Rotor.
Dry-fitting showed some problems between the tail and the cowling (the angel between the cowling rear face and the tail-boom front part is about 8°). I hope matching the build groups is easier than the seperat parts.
The passanger seats are installed, a hot behind the last sets fabricated and fitted to the fuselage sides.
The forward hole in the sealing is closed, a air chanel for the ventilation installed. I could just see a little bit of this chanel on one photo, so most of it is based on my imagination.
The cowling ond rear sections are joint. The angle of the kontact surfaces seams to be the correct one, so I had to modify the fixing points.
for a 1988 tool the fit is quite good. With the modifications I made the model snaps together quite nice and one can even lift it on the tail.
One can see at least a bit of the improofments through the windows.
I made blinds out of aluminum foil and installed them.
Interiour nearly finisched.
I did some improvements on the exteriour.
Some Styrenstrips & sheet and some aluminium tape.
I hope this will come out much better with paint. If not I can use putty and try something else to ad the forgotten openings & grills.
I started painting the interiour.
Some details are painted,
decals on the panel and the buckles of the seatbelts scratched from alutape. With the litle bit one can see when the fuselage is closed that should be enough.
Most of the wIndows are installed. There are no frames, so ist very difficult to glue them in without getting the glue on the window. So when possible I masked them from both sides, if not just from the outside.
The Inside of the widows are cleaned, the fuselage closed. Next step: Filler & sanding.
A lot of sanding and filling. Most dissapointing is the fact, that the glareshild is part of the fuselage halves, so sanding inside the allmost closed fuselage in nessecary. Cross your fingers, I can blow our all the dust.
Sanding on most of the fuselage seams succsessful, ...
but not on the glareschield. Here I used a 3rd layer of putty. Priming the fuselage and checking the seams will have to wait till the front window is installed after the glareshield is done..
The bid hole in the glareshield is finaly closed and painted. now I can install the windshield. I also worked on the new installation of the rotorshaft, as the original ends inside the cabin.
There is a shorter shaft made from steel tube, extra mounting points at the top and bottom of the engine compartment and the schaft will get fixed at the top.
The main rotor is painted dark gray.
At sunday I installed the engine compartment, the rotorshaft and the tail, so today i could prime everything. As you can see ther are still imperfections, so back to puttying and sanding.
The figures for the project: The pilots and the already painted pair are from 2 sets from Preiser, the 3D printed figures from the sets from FC Model Trend.
The figures for the project: The pilots and the already painted pair are from 2 sets from Preiser, the 3D printed figures from the sets from FC Model Trend.
The figure of the woman unfortunately broke out of the printing frame during transportation and lost the heels of her shoes. This is the first time I will be using 3d printed parts.
Before I try to remove the paint from the figures, I have already cleaned up the mold parting seams, filled the ejector holes and exposed undercuts with the Dremel and 0.5 mm drill bit (e.g. under the solid cast skirt).
Unfortunately, I only got the figures from Preiser pre-painted. Not only are they many times more expensive, I also have more work to do to remove the paint. Unfortunately, this is not even usable as a base coat, as the figures were not cleaned up before painting.
The printed figures got a very thin layer of primer, just enogh that one can see where work is nessesary. That wasn't possible with the semi transperant meterial.
After 24 houres for the oven cleaner and nearly 3 houresof scraping and brushing most of the paint is removed from the Preiser figures. There were up to 4 paint layers on top of each other and it lookd like some of them they were aplied by dipping.
I started with the base. I glued a piece of styrofoam to a wooden board and covered it with polystyrene sheets.
The excess length was cut off so that I can glue on matching trim after painting the sides of the house. The transitions between the panels have been filled.
I sprayed the skin areas with colors from Vallejo.
Everything else is Aqueous Hobby Colors applied with a brush.
I worked a bit on the building, but I have to buy some meterial tomorow.
I build the roof exit. Here need some profiles I dont have here too.
Internal construction
This is roughly how the finished roof exit is installed.
During the week I found a few minutes in the evening to continue painting the figures.
The base needs some more clean ups.
The roof exit recived a door and some round profiles for the edges.
An other "hut" with who knows what's inside.
The chimny
The various roof superstructures could be positioned in this or a similar way. Now the large heat exchangers for the air conditioning system, a switch cabinet for the lighting, the rails for the window cleaners, lots of pipes and of course the helicopter platform are still missing.
Коментарі
29 24 June, 19:12
NicolasAs soon as I finish one of my 3 current projects (2 of them ar nearly done) I will start with this little helicopter.
24 June, 19:17
NicolasAs I am covid positive (fortunately only with very mild syntomas) I had some time to build again today. So far I am positively surprised by the accuracy of fit. There are no locator pins, but I can now click the fuselage and cockpit together and even the tail section holds without glue.
8 July, 19:15
NicolasI would like to do some rivets on the exteriour, but I couldn't find some good drawings. If somebody has a hint I would be grateful.
8 July, 19:56
NicolasToday I started installing the controls. Doing so I noticed, the collectiv controls are missinh in the kit. So I started scratchbuilding them after photos. Also fabricated and installed blinds for the paxes.
9 July, 19:06
Shar DipreeI have the same kit too. I'm really looking forward to your results. Following. 🙂
13 July, 05:27
NicolasWelcome Łukasz, there is no reason to be afraid. The fit seams quite good, and the missing details is somthin one can improve. 😉
15 July, 16:33
bughunterThe Colani design is cool 👍 Have fun!
And I hope your covid is gone without bad effects!
19 July, 18:39
NicolasHi Bughunter, thanks.
Covid wasn't to bad, I got 3 day with mild syntomas and 5 days waiting for a negativ test. 😉
19 July, 19:38
Mr DDone some nice improvements Nicolas... Be worth it, it's good to do this as puts a nice personal touch on it, l need to pick up some card like you have used ( what is it l need to look for ?)
The 2 Revell models l built ...l found the decals took a bit more softening than others models l have done!? the decals said made in Italy....no company name.
Looking good 👍 be nice bright unusual one this 😁
8 August, 19:53
NicolasHallo Mr D and thanks.
You can look for plastic sheets and profiles (tubes, chanels, I-beams, etc,) from various manufacturers like AK or Evergreen or use packing material eg. most blisterpacks. 😉
9 August, 05:02
Mr DHi Nicolas, doing a good job on the extra detail bits.
Be worth it, you only get to build it once...so worth getting it how you want it.
Nice 👍👍👍
24 August, 10:45
Kesa TihoVery nice build. Ive always been curious though, how do you get such a precise paint job. Especially with the interior.
16 September, 19:01
NicolasHi Kesa, I do most of the interior freehand with a small brush (mostly size 000, but details sometimes with size 10/0) and well diluted paint. You kan put your brushhand onto the hand holding the part to reduce shaking.
16 September, 19:11
NicolasAfter sanding, priming and repainting the helicopter several times today, there's not much new here, but I used the drying time as much as possible to start on the first figures for the diorama.
5 October, 19:06
NicolasThe helicopter was sanded, primed, filled and primed again today. In the meantime, I'm almost satisfied with the result. Visible progress has only been made on the figures.
6 October, 19:19
NicolasWelcome Finn, thanks Mr D.
After 2 weekends without crafting (1x at an exhibition, 1x food poisoning) the work continues here. I have started painting the figures. I was also able to start on the diorama base plate. This represents the windowless top floor of a high-rise building in which the technology such as elevators, fire water supply or air conditioning is located. A subsequently mounted helipad is then installed on the roof.
27 October, 20:15
Patrick HagelsteinHi Nicolas! Sorry to hear that you were ill... Hopefully things are getting better now! I'm also sorry you had to scrub those Preiser figures as Preiser offers these exact figures in 1/72 in bare white plastic as well. I had my local hobby shop (in Aachen) order them for me from the Preiser catalogue. Maybe something for a next project?
27 October, 20:26
Mr DHi Nicolas 👋 glad your getting back to a bit of modeling... Diorama sounds interesting 👍
27 October, 21:39
NicolasWelcome Michael & Patrick
@ Patrick: I know, I have already used the unpainted figures in another project. But unfortunately I couldn't get them from the local dealer or on ebay or similar.
28 October, 05:32
Album info
Build proces for my 1/72 Eurocopter BK-117 in Stunning Space Design colours designed by Luigi Colani. The Kit is based on a 1988 Matchbok kit and there is no detail set or a kit from better moulds that I know of. So I'll try to improve this oldie a little bit.
I'm going to present the helicopter on a helipad in a city with 2 pilots waiting for some VIPs.
