AC130H - Finished

Finished this one a coupld of weeks ago, but was waiting for a day with somewhat decent light to take the final pictures. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I have no space to put it though :-).
Hanging from the ceiling would be weird, with the loading ramp open and all, but once all the new closets are installed, this one will proudly sit on top of them.

Kit: AC130H Spectre II
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Esci
Price: around €12 (second-hand)
Number of parts: 202
Time spent: 38 hours
Project completion time: 7 months

Paint : (Vallejo)

• Black primer
• Pale grey blue (71.046) - Belly
• Intermediate blue (71.005) - Overall colour
• Interior green (71.010) - Cockpit
• German grey (71.052) - "Black" details (I rarely use actua black anymore)
• Details in flat yellow, scarlet red, olive drab, gun metal, ...

 Other products :

• Alclad II klear kote (semi-matte)
• Mig productions Abteiling 502 "starship filth" (overall sludge wash)

Findings or issues?

Overall fit isn't that great. Fitting the fuselage halves together was .... a challenge. The building instructions leave much to be desired. Some parts are never mentioned, but some steps later suddenly appear on the drawings.

• E46 (the tips of the vulcan guns) isn't mentioned
• H1-2-3 never mentioned
• A22 (front door) never mentioned, but I'm thinking I should have used A21.
• C34 should be E21
• ...

Above issues can be remedied by paying extra attention and reading the instructions twice before you start, but there was also :

• The positions for the 50mm cannon and 105mm Howitzer are swapped in the instructions but that would make no sense (and wouldn't fit properly)
• There's no way you can fit C9 (staircase to cockpit) correctly
• E35 (sensor unit) is way to small (at least 50%)
• A29 (loading ramp) can be posed open, but the attachment points are too high
• A30 (secondary part, aft of the loading bay doors) has no proper way to be positioned open/inside, thus blocking the view of the inside. (some extra styrene required)
• The antenna wires that should run from the tail to the front, have no attachment points. You could scratch-built them, but I omitted them altogether.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but I don't want to sound ALL negative. Overall, I still enjoyed building it and it's a nice big(!) display piece.

AC130H - Moment of truth

Weathering is done (slightly too heavy in some places) and after another coat of flat, it's finally time to see if we did a good job masking all those cockpit windows. I dare say it's okay.
Flaws are extra visible under the harsh bench light. It actually looks better in reality.

And because nothing can go completely right - even just for once - the last window fell inward when removing the liquid mask.
Do I dare re-attach the twice-broken antenna at this point?

AC130H - Weathering with oils

I recently started experimenting with oil paints, and I'm starting to really like them, for subtle (or not so subtle) touches. On the (completely white) Viper Mark II, I will try subtle dot-fading later, but on the much darker models of the AC130H and the Viper Mark VII, I'm currently going all out.

The idea is to slather the entire thing with a dirty (not completely black, but really dark) oil paint, then rub it back off (in the direction of airflow) with a cloth (cotton buds for the details and corners). Best done on a glossy finish, or else the oil will stick to the surface no matter what. The effect's subtlety is directly related to how glossy you made the clear coat.

I'm using Mig Abteilung 502 "Starship filth" which is kinda dark-grey/green.
The effect is threefold (and best seen with the naked eye, as it's hard to fully grab on camera) :

• discoloration
• panel line accentuation
• streaking

The result is slightly shiny from the oil, which reduces in sheen over the next couple of days. Give it 5 days before you put on a matte coat. If you only work on your model once a week, this long drying time gives no disadvantage whatsoever. If you do happen to see a smear afterwards, it's easily removed with turpentine/white spirit up to 2-3 days later (maybe more, but don't push your luck).

If you worry about the thinner's smell, there are (as good as) odourless variants out there.

AC130H - Lousy decals

I forgot to post progress about the closed-up, all-painted-up plane, but you'll see all about it in the next/last post, when it's finished (or you've seen sneak previews already on Facebook).

Anyway, we arrived at the decal stage, where everything went reasonably well. I cut the decals in advance and measured if it would all fit. I didn't measure well enough however, because I ended up about 2cm short on each wing.

Not a problem, I hear you? Just paint the missing part, right? Right?!

Well, I taped up a nice stripe to cross the tiny gaps, only the remove the decals with the tape after painting. I've never had issues with decals lifting with Tamiya tape. Either I was lucky until now, or these decals have had their best day. (I have no idea how old they are).

The best way to handle this, was remove the broken parts altogether and paint what's missing. Luckily I now know a handy way to remove decals! /grumble

So, you know the drill : tape, paint, wait, and CAREFULLY remove the tape. All went well except for the last piece of tape (of course!). I lost my patience and just grabbed my trusty Posca black ink pencil.

AC130H - Good vs. bad tape jobs

There are 2 important things to remember when using masking tape. If you forget these, you will end up with paint creeping underneath the tape, possibly ruining an up-to-than immaculate paintjob. Touching up with a paintbrush afterwards does not always yield invisible results and you end up with a blemish that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Well, maybe not THAT long, but we'd like to avoid them anyway.

During my current build, I didn't always pay enough attention. So here it goes again, as a reminder.

1. Burnishing

Basically, you'll want to pay extra attention alongside the edge of the tape and press it down really firm against the surface. When the surface is flat, that's usually easy to accomplish. When going around corners or raised/lowered surface detail, it can be (a lot) harder.
You can use your finger, or specially shaped (metal) tools with rounded tips in various sizes. (or a simple q-tip, but those tend to leave little cotton strands behind, if it's the cheap kind)

For the red stripe in the interior, I completely forget to pay attention and the result is seen in the picture below it. Luckily, because it's inside the model, you will never see where I had to touch up with a brush.

The cockpit canopy however, is a high-visibility detail, so I paid extra attention. As I cut the tape in place on the canopy itself, the knife provided all the needed pressure for making sure the tape was firmly pressed against the plastic. But still I wasn't going to risk anything, leading me to the next tip.

2. Varnishing

It's not like this is a little-known secret, but I've met no small number of (beginning) modellers that considered this easy tip a real eye-opener.

Not only for clear parts - but especially true in this case - it pays to start painting around the masking tape with a layer of (matte) varnish. Make sure you're spraying the clear coat from all directions, at roughly a 45-degree angle against the edge of the tape (low pressure, not too close, we do not want to blow away the tape). This way, a tiny ridge is built up against the tape and even IF paint creeps underneath, at least it's transparent.

A side-benefit on clear parts like this, is that the varnish acts a bit as a primer, easing the application of the next coat of paint. You do not want to use black primer, because when you remove the tape afterwards, you will see a small - but clearly visible - line of the black paint underneath the blue-grey.

Above, a picture taken from the inside of the canopy, proving no paint has crept under the tape.

As an extra illustration, I used the same method when painting the blue stripe on the Mustang. It prevents a lot of swearing and repainting.

AC130H - Closing time

Again a quick progress report, before we attempt to close the hull and start the gruesome process of trying to eliminate those ugly seams that will scar the top of the model. I'm gonna be less fussy about the seam on the belly, as I will not allow people to pick it up and turn it over :-).

The engine's housings didn't fit very neatly, but after some careful sanding, it's starting to look better. Again, the top is better than the bottom. The way they fit against the wing also leaves much to be desired, but - as is quickly become a pattern in this build - I paid attention so the topside sits almost flush with the wing, sacrificing the fit at the bottom. If you can't make it perfect, focus on the parts with the highest visibility. You'd be amazed how many car or armour models have unfinished bellies and interiors.

The interior details have been painted and in the next report, we should have a closed up model.

For some reason, the building instructions have switched the positions of the 50-mm cannon and 105-mm Howitzer, even though they do not fit through the openings like that and no existing plane has that configuration. Not the only place where the instructions are showing shortcomings.

 

AC130H progress

I've added all the necessary pieces to the interior - except for the guns - so I could start the painting process with a layer of grey primer. I've learned from previous kits not to fuss too much over the interior. I'm going to leave the loading ramp open, so you can see inside, but it's gonna be hard to see much detail in there.

I chose the grey primer, instead of the darker grey recommended, so it might trick the viewer's eye into seeing as much as possible. I'll be using flashy colour accents to further enhance this effect.

Part E42 (ammo storage rack for the big canon) is a bit of a let-down once in place (left picture below), but a minimal effort with sheet styrene helps a lot.

I can't close it up yet (not looking forward to it either, as the seams seem promising :-)), but trying to see if it's a tailsitter or not, and we can indeed confirm it to be just that.
It requires about the weight of one of my bigger clamps to rectify, so I'll just have to figure out what will be heavy enough, but small enough to fit in the nose. I often see modellers that use (lead) fishing weights, but I have no such thing in possession, so I'll just see if I can find a heavy (short) screw or something from my toolbox.

The instructions state plain light grey for the overall plane, but I've seen pictures of more interesting 2-tone versions. Not sure if the H-variant exists in those colours, or just the more recent U-variant, but I'm gonna go with it anyway.

Some experimenting with available Vallejo colours yielded the combination I'm gonna use : 005 (Intermediate blue) and 046 (Pale blue grey).

AC130H - Identifying unknown parts

In many model kits, we are often confronted with parts that make us think "What the hell is this part?". We start looking at photos, references, subject documentation, and still find no reason to attach said piece of plastic to the model, especially if it looks weird and out-of-place.

Usually, these are optional parts, but it baffles me how often they are simply omitted from the building instructions, leaving you to wonder why they exist. Old incorrect parts, that were fixed in a re-release? Intended for future kits for a slightly different version? Who knows ...

I had this issue with multiple parts on the Chinook, and simply did not install them. On the AC130H, I now faced the same problem. On page 10, some kind of "box" is supposed to go over each engine. It's exact placement is hard to deduce from the drawing. Is it supposed to fit over or after the engine? What does it do?

On the model, they look a bit weird and not really part of the engine setup.

 You can see straight through it and I have no idea what it's for.

The box-art shows no trace of anything behind the engine (see previous post).

Google is your friend.
I started looking at my reference photos and blueprints and could find no evidence of anything being there. Until suddenly, I started finding photos that did appear to have something box-shaped behind the engines.
It wasn't until I added "engine" and "shield" together to the search terms, that the solution presented itself.

The answer!
Starting with the 130U, IRSS (infra-red suppression system) was added to mask the engine's heat signature, thus reducing it's visibility in the infra-red spectrum, used in sensors and (more importantly) heat-seeking weapons. The 130H appears to have been retro-fitted with the same heat shields.

So, now we know what it is and we have found photographic evidence that it was used on this version, I see no reason not to use these parts.

AC130H Spectre Unboxing

Today we will be opening up ESCI's 1/72 AC130H "Spectre".

It's not a kit that I though I would be building anytime soon. Admittedly, the C130 Hercules (which I though this was after a cursory glance at the box) is a formidable transport plane and I've seen it fly overhead at low altitude a few dozen times (we have a few in our army), but it hadn't quite peeked my interest yet to promote it from the stash to the workbench.

What is it?
The AC130H is no transport plane. It's a gunship, and heavily armed at that. Basically, it's a flying tank, with all the advantages, but without the disadvantages of a tracked vehicle.

Lockheed calls it "A fixed-wing, side-firing aerial gunship that provides close air support, air interdiction and force protection".

During the 1950's, the C130 Hercules was adapted for a variety of missions. This particular version (130H "Spectre II") is the 1973 version. Ten of the previous versions (-E) were converted into this model. In 1986 thirteen more were build, then converted into the 130U "Spooky".

They are highly efficient, but a bit slow. Of the total of 53 planes that were made between 1953 and 1995, 8 were shot down in action, 2 of which were 130H (january '91 and march '94). The remaining 8 of this model are still in service with the 16th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

It's onboard armament consists of :
- 2 x M61 20mm Vulcan cannons (3000 rounds)
- 1 x L60 40mm Bofors cannon (256 rounds)
- 1 x M102 105mm Howitser (100 rounds)

Each wing supports 2 pylons for fuel tanks or missiles.

What's in the box?
On to the contents of the box. 4 sprues contain all the parts we'll need and - at first glance - some extra's. Dry-fitting the 2 fuselage halves tell me I'll be working some extra hours on them. All part of the job ...

Decals appear to be lacking a bit of colour, but I'm glad all those little lines are included and I do not have to paint them.

The building instructions are adequately detailed, but going through it, I already see there will be need for a lot of "guestimation" on some parts' correct placement.

I've already started construction (and postponed posting this entry), so expect part 2 to come really quick.