DONE ! SA 341 Gazelle - Stop Poaching !

1
March 25, 2020
This beautiful Gazelle at Rand Airport/South Africa
2
March 25, 2020
in action,...
3
March 25, 2020
in action,...
4
March 25, 2020
my Heller Kit is a 342M - I need a 341,...
5
March 25, 2020
...so I had to do some modifications.
6
March 27, 2020
Made some progress on the interior.
7
April 5, 2020
No decals or stencils available for that Digi Camo scheme....
8
April 5, 2020
...so I have to do a little "Trial and Error" until I find my way to appy the livery.
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April 8, 2020
I forgot to put weight into the front section,...even the not finally assembled kit shows a tendency to skip.....
10
April 8, 2020
...with exhaust attached it is a full Tailsitter - OMG. What a stupid mistake of mine. Need some lead...
11
April 9, 2020
So I had to open up the hole at the main rotor shaft...
12
April 9, 2020
Some lead balls used by fishing guys to weight the lines on their fishing rods.
13
April 9, 2020
I glued the lead with CA onto the back of the backward cockpit panel in order to bring load to the front as much as possible.
14
April 9, 2020
Operation sucessful - the chopper sits on ths skid now, no longer on the tail,...🙂
15
April 11, 2020
The driving shaft for the tail rotor is too short. The kit part ends outside the fairings of cowling respectively tail fin. I decided to make my own "extented" shaft.
16
April 11, 2020
Open up the carrier bracket with 0,5 mm drill.
17
April 11, 2020
Dry fit...
18
April 11, 2020
New shaft seems ok.
19
April 13, 2020
I decided to "pimp" the rotor head, as the kit parts show some inconsistency in geometry and reduced details,...
20
April 13, 2020
Scratched some swash plates.....
21
April 13, 2020
...extended the shaft a bit, strengthend the base plate and...
22
April 13, 2020
...and added pivot rods (as good as possible).
23
April 23, 2020
White as a base color is on, as well as gloss,....it's decaling time!
24
April 26, 2020
The printed Decal sheet - my safety buoy. I got desperate with cutting those tiny squares to get a paint mask,....
25
April 29, 2020
All decals on - so the bird is dressed. Finishing line is coming closer,....
26
May 7, 2020
de-masked and "standing" on skids (you do not recognize it on this picture but man, those parts are in pretty bad shape - RH side shows a bad twist. On the dry fit trials I thought this is mainly caused by the weighting issue I had at the beginning. But: no, not only - it's also the struts of the landing skids. Unfortunally they are not perfect laterally reversed,.....mmh).
27
May 13, 2020
Done ! -
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May 13, 2020
29
May 13, 2020
30
May 13, 2020
31
May 13, 2020
32
May 13, 2020
33
May 13, 2020
34
May 13, 2020

Comments

20 25 March 2020, 20:07

Bart Goesaert
and in... nice camo...

25 March 2020, 20:11

Juergen Klinglhuber
Hi Bart
🙂 It was a coincident that I saw that Picture at FlightZone - that camo was the only reason why I finaly decided to start that kit. It was on the shelf for ages.

25 March 2020, 20:18

Juergen Klinglhuber
Until I wait for some paint I have on order, I will put the project on hold - and do some experiments with the digital camo. There a no decals or stencils for that livery, so I have to find my own way,....

5 April 2020, 18:00

Łukasz Gliński
Interesting one 🙂

7 April 2020, 10:26

Dave Flitton
I would love to see how you paint that DigiCam

7 April 2020, 14:33

Dave Flitton
Maybe you can make some decals using your printer

7 April 2020, 14:33

Tim
Cant wait to see how this turns out. I like this little kit. Completed | Album by Menaivalley (1:72)

7 April 2020, 14:46

Tim
How will you do the decals though? design and print your own?

7 April 2020, 14:47

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
to follow, original project, i like pixel

7 April 2020, 17:11

Ben M
Cool camo.. and great subject - anti poaching!

7 April 2020, 17:24

Juergen Klinglhuber
@all - thx for the comments,...Dave, Tim - I am not sure yet, but I will to some trials with decals for sure.

7 April 2020, 17:37

Juergen Klinglhuber
Tim - you are right, this is a nice little kit. And you did a nice build.
I did not really find the kit respectively the helicopter itself very interessing until I stumbbled over the pictures from Kruger National Park - Gazelle seems to be a hidden beauty.

7 April 2020, 17:41

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
do not forget to ballast the model at the front under the pit

8 April 2020, 15:23

Juergen Klinglhuber
Hi Laurent - thx for your advice, but it is already too late. 🙁
I closed the canopy yesterday and attached the skits for a trial,....a tailsitter - omg, a stupid mistake. I totaly forgot to consider this. Guess I will need to enter some fishing lead through the holes in the engine cover,....will let you know how that worked out.....

8 April 2020, 16:53

Dave Flitton
Or, you can glue it to the base

8 April 2020, 19:40

Juergen Klinglhuber
okay- some lead shots did a good job...it turned out ok. 🙂

9 April 2020, 14:46

Łukasz Gliński
Let it dry well, I heard stories where after some longer time the lead reacted with CA. 👍

9 April 2020, 14:49

Matthew A
I've had lead and CA heat up so much as it's curing it melted the plastic.

9 April 2020, 16:06

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
good idea

9 April 2020, 19:17

Juergen Klinglhuber
"You live and learn".... thx for all your inputs - never heard of exotherm reaction of CA & lead before.
No melted plastic so far & I really hope I was lucky and the kit survive unharmed.

10 April 2020, 07:36

Tim
Good work on the tail rotor shaft. Not easy drilling holes in small parts like that without ruining them.

11 April 2020, 20:38

Matthew A
Impressive, most impressive

12 April 2020, 09:13

Mirko Römer
I'm really excited, this will look stunning!

12 April 2020, 09:25

Juergen Klinglhuber
Thx for your interest and coments mates! I am excited too....I really wonder how it turns out at the end?!

13 April 2020, 13:49

Greg Baker
Very nice work. I'm hoping to find one of these in 1/144, but I assume there'll be a lot of scratchbuilding, so I'm following along to see how this one turns out.

13 April 2020, 14:25

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
nice

13 April 2020, 16:21

Bart Goesaert
Nice work on the rotor and driveshaft

18 April 2020, 09:24

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
good

18 April 2020, 16:23

Burkhard D
Glad you found my Gazelle rotorhead image useful 🙂

18 April 2020, 19:09

Juergen Klinglhuber
Hi all -thx for your comments.

19 April 2020, 10:34

Juergen Klinglhuber
Burkhard - sorry for that and I hope that is fine for you. Honestly spoken I did not take care whilst checking the internet for Gazelle Rotorheads. NOW, with your input I was checking again and recognized the copyrights on the lower right corner - so I checked out the link to your Homepage now: great source !!! Ton's of Aircraft details - super!

19 April 2020, 10:39

Burkhard D
No worries, Juergen - fine for me. My website is made for scale modelers. 🙂

19 April 2020, 13:45

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
good website !

20 April 2020, 08:35

Juergen Klinglhuber
After spending nights to cut squares in 1/72 for a paint mask that would do he job I resigned. So I decided to ask for help: Thx to Daniel !! Check out his website brent-air-decals.at/ - a good source for decals with Austrian background btw.
He was of great help for me on this South African bird. Looking forward to start ....

26 April 2020, 06:26

Erik De Smet
So, Daniel printed this decals just for you ?

26 April 2020, 07:44

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
good !

26 April 2020, 09:23

Juergen Klinglhuber
@ Erik: It was fortuity that a read on his home page that he is doing "individual" requests as well - so if there is a good picture reference available I can highly recommend to get in touch with him, he might be interested.
@Laurent: I am curious about it - this week end is blocked with other stuff, but a trial on the vertical fin I did already. It looks great.

26 April 2020, 12:15

Matthew A
Decals look great the colours seem spot on

26 April 2020, 13:55

Greg Baker
Very nice!

26 April 2020, 15:51

Juergen Klinglhuber
I used the last couple days to dress my chopper. All decals on, without accident.

29 April 2020, 08:23

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
wonderfull

29 April 2020, 10:09

Łukasz Gliński
Wow, that metallic engine part (whatever it is) looks great 👍

29 April 2020, 10:37

Bart Goesaert
Very nice looking

29 April 2020, 19:41

Dave Flitton
1/72, the true and manly scale!!

30 April 2020, 15:09

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
what is décals?

30 April 2020, 15:18

Juergen Klinglhuber
Gents - Thank you all for your kind comments.

1 May 2020, 07:34

Juergen Klinglhuber
Laurent - not sure about your question with respect to decal - l'autocollant. Fait maison (more or less, again thx's to Daniel) as there is no aftermarket product and painting seemed to be a nightmare.
Greetings to all - have a nice weekend.

1 May 2020, 07:40

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
thanks, i like this decals

1 May 2020, 09:58

Juergen Klinglhuber
update

7 May 2020, 18:48

Juergen Klinglhuber
Gents - an absolute fun project has ended. The bird is finished. I added a few pic's of it's final appearance. thx for watching 😉 and your interest. cheers.

13 May 2020, 19:59

Ben M
Beautiful, thank you!

13 May 2020, 20:09

Łukasz Gliński
Must look great on your shelf, I'm jealous😉

13 May 2020, 20:13

Alex Rodionov
Very interesting and rare variant. Congratulations.

13 May 2020, 20:35

Alex K
Awesome!

13 May 2020, 23:17

Greg Baker
That's a beauty! Nicely done.

14 May 2020, 00:09

Neuling
Nice chopper!

14 May 2020, 09:33

Bart Goesaert
Great result

14 May 2020, 09:36

Bart Goesaert
Great result

14 May 2020, 09:37

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
fabulous , i like !!!!! original déco

14 May 2020, 15:34

Juergen Klinglhuber
🙂 thx to all for your kind feedback. I'm happy to hear that you like it too!

14 May 2020, 17:17

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
i like this deco

14 May 2020, 17:50

Paul Juliano
Well done! Love the white.

14 May 2020, 18:03

Matthew A
Lovely

14 May 2020, 21:59

Tim
Nice gazelle!

22 May 2020, 21:57

Juergen Klinglhuber
Laurent, Paul, Matthew, Tim --> Thx for your kind comments.

26 May 2020, 15:07

Stefan Fraundorfer
Deine Gazelle habe ich ganz übersehen. Gefällt mir sehr gut in ihrer außergewöhnlichen Digi-Tarnung.

7 June 2020, 06:49

Diego DH
looks great

7 June 2020, 07:07

Cuajete
Very nice little Gazelle. Good job. Congrats!

7 June 2020, 12:01

Juergen Klinglhuber
Gents - THX for your feedback

15 June 2020, 17:46

Greg Baker
Just picked this kit up today, and I remembered your awesome build, so I'm trying to "tag" it for future reference. There should be a "favourites" feature where you can collect other people's projects/galleries and keep them from getting lost.

26 April 2021, 06:19

Ben M
Greg, I use the bookmarks feature in my browser, you can create a folder of just scalemates stuff.

26 April 2021, 11:51

Laurent VILLANUEVA "HELLER-forever"
i like !

26 April 2021, 12:27