1/35 Trumpeter Mi-24 Hind Pt. 2

by Jon H. Ruehle

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I wrote an in-box article for ARC on March 6 2004, about Trumpeter’s new 1/35 Hind and I was all goo-goo eyed about it. The honeymoon is over, and let’s say that this kit is great is most areas with the exception of a few.

I do like the grey plastic that it is molded in; it is soft and takes glue well. The detach point between the edge of each part and the sprue is a bit large on most of the parts. I use a precision pair or flush-cut wire nippers to remove parts, and they still leave a large pock mark on every part. These marks required trimming and filling. Perhaps it’s time for a new pair of nippers?

A few problem areas:

Engine Bay – Horrible ejector pin marks are located on the floor and vertical divider between the engines. I puttied them and sanded well, primed, and painted. If not taken care of, they should not show much after the engines are installed and detailed with more plumbing and electrical.

Chin Turret Housing – A multi piece affair whereby nothing lines up, luckily it is the underside that is a problem; some putty and white glue caulking necessary in one particular area where the inboard half of the camera housing meets the underside of the chin turret housing.

Main Gear Bay – More ejector pin marks. Get out the putty, but not too bad. It appears that Trumpeter tried to do something with a few of them as they are scratched over (raised) but not removed. I took a photo, shown later in this article, of the raw part and hit it with some dry pastel to illustrate the unwanted detail.

Engines -- When finished, the turbines end up looking pretty good even after you botch them like I did. Wet sand the glue surfaces of all engine halves on some fine sand paper attached to a rigid, flat surface. This will flatten the gluing surfaces and make the seams less noticeable. It will also remove the alignment pins which are unnecessary as your eyeballs will do a better job of alignment of these parts than the pins. Flat-sanding in this manner will remove all of that added detail flashing that Trumpeter molded into the engine halves.

<< Special Note for morons >> When I assembled my engines, it was 2am. Do not do this. Make sure you are alert and not under the influence of any drugs, as there is a port and starboard engine. The mistake I made was gluing the port engine to the starboard exhaust and vice versa. Now all of the juicy inboard engine detail (none) is facing outboard, and all outboard engine detail is inboard, jammed up against that vertical bulkhead between each engine, where it is not visible. (duh)

I guess I should build it with the engine bays closed.

Clean all of the flash from plumbing lines on engines; add plumbing last. In the end, plumbing lines and accessories will cover up much of the seams on the engine halves on the outboard sides of each turbine (unless you screw it up like I did). What are the chances that there will be a Russian crew chief on the judging committee at the next contest in Houston, Texas?

I painted the engines in silver with touches of gold, copper, amber black and whatever other colors gas turbines turn when they get hot. Then I washed the engines in a thinned black wash of regular black paint to bring out the detail. Exhaust turbines and drive shafts ARE visible from outside of the model via the large exhaust ports (see photo), so I detailed them as well.  The interior exhaust tunnels on my model are not yet painted.

Click on images below to see larger images

Stub Wings – The stub wing halves go together fairly well, but I am somewhat disappointed in the fit of the parts in the wing section. This is the part of the model that really was the big disappointment for me. Trumpeter has gone to great pains to make this thing impossible to fit parts correctly in the weapons pylons. What should have been 6 parts is more like about 12. I have attached a photo marked up with part numbers in blue and parts bordered in red. The only parts you cannot see is the top wing half (number 11) and the half of each leading edge weapons pylon (number 4 and number 10). The thin red lines are joints between parts, with bright red arrows indicating trouble areas. This wing is a joke. Maybe some of you professionals out there can make it look better. Thank God most of the problems are underneath the wing. The only thing I can think of is that Trumpeter had to mold the parts this way to get the detail they wanted. Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? Maybe so.  Someone please make a set of resin replacement wings.

Cockpit – Sand the back off of the clear instrument panels so that the thickness is reduces by 50% or more. The clear panel is too thick, and acetate gauges appear to be recessed 2” (scale) behind the panel. Overall fit of parts is good in the cockpit area. Some of the side panels that contain gauges in the real aircraft are merely a round circle embossed into the plastic panel with no decals or raised lines provided as gauges, so you will have to create your own.

Click on images below to see larger images

No aftermarket items are available for this model as of yet (that I have seen), but someone needs to make new tires (weighted), engine blocks, and stub wing sets, based on my progress with this kit. Photo etch will be a must as well (Aries and Eduard, are you ready?).

I will have more photos and another article to follow in a week or so.

Jon

Photos and text © by Jon H. Ruehle