Small Scale Military Headquarters

Thought I would share some pictures of my work, figured since there has been so little new 1/18 recently that I would post here instead of the customs section. This Korean War H-13 has been the product of about 2 years of scratch building. The entire structure is made of brass tubing, with plastic and resin detail parts. In my opinion, 1/18 was seriously lacking in helicopters, so I started building a Bell 47 thinking that it would be "simple". Wrong! The exposed engine, swash plate, fuel tank, and assorted equipment took a lot of time to design, build, and rebuild. Even more difficult was the famous fishbowl canopy (Finally got a good one on the 10th try!). Anyway, enjoy the pics and let me know what you think.

That is a work of beauty! I have wanted one of those ever since I saw the crappy MASH one at toys r
us.

Wow your H-13 is wonderful, the work you've put into it shows!
How did you do the canopy? It looks amazing!

Magnificent.

normandy wrote:Wow your H-13 is wonderful, the work you've put into it shows!
How did you do the canopy? It looks amazing!

Thanks for the kind words! I made the canopy by vacuforming, which meant first making a wooden mold. That was probably the single most difficult piece to cut and shape that I have worked on.

It looks great !!

You did a fantastic job on this copter.

That is scratch built.

Fantastic job on it, and that canopy had to be hard.

Very, very impressed.

Really outstanding.

Very impressive work! I can almost just hear the theme to MASH when looking over that model...

That is one of the best 1:18 customs I have ever seen. Simply amazing! I would offer to buy it from you but with 2 years of labor, I probably couldn't afford it

Thanks for the compliments. I have to say, looking at the finished product has well justified the time I put into it. Also, funny story about the canopy. This part concerned me the most about the entire build. I knew that if I could finish that, the rest of the model I could produce on my own. So, the first thing I tried to do was see if I could contract the canopy to someone with a real vacuforming machine (Mine is a box, shop vac, oven, and heat gun). Before we knew to beware of skyworks, I contacted jack for a quote. I had talked to him at the MTS booth and he sad he could help out. He replied that we could start at $300 for just the bubble and up to $1200 to do the fuel tank as well! That was the last time I ever considered purchasing from him. At least my method only used around $20 worth of material and a couple hours of my time...

CW4USARMY wrote:That is one of the best 1:18 customs I have ever seen. Simply amazing! I would offer to buy it from you but with 2 years of labor, I probably couldn't afford it

I would be perfectly willing to trade it for full scale Bell 47. Other than that, it will be staying right where it is.

Very Cool. Excellent job.

B-29 wrote:Thanks for the compliments. I have to say, looking at the finished product has well justified the time I put into it. Also, funny story about the canopy. This part concerned me the most about the entire build. I knew that if I could finish that, the rest of the model I could produce on my own. So, the first thing I tried to do was see if I could contract the canopy to someone with a real vacuforming machine (Mine is a box, shop vac, oven, and heat gun). Before we knew to beware of skyworks, I contacted jack for a quote. I had talked to him at the MTS booth and he sad he could help out. He replied that we could start at $300 for just the bubble and up to $1200 to do the fuel tank as well! That was the last time I ever considered purchasing from him. At least my method only used around $20 worth of material and a couple hours of my time...

CW4USARMY wrote:That is one of the best 1:18 customs I have ever seen. Simply amazing! I would offer to buy it from you but with 2 years of labor, I probably couldn't afford it

I would be perfectly willing to trade it for full scale Bell 47. Other than that, it will be staying right where it is.

LOL, don't blame you one bit!

Wow, great work there.
You should feel pretty proud of that build. It really captures the simple cockpit / engine / frame construction of the real helicopter. Almost looks like a dragonfly insect.
I can easly picture that on a simple grass or dirt diorama base.

Jay wrote:Wow, great work there.
You should feel pretty proud of that build. It really captures the simple cockpit / engine / frame construction of the real helicopter. Almost looks like a dragonfly insect.
I can easly picture that on a simple grass or dirt diorama base.

That has crossed my mind. Now if someone made a WC-63 Ambulance, I could throw together a few tents and have a MASH diorama.

Thought I’d put a bookend on this a few years later.. After years of college, the model now sits on my desk at Bell Helicopter, next to a 1/18 Kiowa. Would have never imagined when I built the model that I would end up as an engineer at Bell!

The world works in that way! I somehow missed this thread from years ago. That is an amazing chopper.. wow!

Fantastic work.!!

I echo the words in previous posts on this thread. I can appreciate the time and effort that it took for you to plan, start and finish such a beautiful scale model of the H-13. I applaud your going through school to become an Engineer and one at Bell to boot! Congratulations on the Model, the Degree and the Job.
I do have one question for you. Did you safe the shape that you used to make the windscreen for the H-13. I had to ask!

Thanks guys!

mutt71 wrote:I echo the words in previous posts on this thread. I can appreciate the time and effort that it took for you to plan, start and finish such a beautiful scale model of the H-13. I applaud your going through school to become an Engineer and one at Bell to boot! Congratulations on the Model, the Degree and the Job.
I do have one question for you. Did you safe the shape that you used to make the windscreen for the H-13. I had to ask!

Thank you for your kind words! I actually do have the mold for the bubble still in the shop back at my parent’s house. Along with molds for the engine, fuel tank, bench seat, exhausts, and cooling fan. Also have some clay jigs I molded around the truss frames so that I could make more. Was planning on doing another as a Bell 47G, just never had the time.

A real work of art/engineering.

I don't suppose that you would have any time coming up, that you might be able to run a kit or two, would you? LOL (I am sure others would like one as well!)

mutt71 wrote:I don't suppose that you would have any time coming up, that you might be able to run a kit or two, would you? LOL (I am sure others would like one as well!)

Honestly, not likely. Everything is at my parents house in MN, and I’ve since moved to TX. I might toy with making another in the future as a G, simply because my Dad flew 47Gs. Just making that soldered together brass tail structure and vacuforming the bubble are extremely time consuming.

Absolutely beautiful work.

I remember stories of when they were training foreign aircrews in those during the Vietnam War.

That's an incredible build.