Minicraft Model Kits

1/144 HC-130H "Hercules"

Kit Number: 14524

Reviewed by  John R. Lee , IPMS# 11172

MSRP: $36.00 www.minicraftmodels.com At last! New molds of the famous Lockheed C-130. The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box - great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are seventy-two plastic parts, molded in white, which will ease the painting of the USCG model. There is also sprue 'G' with 19 parts, none of which are used on this version but instead on the AC-130H, and five clear parts. Of note: there are two "beaver tails"; one for the USCG aircraft and one for the CAF aircraft. The only other options are to install up to four auxiliary fuel tanks. After spending a lot of time on the net I concluded that most Hercules only carried the inboard 1360 gallon fuel tanks, and consigned the other tanks to the spares box. Now on to the build. I plan to build it with the ramps up. I painted the cockpit area black after adding a piece of card stock to block off the view into the fuselage, not knowing how much could be seen through the small cockpit windows. I did add the interior just to see how well these parts fit and there were no problems. I proceeded to glue the fuselage together using the new (to me at least) Tamiya Extra Thin liquid glue - worked pretty good. On top of the fuselage near the port wing root there is a sink mark that I filled and sanded. Next I assembled the four engine nacelles. I had to do a little trimming to get part #30 to fit on all the nacelles. I did deviate from the instructions in that I noticed a small round depression in the back of the nacelles and I glued the exhaust pipes to the nacelles to later install the nacelles with the exhaust pipes already attached. It was also easier to paint the exhausts this way and with the exhaust pipe sticking out it gave me a place to hold onto while I painted the nacelles. Before moving on I drilled out all the fuselage windows only to find out later that they are a little low on the sides of the fuselage. They should be even with the middle of the dark rectangle on the red and blue fuselage stripes as noted on the picture of #1703. Also the top of the rectangle should be even with the crew entry door as seen in a picture of #1703. This rectangle is a large observation (?) window that replaces the first round window marking on the kit parts. As the holes in the wings for the outboard tanks are open and as I was only using the two inboard tanks I stretched some of the sprue that the kit parts came on and wet them down with some liquid glue and plunged them into the holes as filler. I let that dry over night, snipped off the excess, and sanded them smooth. It was like the holes never existed. When I assembled the wings there is a very large gap near the rear edge in front of the flaps and ailerons. I filled in the gap with some Squadron white putty and after a nights' drying time I sanded them smooth. (See photos) I jumped to Step 7 and installed the beaver tail as I thought it would be easier to fill and sand down without the tails and wings in the way. In Step 6 I added the two tail pieces and there was only a small gap to fill. I used Mr. Surfacer 1000 from an older bottle in my stash that over time has become quite thick as the thinner in it evaporates. Next came the wings, and an odd thing was that the panel lines on the starboard wing were engraved aft of those on the fuselage. This required me to remove a portion of the plug insert at the front and to sand the top a little to line up the panel lines. The port wing was just the opposite, in that I had to move the wing back a little. Next came the worst fitting part, the canopy. It was almost 1/32nd inch too wide and as it was very thick was not very flexible. I sprayed the inside of the canopy with Future to prevent the Cyanoacrylate glue I was about to use from fogging the clear part. I glued the port side even with the fuselage and let it dry overnight. The next day I lifted the starboard side a wee bit, put in some CA glue, and clamped the canopy in position, leaving it to dry while I took care of the small parts. I painted the wheels; landing gear doors and fuel tanks (previously assembled). Still waiting for the canopy glue to dry I moved on to the propellers. The Hamilton Standard propellers (#54A60) have a very prominent hole in the spinner on the real thing. As this is missing on the kit, I drilled holes in all of the props. I painted the props flat black and aluminum. I then added the prop tip decals (all 32 of them…'phew'). A short while after doing the prop tip decals as I was still looking at the internet I saw to my horror the all the pictures I was looking at the colors on the tips of the props is a narrow band of white then a wider band of red and another narrow band of white, just the opposite of the decals. As I glued the props in with Elmer's glue I will fix them later - this is also very clear in the photos I've found of aircraft #1703. Next I sanded the canopy to match the fuselage with various and finer grades of wet and dry paper and polished the clear part with Micro-Mark's (www.micromark.com) great Soft Touch Polishing Pads. Next came the tortuous job of masking the canopy. There are a lot of windows in the HC-130H! I then filled in the wing joins with Mr. Surfacer only half way as all the drawings I looked at show a panel line right where the rear half of the join is. I shot on a couple of coats of Model Master Flat White and then sprayed on two or three coats of Future, both for the decals and to reflect the fact that the USCG keeps their aircraft neat and clean. One of the things missing from the instructions is that there is a black area behind each engine exhaust to mask the staining from the exhaust. Now this puppy's going to come to life - time to add the decals. Decal #8 and #9 are just a little short and don't match the contours of the tail but when wet you can maneuver them into place. I then painted the missing Gray area on the beaver tail with the closest gray I had. I must say when you place a decal have it exactly here it goes or use a lot of Micro Set because they don't want to move once they hit the surface of the model. After I found this out I used massive amounts of Micro Set and all was good. I only used Micro Sol on decals #11 and #25 on the front of the wheel sponson. I have found that a great holding fixture for putting on the side decal is a roll of toilet paper. It is nice and soft and will not damage the surface of the model. I punched out a circle of white decal to represent the escape hatch on top just behind the cockpit again as seen in a side view of Aircraft #1703. I also added a white blade antenna to each lower side under the rectangular window and a black blade antenna on the top of the fuselage. There are a few more bumps on this aircraft but at this time I am not sure of what they look like. There is also a large air scoop on the starboard forward fuselage about even with the nose gear. When I get more data on the shape of it I will make one and add it to the model. Maybe if I have time when I go to the 2007 IPMS show I will stop at the Coast Guard Station at Sacramento and see if they will let me take pictures of #1703. Plainly in view there is a black area on the port wheel well sponson that I represented with some black decal. I believe it is to mask the exhaust staining from the APU unit. This was also not shown in the instructions. I didn't put the VOR (?) decal on the vertical tail as #1703 doesn't have them as seen in the photo. After all the decals where in place and I cleaned off any decal solution residue and I again sprayed on another coat of Future to seal in the decals. Now I installed the nacelles with attached exhaust and placed the red decal line around them. I then masked off the nose radome area and misted on a couple of coats of flat black Model Master paint. I glued on the two 1360 gallon fuel tanks and then I added the two antenna wires coming from the vertical tail and removed the Tamiya masking tape from the cockpit windows and we're done for now. Anyone interested in viewing the picture I referred to several times in my review can go to http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=0959847. I emailed the copyright holder of the picture and asked to use the picture to show why I did or didn't do things exactly as shown on the instructions. I explained to him who we, the IPMS were but I got no reply. Maybe he is on vacation but anyone interested can see it at the web site listed above. I hope that Minicraft will consider reissuing this kit with different decals as there are so many varied and beautiful schemes out there you could spend a lifetime building Herkybirds. Reference material: Colors & Marking of the C-130 Hercules Volume #7 Special purpose aircraft. Squadrons' C-130 Hercules in Action. Squadrons' #5531Walk Around C-130 Hercules. Jane's Aircraft Spectacular Hercules. Thanks to John Noack and Minicraft Models www.minicraftmodels.com for the kit, a great addition to my model shelf. I already have two more kits waiting to build; the Canadian one and an AC-130 and I may look into making the 180 inch stretched version.

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