American Helicopter XH-26 Jet Jeep

Peter G
Starting the build! First impressions: this thing is tiny! The littlest pieces. This is going to hurt my eyes and hands. I kind of doubt I'll be able to actually build this thing. The manual is good. I've spent a long time going through each instruction to plan the joins and painting in the right order. Manual makes this easy. Planning the right paints and will probably try to use pens as much as I can because of the tiny nature. But I doubt I'll be able to build this because I'm too new to modeling. This will be a challenge.

Peter G
Build is going well but it's very hard on the eyes because everything is so tiny. I'm not sure I'd do something so small again...

Peter G
This was a tough build. I'm a new modeler so working at this scale was really hard and I'm shocked how much time (31 hours) it took for how tiny it is. I'm still struggling to recall what, exactly, took so long. I think it's just the tiny scale and sanding and cutting takes longer because the importance of everything is magnified. You can't get away with bad seams or rough edges like you could in a larger model.

But there were aspects of the kit itself that were bad. The instructions were misleading or downright wrong in some cases. Parts didn't fit together and required a lot of putty to cover up massive gaps. Window masks didn't quite fit. The landing gear didn't quite fit. The tolerances required for such a small model might be hard for a regular company to deal with. I don't know but it took a lot of work to get the model looking right.

I'm happy with how it turned out but I'll be unlikely to work with minis like this for a while!

Robert Podkoński
Like I have already said, you are a wizard, Peter 😉

Donald Boyle
Very Nice Build.
The wheeled version makes it all the more challenging, and the bare metal foil really makes it Pop!

Peter G
DonB , Yes, it was one of the more challenging builds I've done but very fun. That chrome is actually from a Molotow pen: amazon.com/Molotow-L..er-Set/dp/B074JJ1YMY I like how it went on a little wavy to make it look more "used."

Donald Boyle
Peter, A metalic ink pen! I have one of those....never thought of using it as you did!
I mostly use for struts on landing gear or small details.
Did you ever use a product called "Rub n Buff"?
It's a wax based metalic finish. Not quite as shiny.

Peter G
DonB , No, I haven't heard of Rub N Buff but I'll check it out! Thanks for the lead. Covering large surfaces with the chrome pen can be challenging because you want to have enough for it to level smoothly but not so much that it oozes everywhere.

David R. Meizoso
I like your approach with the metallic pen, the texture you achieve with it looks like distressed metal in some places (pic 5 behind left window). Great job!