Custom Cobra Chinook - CH-46 Sea Knight
 

I picked up this Chap Mei Chinook at TRU thanks to the praise of Flatline, Outrider & ender098. Everyone calls it a Chinook, but jjsvipers set us straight & let us know it is really a CH-46 Sea Knight. I like the sound of that - Sea Knight sounds like something Cobra would use. I do not normally use non-Hasbro/GI Joe vehicles, but this thing is huge, inexpensive, has great potential & Cobra needs a copter to match the Tomahawk. :eek:
I am not going to do any major mods to this thing, but to do what I needed to do I wanted smaller pieces to work with, so disassembly was step #1.

Taking it apart was simple, just remove all the screws, and there are alot of them. There are several different size screws & I made the mistake of not keeping them organized & just let them drop in my bucket as I removed them. This made reassembly a little more time consuming. :mad:
The next step was removing that huge horrible star off the side :rolleyes:

I used Testors paint thinner, lucky it worked very well & no acetone was needed. I used a Q-tip to remove the paint with small amounts of thinner at a time. The copter is molded in black, so the grey camo is paint & I did not want to remove that, so the Q-tip worked perfect for a controlled removal of the unwanted paint. After the paint was removed, I used a leather chamois, to shine the spot up. Now you can not tell there was ever anything there, and it shines like the rest of the vehicle. :)

Next I painted all the small parts & trim of the copter. I have seen these in several different colors, mine was in maroon :confused:

Krylon Fusion for plastic, Satin Black - no sanding neccessary & it dries in 10 minutes, pay the extra money, it is worth it!
After the paint dried, it was time to detail the small parts. First the cockpit:

I use Model Master leather for the seats, gave it a black wash & them drybrushes tan for a well worn look. Painted the bolts silver, highlighted the buttons & fire extinguishers red. The gauges (hard to see at this angle) are painted white, with silver trim & red pointers. Weathering was done with silver & rust drybrushing. Everything was given a black wash, then sprayed with Testors Dull Coat.
Then the rest of the small parts:

Same thing - silver & rust drybrush, black wash & Dull Coat

I wanted some bullet holes, I use a hand drill, then paint the hole silver

More detailing:

I have seen some people dispose of the hook, but it is too cool!!!! :D You pull it out & it ratchets its way back up, add the cargo net & it is one cool accessory. It just needs a little help:

Rotor detail

Rear cargo door

Reassembled


This is a work in progress, I am by no means done with it! I still have LOTS of weathering & maybe some more bullet holes to add to the body. I just wanted to share with you what I have done so far! :) Thanks for looking, check it out soon in the photo section. Dave

Daaaaaaaam!!
 

Thanks Marcos.
One thing about this copter, it is way under gunned, it only has the single front gun. A real Sea Knight has a .50 cal door gun, mine will too very soon! :D

I love your detailing. The paint scheme is great. I cannot say enough great things about your job. The bullet scars are a great detail.

SA-WEEEET ;) I CANT WAIT TO SEE THAT AND SOME PHOTOS OF IT IN ACTION

Nice work!
 

Nice work Vader, I'd agree with your assessment, considering what the T-hawk has at it's disposal for armaments you'll need another gun on it somewhere. :D

Very cool work so far though V. Good stuff and thanks as always for sharing.

Agreed! This is a fine customization that lets us see the potential of what a good paint job can do!