Minicraft 1:144 Lockheed HC-130J Hercules USCG Elizabeth City NC

Okay, USCG HC-130J is now at the same point of construction as the Dyess C-130H; basically step one complete. Will determine proper nose weight before adding cargo floor and bulkhead and button everything up.  

C-130H Dyess and HC-130J USCG fuselage sides puttied and waiting for first sanding. When complete, i will rescribe any lost panel lines.  

AE2100 power eggs glued up. I will putty seams and sand before attaching to the wing. The Bra.Z resin T56-15 engines are for the C-130H build. 

AE2100 engines glued to the wings. Perfect fit! Well, maybe not perfect, but very, very good fit. I will glue in the doors before painting. From header photo, the lower engines are in natural metal color. I am missing the exhaust pipes, so will substitute Plast-L-Strut hollow rod cut at an angle after everything is painted and decalled.
 

Nose weights added and secured, cargo floor and bulkhead glued into left half before gluing fuselage together. In retrospect, I should have glued them to the right half which has ribs for alignment. Still have a narrow gap on the lower fuselage seam, so I am superglueing it now. Will clean it up before adding clear windscreen. Next decision: to mask or use windshield decals?  

Both fuselages glued together, HC-130J on bottom. In the end I decided that I will use the black cockpit window decal as the clear windscreen is slightly wider that the fuselage on both kits, requiring some heavy duty sanding to get it to fair in, thus losing the lower window panel lines. 

Outer wing tank mounting holes plugged with .010 or .020 plastic rod (I forget which) and secured with liquid cement. 

A drop of red or green paint added to the small hole in each wingtip nav lights. 

Lower engine exhaust flaps glued in. I placed them at a fairly flat angle because the Herk will be displayed in the static position with power off and Dowty props feathered, hence no need for open flaps. Outer wing tanks mounting holes have been plugged with plastic rod and sanded smooth. 

And wings are on! Next step: add stabs and rear cargo ramps. Then, off to the spray booth. 

Horizontal stabilizers on and upper and lower ramps glued in place. Notice gap around lower ramp edges. In future Herk builds, I will add plastic ribs along the inside edge of rear ramp fuselage sides to reinforce the seams.  

HC-130J is in the spray both! Gloss White rattle can spray. 

After looking over my spare decals, I happened upon a partial sheet of Microscale 72-109 USCG aircraft. It appears that I will be able to use some of the smaller numerals to create the proper 20-- for the HC-130J. The station name "Elizabeth City" still appears too large, but may have to do in a pinch. 

 

There, all fixed. I will touch up the white paint. 

The cockpit sits short of the forward radome and too proud over the port fuselage side. 

Even after filing down the port canopy side to the point of losing the lower foot window detail, I will need to sand more of the cockpit area to conform to the fuselage contour. Once complete, I will take the opportunity to add the horseshoe shaped fairings and small IR ball turret under the nose that I salvaged from my TomyTec UP-3C JMSDF build.