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Westland Wessex


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Hi Guys,

Here is my first helicopter for many years, Italeri's superb 1/48 Wessex. I managed to acquire all 3 of the Revell offerings but never built one as they really don't capture the look of the Wessex. This kit however does justice to the Wessex, the long serving workhorse of the Royal Navy.

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Construction was pretty much from the box. The PE provided a good touch but I did find the guide pins for mesh round the main rotor were too low when using the PE. I built them up with some thin strips of plasticard which worked well. I lined the interior cabin with tissue coated in dilute PVA to represent the waterproof bag used on the rescue machines and added a few red first aid rescue bags and some wiring in the cabin roof. A few other bits were added to the cockpit and cabin. I used the kit decals and found them good. Only 2 'RESCUE' signs are too small and a walkway for the tail is too big, otherwise they were OK and went on well. Aerial wires were done with Aeroclub elastic Eze-line.

Overall it took less than 2 weeks and was a very satisfying build.

Cheers

Colin W

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That is a great model, at last someone is taking the Wessex seriously and giving us a damned good chance of making a nice one

Italeri take a bow, you too Colin

15/10 and a gold star, brilliant work

(got to got to got to get one or three of these)

b

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Cheers Guys, always good to get some feedback.

The paints were a bit of a mish mash. After a coat of Halfords white (masked to provide the back ground to the playing cards and roundels), I painted the nose and tail in red Mader (Mr Color 68). This looked odd so I mixed an orange and overpainted the red and it came out thus. I read a few recipes on here for the blue grey, Heloman had a good one, but in the end I bought some Xtracolour RAF blue grey X013.

Colin

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Superb result, I have several in 1/72 scale in various stages of build.

John

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Hi Colin. Great build and really good looking model, the red and blue scheme really sets it off. Congratualtions and thanks for sharing you model. One observation if I may, the main rotorhead seems to be sitting too high. I haven't got this for with my model yet, so is there a problem with the length of the drive shaft?

Colin

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Well spotted heloman1.

The rotor does look too high. In the third picture you can see the rotor head is sitting too high on the shaft and the actuators are not reaching the swash plate. Im not sure whether I sat the rotor on incorrectly when I took the pictures, obviously its not glued on!

So here are some pictures I took today with the rotor head on correctly. From a more familiar angle it looks better.

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In the process of looking at this and comparing to pictures of real ones I concluded the '825' on the nose is too big and the club on the card is too small, also I put the port one upside down. Cest La Vie!

Colin W

Edited by Colin W
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