1/48 Trumpeter Westland Whirlwind

[Martian]

An interesting update. The most important thing is that you are enjoying yourself. If you are having the canopy open that will go a long way towards hiding it's inaccuracies. Re-shaping the nose and spinners should not pose too many problems but I would suggest that you live with the fuselage length on this build at least.

 

Martian

[Sprueloose]

Well I plowed ahead with shortening the fuselage Martin! The reasons being that it looked pretty straightforward and since I have two models now I felt a bit secure in just chopping one up!

The drawing shows a portion of the fuselage that is almost cylindrical and I decided to take my slice from between the two bulkheads or whatever they are called, #8 and #9. Tape as guide. Scribed it first then micro saw. Working on both sides of the slice at once. It came away pretty well and after a few swipes on a sanding board the two halves mated quite well. Just a small step in spots.

I then taped the halves back together leaving space to apply a few spots of Tamiya Extra Thin. Let it set up and then gently split the fuselage the long way as it comes off the sprue. I made up some little "T" beams out of plastic card and glued them inside the fuselage over the join to provide some strength. If I remember I will apply some modeling cement to further secure the T's.

Taped the halves back together and got out the putty. I use Bondo putty (comes in a tube), I assume that it is like P38 that is available in Britain. Putty, sanding, more putty, more sanding... Still not there but close enough for now.

So that rubicon is crossed, God help me!... The fuselage is also a little too thick through the area from the cockpit to the tail and by shortening the length I have accentuated that a bit. So I will have to decide what to do about that! the amount that it is off is about the thickness of the kit fuselage itself so no easy solution there... perhaps if i just filled the bottom  of the fuselage with a layer of plastic card and Bondo I could sand away until I got the profile right... Bit scary that!  Keeps it fun huh?

Thanks for checking in!

Edited January 9, 2017 by Sprueloose

[Bandsaw Steve]

I might build this one OOB one day just to put it beside yours and see all the differences.  I believe that this particular kit may be trumpeter's worst ever research effort so it would be interesting to see the net effect of the corrections. 

[Martian]

Well done on the cut and shut. I thin if I were going to alter anything else it would be the depth of the tail, the thickness of the fuselage is really only apparent from directly above. The tail though really draws the eye in.

 

Martian

[Sprueloose]

1 hour ago, Reconcilor said:

I might build this one OOB one day just to put it beside yours and see all the differences.  I believe that this particular kit may be trumpeter's worst ever research effort so it would be interesting to see the net effect of the corrections. 

Interesting idea perhaps I should do the same with these two kits although the corrections are so slight it might be hard to notice much of a difference unless you knew the subject really well. Might also be interesting to other manufacturer's versions like the Cooper Details kit. Saw one for sale for 45£!

 

1 hour ago, Martian Hale said:

Well done on the cut and shut. I thin if I were going to alter anything else it would be the depth of the tail, the thickness of the fuselage is really only apparent from directly above. The tail though really draws the eye in.

 

Martian

I guess that I am a little worried about that thickness issue as viewed from the side.  I will work on the tail and the nacelles as you say they really catch your eye. 

Thanks for the advise Martian!

[Sprueloose]

I compared the kit to the drawings again today and  the tail looks OK so I'm not going to mess with it. Well... I decided to cut the rudder off and articulate it. It is really an eye-catching aspect of this plane, especially when turned a bit. So...

The two parts are connected via a shaft and I think both have a bit added to them to keep the aerodynamics when it is turned. 

Here is the actual thing. (on the right.)

I have to figure out how I will attach it to the tail but that's enough for today.

Cheers

Terry

Edited January 10, 2017 by Sprueloose

[John_W]

Nice work.

You do know this kit is unbuildable, don't you?

; o )

[Sprueloose]

On 1/10/2017 at 4:16 AM, John_W said:

Nice work.

You do know this kit is unbuildable, don't you?

; o )

I've heard that John and I figure it's the perfect kit for a newbie like me! If I make an absolute hash of it, I can always blame the kit!

 

Onward!

Worked on the rudder. My first shot:

All well and good, but mechanically ... not so much. The pivot point was at the wrong place and the rudder could not move more than a degree or two!... Redo!

I decided that the pivot point needed to be much closer to the rudder, so I removed all the filler and plastic that I added to the rudder and tried again. This time trying to get the shaft as close as possible to the edge of the rudder...

 

Glued the two pieces of plastic card buried in the rudder in place and then filled the space between them with epoxy to hopefully grip the shaft. The tab on the left is free wheeling on the shaft and will be glued to the tail. The upper halve of the rudder will be filled with epoxy and drilled out to accept the top of the shaft after it passes through another plastic "bearing" in the tail.

So now it sits curing and I will see how it works out tomorrow. 

Meanwhile I started to work on reshaping the engine nacelles. First I filed and fitted the landing bay doors and glued them in place with PVA glue so that I could disassemble them easily after the sanding. Then I started sanding, and checking against my drawing... sanding and checking... 

Here is one done with the undone one at the top... huge difference right? Not!... Well I can see it but maybe no one else will notice...

Here they are (after several hours) both done:

Here is one against the drawing. The camera angle isn't great so the comparison isn't that good. But trust me they are pretty close!

I sanded so much styrene off of the model that you could see through it! I will have to add some reinforcement I think for the landing gear!

Here are the templates I used:

Oh and I reshaped the spinners too.

It's been quiet here in Portland what with the snow... lots of time for modeling... I suppose that I will have to get out in the car at some point.. but being retired has it's advantages!

Robins at the heated birdbath... those are the North American variety... a thrush by any other name..

Take care!

Terry

Edited January 13, 2017 by Sprueloose

[Martian]

3 hours ago, Sprueloose said:

I've heard that John and I figure it's the perfect kit for a newbie like me! If I make an absolute hash of it, I can always blame the kit!

You have already improved the kit way beyond what many would have thought possible, its so bad that I cant see how anyone could make a hash of it!

 

Martian

[Sprueloose]

Got ready to work on shaping the fuselage. Added some strips to the top and bottom. Might have to add some to the sides as well.

Also worked on the engine nacelles. Cut the tail the is attached to the Fowler flap more realistically than the kit's line.

I also cut out the radiator exit flaps on the upper wings of the new model as I might replace them with plastic card. Worked on the rudder. Put some Miliputty on the lower rudder to duplicate the shape of the real rudder. We see how much I have to sand off to get it to move.

Added some to the tail between the rudders to provide a bearing.

Tomorrow I hope to get the rudder in place. We will see how well it works. That's after I finish sanding the fuselage... 

Thanks for looking in.

Terry

[Martian]

Given what you are about to try, I would add strips all round the fuselage.

 

Martian

[TheBaron]

I love the work that you're putting into this Terry - brave cutting on that fuselage. I know that 'my aircraft's turned transparent' feeling from sanding-down very well!  

 

Nice shot of the robins. We too have a pack that already seem to be in mating mode, despite the early season.

 

Tony

[Lomcevak]

Hello Sir, if you don't mind I'll follow this build, I believe I have already learnt +150 things up to this point only. Thank you for taking the time to post so many in depth details. 

 

Jorge

[Bandsaw Steve]

Hello Sprueloose. You appear to have an excellent set of 1/48 scale drawings there. Might I enquire where you got these from? I am starting to think seriously about my next post-Mig15 scratchbuild and this could be a contender. 

[Sprueloose]

11 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Given what you are about to try, I would add strips all round the fuselage.

 

Martian

Thanks Martian, I was thinking the same thing. It appears to need most material removed from the sides, so today I will crack it open and add a few strips. Hope you are doing well. Terry

7 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I love the work that you're putting into this Terry - brave cutting on that fuselage. I know that 'my aircraft's turned transparent' feeling from sanding-down very well!  

 

Nice shot of the robins. We too have a pack that already seem to be in mating mode, despite the early season.

 

Tony

I have to constantly remember to handle the nacelles like eggs!

Thanks for looking in Tony. Mostly lesser goldfinches and juncos today!

7 hours ago, Lomcevak said:

Hello Sir, if you don't mind I'll follow this build, I believe I have already learnt +150 things up to this point only. Thank you for taking the time to post so many in depth details. 

 

Jorge

Welcome aboard Jorge. I'm no expert! There are so many more skillful modellers here, I hope that you are keeping your eyes open! Much to learn! Which is half the fun!

7 hours ago, Reconcilor said:

Hello Sprueloose. You appear to have an excellent set of 1/48 scale drawings there. Might I enquire where you got these from? I am starting to think seriously about my next post-Mig15 scratchbuild and this could be a contender. 

Reconciler, I got the drawings off of the Whirlwind Fighter Project site. You need to register with them before you can get access to their galleries of photos and materials. The drawings are actual from a Kookaburra publication about the whirlwind. God knows how accurate they are but at least they say that they are based on the real drawings from the Air Ministry or Westland.

http://www.whirlwindfighterproject.org/

Best of luck, 

Terry

[Martian]

I had a look at the Whirlwind Fighter Project's web site and I see that they have the good sense not to have this kit available for sale in their shop!

 

Martian

[Sprueloose]

Here is a picture of the plane that I am trying to represent:

Kind of weathered... they say that some of these planes never got a primer coat and so suffered from increased deterioration of the surface paint. The fuselage from the panel line aft of the cockpit was skinned with some magnesium alloy as apposed to the usual aluminium, I wonder if that had anything to do with it. After reading about this plane and it's fate I thought about doing an Ar196 float plane next.

It is very hard to determine the shape of an aircraft based on photos because of the various angles of view and how they distort the proportions.

Today was another sanding and filing day, starting with work on the rudder. I sanded the little interior fin attached to the main rudder and then went after the tail section where it is buried. Filing it out more to give the rudder some more wiggle room.. I think that I am pretty close to good enough for my purposes. I just want to show the rudder deflected by a few degrees which will be very noticeable when you see the upper section of the rudder out of line.

Then onto the fuselage again. I added more styrene strips to the interior to help beef up the sides. Thanks Martian for the nudge. 

I then spent a few hours sanding and checking my drawings. Discovering that the kit is out of alignment and fatter on one side! There is nothing that I feel that I am capable of doing about the misalignment issue. Basically the center line of the model curves to the starboard as you head aft. Not much. But handling it and sanding and checking against the drawings brought it to my attention. I seemed to be sanding on one side most of the time! So there is a bit more sanding to do. I can see the white plastic card on the port side now! But to my eye the overall shape of the fuselage between the canopy and the tail looks better.

I didn't glue the sides together, unlike the engine nacelles but the tape seems to be working OK.

After a while the eyes get a little fatigued looking and checking the same form so I switched to the cleaning up a cutting mistake on the nacelles. Plastic strip added and then filled with Bondo:

I have to think about how I am going to attach the end caps of the nacelles. The actual mechanical linkage is totally hidden from view so I suppose that I can just tie them together with a short length of straight wire like I did with the other kit. It won't look as bad because you can't see it... or.. I could attempt to build the actual linking mechanics.. hmm

Finally today I filed down the rear radiator cooling flaps so that they were flat on the underside. On the other model I just cut them loose on two sides and scored and bent them in place but they had quite a pronounced bevel on the under surface which made it hard to attach the folding side baffles.  Decided to keep the cut off flaps and not substitute plastic card as I believe the actual flaps have some thickness on the inboard edge.

Pretty exciting stuff huh? Continues cold here in Portland and I had to stop working to stuff some foam under the door in my shop as there was an Arctic draft whistling on my neck!

Hope you are staying warm and modelling on!

Terry

[Bandsaw Steve]

Ahhh.  Yes. The Whirlwind project! That's where the plans came from.  I recall that you mentioned it earlier in the thread.  Thanks for that. Weather is also chilly here in Perth - will only get to 34C today. Will have to wrap up warm 🌞

[Wlad]

Terry, you really took a leap off the high diving board. I'm loving this build, mostly because of your attitude. It's refreshing to see you learn from each setback and try again. Keep going, you're doing a great job. You, and everyone following, will learn a lot.

 

Cheers,

Wlad

[Sprueloose]

Finished the rough sanding of the fuselage. Or as much as I'm willing to do! 

Attached the main rudder to the fuselage. Using a bit of plastic tubing as a bearing at the top. Secured with Tamiya thin and then epoxy. Movement is still less that I would want but OK. Should  have painted it! Will paint it before I seal the fuselage. I keep reading about the airplane and finding out more things, like that the main rudder was concave on one side (the port side I think) as it was attached to the tail off center.. I might try suggesting that, but should have done it before I attached it! Getting a little impatient today... the weather is changing and I'm not feeling that well... 

Added some plastic strips to the bottom of the cooler flaps to represent the guides that rollers on the Fowler flaps run in to lift the cooling flaps as the Fowler flaps are lowered. Note my favorite scriber below that I use to cut things off of the kit, like these flaps.

Here is what the cooling flaps will look like in place, once I have added the side shrouds and attached them:

Spent some time cutting and fitting plastic to fill the ends of the nacelles and their caps. Nothing glued as I figure out how to connect them:

Finally, I cut out the Fowler flap and glued a strip of plastic card that I will contour for the upper side of the flap. On the other model I used Bondo to create the shape and I will no doubt use it here too, but less. Using that much Bondo on a thin strip of styrene has warped it a bit, but it is easily straightened when fit to the wing so no problem. Just thought I would take a different route this time. I attached the plastic card with Revell cement as I have seen others do when putting large surfaces together. So the cement, when it dries may bend the flap as well, but we will see. Its all about the learning! 

The rain starts tomorrow, so slushy, icy mess for a bit... Good old Oregon winter!

Thanks for watching!

Terry

Edited January 16, 2017 by Sprueloose

[Sprueloose]

On 1/14/2017 at 6:23 PM, Wlad said:

Terry, you really took a leap off the high diving board. I'm loving this build, mostly because of your attitude. It's refreshing to see you learn from each setback and try again. Keep going, you're doing a great job. You, and everyone following, will learn a lot.

 

Cheers,

Wlad

Thanks for the kind words Wlad. 

[Sprueloose]

So today started with a bit of a rude awakening. When I went to look at the Fowler flap I discovered that overnight the little elves had moved my pieces of plastic card to the trailing edge of  the flap instead of the leading edge!.. hmm... Well removing them was out of the question so I added a slightly thicker strip to the leading edge to block out the airfoil profile!.. It actually was what I intended all along... really!

So while that was curing. (I put these glue/putty jobs on the heater in my workshop to get them up to a livable temperature). I decided to add the top of the rudder to the now solidly attached main rudder. For some reason I thought that it would be a good idea to fill the void in the little rudder piece with epoxy and let it harden beforehand. Thinking that then I would just drill a nice hole (perfectly aligned) for the shaft coming from the main rudder... Well the gods were not with me (huge surprise!) and the hole was off-center Trying to fix it breached the skin of the rudder.  So I used my Dremelclone to create a trench to lay the shaft in and back-filled with epoxy after getting the position just right... (that rudder is not going to move at all now Terry! Just you wait and see! ):

If I was going to do this again, I think that I would only fill part of the void and then add epoxy to the area where the shaft would be and press it down onto the shaft. Secure it with tape and clean up the mess afterward. (the tail horn has a bit of tape acting as a separator between the epoxy and the horn..(the horn is that bulbous thingie that the elevators clip into..)

 

So by now the glue on the Fowler flaps had set up enough for me to work on them, so I started sanding again to create my airfoil for the flap. As the plastic card feathered out at the trailing edge I realized that it would not hold the feathering and instead start to peel. So I scribed a line a bit back from the trailing edge and scraped off the cement and thin card..

Once that was done I slathered it with Bondo to fill the gap between the pieces of card and feather the edge:

And that is were is sits for today. I decided that I had learned enough for one day and cleaned up my work space:

Table saw makes a great table! Oh, one more thing, I just have to show you my little raised cutting block!... Bending over to work on small parts is a real pain in my neck so I glued a piece of old cutting board to a bit of 3 x 3 oak. It raises it just enough to ease the pain!

All for now. Thanks for watching.. Rain tomorrow. So ice!... Oh boy, another day of modelling!

Terry

Edited January 17, 2017 by Sprueloose

[Martian]

6 minutes ago, Sprueloose said:

 It actually was what I intended all along... really!

I'll believe you, just about everybody else on the planet won't but I will.*

 

Good progress and probably very wise not to push the fuselage any further.

 

*Martian the Gullible

[Sprueloose]

14 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

I'll believe you, just about everybody else on the planet won't but I will.*

 

Good progress and probably very wise not to push the fuselage any further.

 

*Martian the Gullible

Thanks for that Martin. Highly skilled modeling can be a bit of bore. Thought that I would provide a bit of light relief.

[Troy Smith]

very interesting work terry

 

if you don't have this, you may find it useful for camo and markings information, has patterns, markings sizes, etc etc

 

http://www.boxartden.com/gallery/index.php/Profiles/Camoflage-Markings/11-Meteor-Whirlwind

eg note comments on the scheme you are interested in

 

Given that Trumpeter's decals are wrong, you may wish to ask about for leftover Classic Airframes decals, though the 28 inch fuselage roundel is a tricky one,  it's an odd size (a 1/72nd 42 inch would be 28 inch in 1/48 though)

 

 

I tried to  find some better critique of the kit, if the Whirlwind project chaps say the plans you have are good them they are your best bet.

two members did post in this thread

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234952752-148-trumpeter-whirlwind-the-crikey-one/&

 

I'm surprised that brewerjerry has not posted on this thread, he a big whirlwind buff

 

HTH

T