TheBaron

A bit more progress tonight but the vellum parchments first.... We're both learning Bill - the Wasp teaching me what it needs..... W-ell...it fills that dead time before Songs of Praise comes on Pete. Either that or the Show Jumping on BBC2. (Christ but Sunday TV used to be dire as a teenager ). There's much about this helicopter that has me wondering Ian - several features I've not seen described anywhere! Sex Hinge sounds like it could have been one of those bands you only ever saw once on The Tube on C4 of a Friday night back in the 80s and never heard of again... Let me see if I've got this right Alan: you take Advels for indegestion whereas Choberts is Newcastle slang for piles? To this I would simply add 'imagination' Crisp: you can understand all the physics and engineering constraints in the world but to be able to actually visualize the solution to the problems they pose is a profound and powerful gift. I think I've mentioned Sennett's book on the forum somewhere previously but it opened my eyes to lots of places which I hadn't paid attention to the role of creativity in: Actually all of his books are revelations in one form or another... As @Ex-FAAWAFU's already mentioned G, I'm essentially a copyist of the original artwork! And the women who cooked for them and did their washing and history ignores.... 'Give a man a fish and he'll eat for the day attach it to the underside of a helicopter' Although still not settled upon the exact helicopter/ship combination I'm going to build, a decision has been taken that the Wasp here will be presented in its 'classic' MATCH configuration, i.e.' loaded out with torpedoes. Whilst the AS12/APX-BEZU combination was an alluring one, given the length of time the Vixen took I simply don't want to spend a load of extra time building two versions of the same aircraft again. There's too many other subjects I want to try after this one, plus I kind of prefer torpedoes to missiles - which is why I was originally asked to leave the Vegan Society. That said, on to show some of the progress in this direction. I added the fairings ('flarings') to the rear half of the tail fold junction, along with their respective ELRC runs: Followed by a modified version of the original gearbox/tailplane mount: One of the big differences I have to keep reminding myself is that with all the extra detail afforded/required by working at this scale, assemblies that you would ahve printed as a single unit at 1/72 actually require you to split them up at 1/24 in order to avoid minimize having printing supports all over the place - not infrequently at impossible angles! The tail rotor gearbox/transmission is prime example of these differing requirements/opportunities - due to its height above ground, none of my references fully encompassed the true horror of its shape until serendipitously somebody put one up for sale on Ebay quite recently - the close-up nature of which quite nicely filled in the blanks. Still retaining some nasty 1/72 habits I originally tried doing the whole thing as a single set of drawings - which that set of asymmetric compound surfaces soon gave the lie to and forced me to build the thing in parts pretty much as the real gearbox is constructed. Interesting learning exercise in that building large scale lets you mimic the individuality of parts on the actual aircraft more closely than you can at smaller scale. But then those of you who routinely build at the bigger scale already know this whilst I'm just learning! The result of this rapid education was that I started with gearbox itself, ina ll it's irregularity and protruberances: Bolted onto the port side of that is the mouting for the rotor drive shaft: Whilst to stbd is the cover of the chain-drive for the tail rotor pitch control: Photographs with that cover off show the chain-drive itself looking remarkably like the chain and sprocket of a bicycle so sometimes basic mechanics are the most reliable I guess! If I turn the transparency down on the tail-cone you can see why I added a residual 'stump' for the driveshaft inside of there - seen from an acute angle from above you might just see down inside to note its absence: Sticking out underneath is also the navigation light (lens to be added later from transparency): Further down the stbd side the access and reinforcing panels for the chain-drive were also added in: As were the panels lower down near the 'elbow' where the tail kicks upwards from the boom: I've since learned that this 'elbow' is in fact called a kink-frame and very much like that term. Underneath those hinge fairings the securing plates and bolts were added, along with the lower ELRC: Bolts and plates added as well to the top hinges; those two spigot-like bits sticking out of the top fairing just forward of the kink frame are something to do with the tail rotor angle gear box inside of there - lubricant access perhaps? Also in the above shot - I don't know if you can see that part of the port side curvature of the fold junction between upper and lower hinges has been trimmed in a little to shave some of the diameter off the airframe off at that point. It's a subtle feature I'm presuming to allow it to clear the hinge fixtures on that side when being swung round to lock into place. I thought I was seeing things when I first noticed that in a photo but several different angles confirm the presence of this detail. Also trimmed out is part of the top fairing, for identical reasons: The ensemble so far (still needing to add the dog-leg and tail light tight at the end of the gearbox assembly): As there's a few design decisions specific to this scale (in terms of printability) built into those structures, I think I'll risk a print at the weekend to test their definition. Other than that I've been worshipping the clouds as gods of late: Bless you all, Tony

Think you got them outpost colours about right Butch. I was going to say that it reminded me of a place I used to deliver to in Croydon but the same thing I guess...

That combination of shape colour and tone work wonderfully Neil.

Argent rampant on azure field - an immaculate appearance as always Bill.

Keef to Mick: ' Naaaah...that don't work with the rest of the song...what about something more in yer face about painting a whole line of cars black?' Mick (coughing): ' -ck this stuff's strong..'

If you find a decent filter for the job let me know Ian! I use a slightly drastic method when the IPA gets very cloudy/has bits in it of of leaving my tank of of it in full sunlight on the window sill for brief periods until any resin deposits begin to thicken into what I suppose might technically be termed a 'gloop'. When poured through a filter in this state it's a bit like an asteroid accreting whereby these gloops bind together into larger clumps (as well as picking up any stray particles) Any gunge left in the tank can then be wiped out with kitchen roll, followed by a rinse out with warm soapy water. I've yet to investigate if there's some kind of nano-sieve material available from laboratory suppliers....

That was a rich update G: the individual elements really starting to gather together in a big way here now.

No-one is mentioning the possible use of a paid saboteur here in order to prolong the build even further.

Sunday Service. Brother Steven to lead us in the opening response. Be afraid of what it's like actually being inside of this mind Steve: Namibian dunes falling into the the sea as the night wind pulls feathers of sand from their crests. Except on Monday mornings: that's when the leather stream of bats flows upward from their cave to form a line of ink around the sun.... Yes. Unfortunately it was the second Doctor and Patrick Troughton had very rough hands. 'Peat in Lincs' Now I feel like Dr. Frankenstein waiting for the lightning! That's very kind of you two - I'd love to have been present at design meetings for the original P.531 to learn why certain things looked the way they did! Looks like it's curtains for you. We must have been thinking along similar lines Ian. I came up with a hybrid plan that managed to add that tubular detailing to the interior without impacting on the exterior lines (see below). And indeed I'm most grateful for your friendship on here Anthony. Most kind of you Colin. I fear that if I shrank this down to 1/48 however then the curent design of the cabin roof would fall in upon the crew.... With the framework of the cabin roof the last major 'architectural' feature to resolve (in terms of structural strength) I figured that it should be possible to combine the tubular framework present around the interior junction of walls and roof with the (necessarily over-scale) skin of the aircraft in a manner that was not too jarring to appearances: With the thickness of the skin around the top at 0.4mm, that tubular framework now embedded within it is a way of emulating the appearance of the actual structure whilst adding a required strength: I think that should do now: Another theory wild surmise that may be proved wrong in the fullness of time is that this tubular section provides a recess to help with gluing the transparencies into place. We'll see... With the major outlines of the airframe now established it was time to begin the second pass of the design process, namely, adding all of those prominent structural features that reside around the surface of this helicopter, ithe wrinkles and laughter-lines if you will I've no idea where this sentence is going. Worth another stare at the airframe: Outside of the obvious exterior features such as the sponsons and stretcher bulge, it's those two sets of lateral lines along the tail boom and part of the engine deck - what the 1964 Flight article refers to succinctly as 'external longitudinal rivetted channels' - which stand out as characteristic features. 'Just a few lines', I thought: 'Shouldn't take long'. Westland - like their cousins at de Havilland - had a wry and self-effacing way of making such things look superficially simple so that the contemporary modeller - in the role of 'unwary traveller' - soon finds themselves negotiating compound curves sat upon other compound curves. My usual method of solving such problems is 'repeatedly running up a steep muddy slope to slither back down as inertia and grip falter' until acquiring so much mud on my boots that I end up the same height as the slope. Others might call it learning but this smacks of a diginity and purpose that is alien to my nature. The first set of slithers then led me to this stage - the base plates of said 'external longitudinal rivetted channels' (henceforth ELRCs): You can I hope see see the problem: build a set of linear features of uniform width along a varying conic surface. Oh, and make two of them splay out at laterally one end into oar-like features.... Many of the travails/silent swearing here were due to me foolishly insisting that I could 'design once and duplicate'. A short and bitter summary is that of course this approach didn't work and each channel had to be adjusted individually from its own set of dimensioned drawings to keep widths etc. uniform along their length. Jubilation was short lived however upon finding out how much more complex it was to build the channels themselves: The central one was a simple set of adjustments but getting those 'oars' looking similar on two separate parts of the radius top and bottom was decidedly of the 'not' category. Once in place though it felt good to have persevered/sworn so much: Don't @ me that there's another ELRC along the underside of the boom - I'm ignoring that for now.... The (relatively) more simple channels for the side of the engine deck were also done up at this stage, along with the prominent access panel in their midst: Those bolts are just generic 'Baron-bolts' - a simplified one I drew up to save on memory importing actual ones from the Mcmaster Carr catalogue you can access in Fusion. I used some of those back on the Avon engines previously and although authentic, the extra detail really added to the pressure on RAM/loading times when used in any siginificant quantity. Installed: Back to the tail then: The reason for the splayed appearance of the top and bottom channels seen above is of course to accomodate the hinges of the transport joint of the tailcone. Under no illusion that they would be a simple affair (and thanks in no small part to a revelatory oblique/overhead shot of the hinges supplied by @Ex-FAAWAFU) I took care to fully test the interaction between the hinges in drawing form first before committing to shape: Aside from accuracy of shape and placement, the other factor here is ensuring there is sufficient clearance withthe sides of the boom: This latter function I invetigated with a variation on the 'poke it with a stick' method: At last - something that works first time! I've yet to build the correspoinding fairing for the rear set of hings on the tail cone so ignore that unfinished look to the way they curently stick out of the side: Did you hear a slight squeak from somewhere? You shall have a working tail fold Cinderella: The diameter of that temporary rod in the stbd hinge is 0.4mm so using a metal rod of that diameter on the printed version should allow for safe operation: I didn't mention that I initially got the male/female arrangement order of the hinges quite literally back to front because you already guessed that didn't you? I'd like to thank Mrs Tancredi and Miss Twicenightly for the flower arrangements. Autumn from east to west: Tony

I think the corrugated hose is my favourite bit so far Alan - though the whole engine looks fantastic in colour now. It seems to go with the territory of moving between the design and to printing environments: Tuesdays are usually fine for exporting stls as a rule but complex assemblies won't mirror in Fusion of a Friday evening.

This rare bird blurs the boundary between the miniature and human scale Mark. A choice delicacy for the eye.

... has a new magus amongst its ranks. Congratulations on such a finely-wrought piece of work Mark, that is just so good.

Impeccable colour work and detailing Chris.

G'evenin! I'd like to open proceedings by proposing the the collective noun for Britmodellers be a 'generosity'. Over the course of the last week @Anthony in NZ and @Ex-FAAWAFU have provided me with a weallth of new visual references which - along with many of the visual gems over on the Westland Wasp Historic Flight timeline - inspired me to go back and basicallty tear apart much of the work I had done over the previous week.... Seriously though - this dimuitive machine seems to bring out a level of affection and altruism in others that it was not viable to push on without improving the quality of the designs. I'll take you through the alterations in a bit after readi ng what was tied to the pigeons legs... To the left Giorgio? Sounds a bit sinister if you ask me.... I did Ian! You're lucky over in the UK Pete - B&Q don't carry those products here. Remarked Mark... Your secret is safe here on the Internet Steve. They'll never know... Oh dear Lord Anthony - that can't have been pleasant. I hope things are ok. Signed: Man who asks friend recently involved in a car crash to go and crawl around under a helicopter for him. I appreciate your remarks citizen. I must confess that the further I get into this helicopter, the more superficial its simplicity appears to be.... You did brilliantly Anthony and I can't thank you enough - you anticicpated the gaps in my references to an uncanny level! Kind of you CJ. From points and lines, mighty shapes do grow.... Yep - knowing I was going to have to make an indefinite number of copies of the canopy rather than just a single one, I cold-cast the bucks using aluminium powder for strength and durability. I just saw that as a window but you actually being able to tell the grade of glass from a photo is impressive. You're a wizard Terry! So with augmented vision as it were from the influx of new photographs I was able to see more clearly a number of issues I wasn't happy with in the work up til now. A major one was that, as time went by, I realized I wasn't happy that I'd caught the flow of shape over the perspex roof successfully enough at the front above pilot and observer. Secondly, my designs for the framing around the roof sill did not take into account the interior structure that will be visible at this scale, to whit the fact that the tubular framework which runs around inside the aircraft skin inside of the roof sill and down the centre of the windshield. Regrettably this wasn't mentioned in the Flight article or illustrated in the maintenance manual, however it's not exactly bleeding invisible in photographs if I'd been paying proper attention. Additionally, my ideas about how to break some of the cockpit/cabin structures down into parts for printing and later assembly were I realized naive. As this set of problems are all inter-related I'm just going to start with the roof and talk you round these changes in the above order These are the new 'eyebrows' of the Wasp roof that I has altered the designs for: I won't bore you with the CAD side of things but suffice to say that in terms of lofting those shapes, I went from using a purely rectilinear framework of profiles to actually drawing out and connecting many of the curves in three dimensions, off of the image plane(s). This let me more effectively accout for the flow of highlights seen in photos and videos: In terms of how the 'shine' falls across my virtual version, it looks and feels a whole lot better now to my eye: It's obvious from the above shots as well that I'd gotten round to cutting out the transparent regions of the roof from the surrounding ramework: Turning to that next, a quick interior viewpoint lets you see the narrow strip of aircraft skin running around the sill between roof and side of the cabin. Previously I'd thickened this into a box section over 1mm thick but this ignored the tubular framework. Even at 1/24th scale it's not going to be feasible to print a scale skin thickness for that frame work so I'm having to settle on a compromise ofnhaving something like a 0.4mm thick skin around that sill, combined with the tubular framework inside of it (yet to be added): This may prove optimistic but the only way to know for sure will be a test print. With the roof added back in you can get a hint even at this early stage of the necessary level of detail that's going to be visible inside there: The rear cabin widows I've left a different colour to indicate another change to the design ideas I had for this complex intersections of parts: This has been frankly driving me mad as it's easy enough to design something that looks 'right' in visual terms but if you're not thinking ahead to how you intend making it and integrating it into the overall structure later on, you can indeed walk yourself into all sorts of traps: With a mixture of linear sides and irregular/organic top and bottom profiles there proved no satisfactory way to design just the transparent window section on its own in such a way as it could be stuck into that gap between roof curve and rear quadrant shape (think sills and gluing surfaces). I went through about three different designs and all had problems in different areas until after a night's sleep I decided the most Occam-like solution would be to vacform that tan coloured part as a single element, masking off the transparent section of it during painting! A buck was born: In fact I've been steadily accumulating a set of window shapes as objects to turn into vacforming bucks later on. Positive: Negative: At some point during that I wandered off down to the tail and finished thickening the boom and tailcone walls: Another compromise in printing terms was to have to make the thickeness of the tail rotor transmission fairing about 0.4mm at the front: Any thinner and it risks curling/warping too much during curing due to the tight curves involved. At least the gap at the top still looks authentic. That's it for tonight - I've run out of steam and have to go back to the shed with the rest of the engines. The best to all of you, Tony

I can't improve on Heather's statement!