Wessex HU.5 - done!

[Gary West]

Cracking work so far

[Will Vale]

Thanks Gary!

I've got a few more things done this week. I noticed that the putty windscreen fairing had some divots in (maybe it wasn't fully dry and sank) so I added some GW Liquid Green Stuff (thick acrylic goop) and smoothed it out with 400 and 1000 grit paper. This is the only use I've found for this filler so far, it's rubbish for gaps but since it's very soft it's not bad for divots because you're unlikely to sand back anything more than the paint and the green stuff itself.

I also found that I'd stuffed up the varnish around the landing gear struts and steps - I think odd spray patterns had caused some bounce, and as I mentioned about the Aqua Gloss has, for me, tended to be orange-peeley. So I sanded those back carefully to at least take the roughness off, if not restore a smooth finish. I think I may go back to brushing on Klear - the brush marks always look scary, but it does tend to cover up better when you apply the matte coat.

I painted MIG dark wash over all the panel lines and rivets and details, and cleaned it off with a huge pile of cotton buds and a wide brush on recessed areas. Once that was dry I sprayed a little Dullcote on the underside to check it, because the gloss darkened the green to almost exactly the same brightness as the wash making it a bit hard to see. I thought the Dullcote went on a bit patchy, so left it overnight.

For the matte varnish, I thought I'd use Tamiya XF-86, which I've been OK with before on a couple of builds, but it frosted! Not horribly, but enough to obscure my nice greens and generally look a bit too blue. Waaah! I left it for a while at that point, then wet-sanded with 2000 grit, dusted off to get rid of as much matting agent as possible, crossed all available appendages and sprayed a couple of coats of Dullcote.

And now it looks like this:

(click for bigger)

The greens are back and the frosting is gone (phew!) but I need now to touch up some damage from the sanding, and a couple of white flecks which I always seem to get with the Xf-86. I think the Dullcote finish isn't as smooth as I've had before, but that may be down to the underlying surface. I'll probably add another coat still, once I've done the touch-ups, to unify things.

Cheers,

Will

Edited September 12, 2013 by Will Vale

[heloman1]

Hi Will, nice save re the matt coat. I've just used Model Master semi-gloss on my HAS 3 and it's come out fine, so I'm going to see if I can stock up whilst I'm in the UK.

The more I look and work on the Wesex the more I realise that Italeri didn't do a good job. It's a rush to get the kit out for the Falklands Anniversary. I think they should revisit the kit and make ammends. I'll gladly help them with a fat list starting with....

Good luck in finishing yours.

Colin

[Will Vale]

I didn't do any work over the weekend, but I touched up some paint today ready for weathering. I don't know how scruffy helicopters get in service, but does the following sound reasonable?

* Light dust from sides/below to represent dust kicked up on landing.

* Very light dust from above to represent dust settling.

* Some gentle neutral coloured vertical streaks for rain marks.

* Various bits of "spot" weathering around access panels, fuel gauges, sliding rails etc. copied from photos where possible.

Also what colour should the things underneath which look like a car exhaust system be? I assume they're painted, but did they rust or otherwise go manky in service?

Thanks,

Will

[heloman1]

I didn't do any work over the weekend, but I touched up some paint today ready for weathering. I don't know how scruffy helicopters get in service, but does the following sound reasonable?

* Light dust from sides/below to represent dust kicked up on landing.

* Very light dust from above to represent dust settling.

* Some gentle neutral coloured vertical streaks for rain marks.

* Various bits of "spot" weathering around access panels, fuel gauges, sliding rails etc. copied from photos where possible.

Also what colour should the things underneath which look like a car exhaust system be? I assume they're painted, but did they rust or otherwise go manky in service?

Thanks,

Will

Hi Will, lookin' good, the exhausty things are actually fuel dump pipes, they are black/dark grey rubber, the bracket half way down which allows them to be elevated whilst towing is green fus colour.

Colin

[Will Vale]

Thanks Colin, I've painted them as such. I ought to drill out the ends really, but not sure if I'll bother.

I finished my paint touch-ups, added some dust and streaks, varnished, and then added some more dust and streaks. I thought I'd better get the masks off before I was tempted to do another round - less is more etc.

(click for bigger)

Oh, and I stuck the wheels on! Some spot weathering to do, shiny bits, antennas and such. Plus I need to clean the glazing since it's dusty (I hope!) on the inside and has tape residue on the outside. I panicked a bit when I unmasked one of the side windows and it was covered in crud, but it turned out (I think) to be matting agent from when I sanded the varnish - it must have crept inside when I rinsed it off the model, and I was able to wipe it away with a soft brush inserted through the cabin door.

I'm not totally pleased with all this - the cockpit is nicely detailed (and I can see the things I added - bonus!) but let down by the gap on the right hand side. And the glazing looks a bit thick and weird. Hopefully I can clean it up and it'll be OK.

Cabin floor came out great though

Cheers,

Will

[Bengalensis]

It's looking great. The look into the cabin with the floorboards visible is wonderful. I'm glad we continue to see the updates, keep them coming.

[OzH]

Lovely job so far. Like the semi matt finish, looks great. I tend to use citadel (games workshop) semi gloss varnish from a rattle can, seems to work fine for me.

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind comments, I could do with a bit of encouragement today. Ever had one of those days when everything you touch turns to (bum) custard? I did some detail painting on the rotor head since I wanted to get that ready for final varnishing, and it looked quite nice - I touched in the rubber boots, added the coloured blade ID bands, and painted the oil reservoir to try and make it look like translucent plastic. I also followed Colin's lead and added the oil lines. Once that'd dried I sprayed my usual Dullcote, in my usual way (spray quite wet, and leave well alone to dry). Always worked before, today the varnish layer cracked up. It was worse where the varnish was heavier (my fault) but visible everywhere on the rotors I think I'll probably try and blame the Aqua Gloss since that was the main difference in this build - I'll try going back to Klear next time.

Anyway, once it'd dried properly I wet-sanded with 2000 grit to smooth out the cracking, being thankful that it appeared to only be in the varnish layer. Then I had to mask and retouch the blade tips where the yellow showed under the green from sanding. And of course I had to re-apply the varnish (very carefully) to soak up the matting agent dust in the grooves from sanding. Bah! The blades look OK now, but the rotor head looks like it's ready for the dump:

(click for bigger)

I hadn't realised quite how crusty it was until I took the pictures - the detail makes it harder to see in real life. I might try and do a little more sanding, or just leave it and move on.

I did successfully mask up the blades and spray the leading edge tapes with a mix of semi-gloss black and rubber black. I think a bit more semi-gloss would have been good but they look tidy enough.

I did the same on the tail rotor leading edges and sprayed Alclad Dull Aluminium, but my masking wasn't so good (very narrow bands, hard to line up with the moulded grooves) and I botched it. I ended up having to strip the tail rotor blades back to primer and repaint the tips and main colour. I don't think I'll try and do the edges again - too hard to get a good result. Oh, and I got fingerprints in the paint so I need to fix those and then touch up the overspray on the hub. Double bah!

With all that out of the way I took a deep breath and fitted the antennas. Thankfully given my run of luck earlier this went OK once I'd got the right combination of materials - nylon monofilament and thick CA. I don't usually like to use CA accelerant (it's the *worst* of all smells) but I had to for this. I got into the routine of applying a dot of glue to the tip of the next antenna, spraying a cotton bud with accelerant (into the spray booth to take the fumes away) and then holding the thread in place and touching it for a second or so. Took a while but I was able to work my way around. Still need to make some quick masks and dust the ends of the antennas with matt black.

So I'm basically done. There's a few things I'd still like to weather and I might try and improve the state of the rotor, but hopefully the next post will be in RFI when I can take some sunlight pictures to replace these nasty fluorescent light ones.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

And finished (except for touching up a glue blob I spotted where I had to re-attach the antenna/pitot tube (?) above the canopy, and using more than blu-tak to attach the door.) Not enough light for decent pictures so this one is a bit grainy... Hopefully I can do some more tomorrow lunchtime.

I didn't add any wear to the access panels on the nose because I couldn't see any in pictures when I looked for it, though I've seen quite a few models with plenty of worn away paint. I did add some pencil lead to the steps and the door/window sills though.

Thanks for all the help!

Cheers,

Will

[heloman1]

Congratulations Will, looks the biz. I do like the coloured bands on the pitch change joints and the hydraulic reservior atop the MRH, all bits that add to the effect. With the tail rotor steel leading edges, I've used a silver Koki pen as the silver paint is nice and thin and not too much grainy and used the mound line as a guide. It's still not 100% but helps.

I've been looking at the HAS 3 kit but need to get back to my other two builds threads first (Wessex 5 and Merlin).

Colin

[Will Vale]

I guess I could mask them up again and try with a gentler paint, like Tamiya Flat Aluminium. But I'm scared! (And one of the blades had a tendency to bend and I don't want to break it...) It would look better though...