Hamden Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Stunning absolutely stunning! Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Engineer66 Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Outstanding build, it just keeps getting better and better! Just imagine what you could do in 1/32 !!! Looking forward to the next update Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 it does rather flatter the build somewhat doesn't it ? I think the addition of the night sun really adds another dimension to the build. For some reason I don't think a Wessex looks complete without the night sun hanging off one side.... or a SACRU hanging off the underside It's all a matter of what you are used to and/or were brought up with. For anyone with my background, any Wessie looks odd that doesn't have ROYAL NAVY written on the tail! I am not - for once - having a dig at the Cr*bs, even a good natured one. To my eyes it genuinely looks odd with Royal Air Force written on it, because I barely ever saw an RAF Wessex (except the odd yellow one, I guess). Yellow top, a radar and a funny nose, or green with about 60 degrees of nose up in a fast stop with a complete cowboy of a Junglie driving, or a welcome red and blue SAR cab seen from underneath as you're winched out of the sea once every 2 years... all good; Wessies were an everyday part of every aviator's life for many years, which is I guess why we all love them so much. I just don't associate them with the Air Force. I know it's ludicrous, but it's a fact. [Mind you, even Phantoms & Buccaneers only look right to me when they have not the faintest trace of green on them!] Your Wessex, however, is beautiful (even if it does have the wrong words written on it!). 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 It all looks rather magnificent, lovely work hendie! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 17, 2015 Author Share Posted November 17, 2015 once again, thanks for all the comments guys. We are just 4 days shy of one full year, yes.... 365 days... count 'em... since I made my very first post in this thread, which means that I must have started the build right about one year ago. I will be taking tomorrow off as vacation day, primarily to take two cats to the vet to get various bits chopped off and plumbing removed, but also to spend some concerted time on this build. I hope to get the last of the aerials fitted, along with the access doors. There's a tiny bit of work to do at the top of the MRGB before I can fit the rotor head, and a couple of miscellaneous little bits here and there to finish The biggest hurdle remaining is the fitting of the nose (securely !.... so it doesn't fall off when I point at it) and making the intake grill from scratch..... looks like I could be pushing it to finish before Xmas at this rateWell, I did warn you all.... .... The one thing I can promise is that this will not be a quick build. ... didn't think it would take quite this long though..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 And over 1400 entries too! New year award for the most posts I wonder?..... Will the 1/32nd one come as a disappointment in any way? Only time will tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomoshenko Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Absolutely fantastic. Just love the photo above. Well worth the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascoteer Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Lovely. Just lovely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winnie Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 I must say, the skill and techniques used are beyond me! Love the work you have done, mine will be mere rubbish in comparison, but alas, the Wessex MUST rest on the shelf one day... Cheers! H. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Winnie dont despair, all it takes is lots of er er you know er whatever Hendie has in bucketsfull There's not many that could beat him at this helicopterisation stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Suds Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Cracking build and some great scratch building. It will almost be a shame to see it completed, no more to see, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 18, 2015 Author Share Posted November 18, 2015 Wow !!! thanks for all the high praise and for the glowing comments folks. At the end of the day I'm not really doing anything that different from what most of you folks are already doing... and some of you are doing it in 1/72 ! Pretty much all of you are doing some kind of modifications to kits or adding a few scratch built items - which is all I have really done.... I just went a bit... well.. overboard that's all. It's just one piece at a time (... and a long tortuous path to insanity ) and as (I think it was) Fritag mentioned in one of his threads somewhere - for every "good" part you see here, there's a dozen messed up and useless parts discarded and filed under B 1 N (or in my case, several dozen!) .... but experience gained to some degree with every part. I really never intended to go this far - I knew I wanted a more accurate Wessex then italeri churned out but I didn't realize just how far off the mark it was when I began this build. One thing led to another and the more I looked at photo's for research, the more issues I spotted. Once I had made the first few corrections there was no stopping me (apparently!). It was always a case of "what's the worst that can happen" ? If I really screw it up, I'll just use the kit part. Then it was, well... I already made one of those, so one of these shouldn't be too difficult" There were really only a few hairy moments for me during this build - cutting out the fuselage sides for the HC2 conversion really had me shaking, but taking it very, VERY slowly, with lots of stops and deep breaths got me there in the end. I'd encourage everyone to try a bit of scratch building and/or modification - you never know what you're capable of until you try - if you don't like it - try again, and keep trying until you get a part you are happy with... and if it really goes south - you can always buy another kit! 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martian Posted November 18, 2015 Share Posted November 18, 2015 Wise words Hendie. Martin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heloman1 Posted November 18, 2015 Share Posted November 18, 2015 Great work Hendie, as you say for every scratchbuilt part... Congrats. Colin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted November 18, 2015 Share Posted November 18, 2015 hendie, on 16 Nov 2015 - 09:39 AM, said:Unfortunately you can't fuse plastic with a soldering iron - but you can sure melt it into oblivion when the frustration levels get too high! Well, you can in certain very special circumstances. I remember an issue of "Finescale Modeler" back in the '90s which talked about using a soldering iron to weld pieces of sheet plastic together along the edges, and to form rivets out of plastic rod. The article used the fabrication of a naval gun tub in largish scale (1/72 or 1/48) as a demonstration. The riveting idea was particularly neat. Heat one end of a plastic rod to make it form into a dome shape. Drill holes through both sheets, line them up and push the rod through. Trim to length, and use the soldering iron to make the rod mushroom into a rivet head. I gather the technique takes a lot of practice and much melted plastic before it can be used, but it's interesting to think of the possibilities. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 18, 2015 Author Share Posted November 18, 2015 (edited) You are of course correct Jessica. I guess you can fuse polystyrene if you have a powerful enough iron and can get it above it's Tm, but really not in any controlled manner. I have seen rivets etc. made from rod and that is a great idea, but I would stick with the old polystyrene cement (no pun intended) So where were we ? Oh yes, one cat chopped and one cat re-plumbed, picked up from the vets and now recuperating in front of the fire. Poor little guys, didn't know what hit them. I'll keep them caged up for the evening and then let them out tomorrow so they can play with their buddies... and I don't need to worry about kitten explosions any more. Wessex, oh yes, there was a Wessex in here somewhere, and I promised to spend some time on it today... and I kept my promise. There are lots'n'lots of phoaties today - and even some progress! The morning started off with the fitting of the aerial mounts. I did get one scare when the paint around the hole chipped pretty badly when I was drilling but thankfully the base of the aerial mount completely covered the damage. Epoxy glue was used to fit the mounts and while it was on it's side I used a steel rule (held very gingerly next to the new hangy-off bits) to align the aerial mounts. Once the epoxy had cured it was a case of threading in that e-z stretchy stuff and tacking itin place with some ca - all pretty straight forward stuff. I really must invest in some new eyes... I could hardly see the darn stuff, even with my magnifiers on. A little bit of the epoxy has wicked, or rather, squeezed out from under the aerial mounts, but it's fairly even so I'm saying it's a gasket! A little bit of matt varnish and some weathering later will get rid of that. The last (I sincerely hope) job on these aerials was to add the steel connector on the front edge. Stainless steel wire to the rescue - easy job. Next item on today's menu was the rotor head. The lower swash plate (is there a lower swash plate?) was painted, fitted and then the control rods from the jacks were added. ... which was quickly followed by the linkage at the port rear. I'm not sure of the correct name for this part, maybe just scissor link - but it's fitted and done now. - and that was the very last thing I need to do in the rotor head area. Woohoo!!! The rotors could then be dropped into place. Since you lot are an observant crowd, you'll have noticed in the shot above that I am using brass tube as a sleeve into the main rotor gearbox. Way, way back when I was panicking and throwing the gearbox together I used brass tube as a liner in the gearbox. I did the same thing with my Dauphin build, and I think I will do it in any future helicopter builds - I use a slightly smaller diameter bras tube in the main rotor head itself - this means that I can easily remove the rotor blades if I ever need to, and it's a much stronger joint than any plastic can achieve - with the added bonus that the rotor blades can actually rotate. who'da thunkit eh? These aren't great photo's but you get the idea.... now looking more and more helicopterish isn't it ? I can't quite remember why I took this shot but it shows the rotor head of quite nicely. It doesn't look as clunky as the stock oob items. I think the additional work I did on the head has paid off. Things seemed to be going well and I felt I was on a roll. What to tackle next ?.... well, one job I hadn't been looking forward to was fitting the nose door. Back when I made it, I hadn't really put much thought into how on earth I was going to get the thing fitted.... now was the time. A quick scrabble about in my spares box produced these little pieces of PE - originally a scissor link for the Trumpeter Dauphin - so cut in half they were.... .. and a couple of razor saw cuts later... well. with some superglue but you probably guessed that. Okay, that was the cosmetics taken care of - now how on earth do I really stick the part on ???? Well, I ended up using brass wire drilling into the nose and then epoxied into the nose and into the front bay. There was lots of tweaking and general phaffing about, but in the end I got the position I thought it needed. A Wessex does like getting it's belly rubbed doesn't it ? This was the best way I could figure to apply the epoxy glue without it dripping back out and ruining something.... it seemed to work. After the epoxy cured I added the door stay and painted it up - weathering and grunginess to be added later. This is the right way up for a Wessex! I may have the open angle a tad too large but I think I can live with it.... all the better to see those little gnomes with ! .. and now a couple of gratuitous shots for no particular reason. I think anyone who has ever worked on a Wessex will find this pose familiar.... not to mention this one also (I really must get some more lighting in the basement) The tail wheel was finally permanently fitted, just ever so slightly askew. - I mentione din a previous post that I thought the tail wheel was about the only part I hadn't modified in some way or other - I was wrong.... I had added the towing lugs to the tail wheel. Since I seemed to be getting carried away with fitting things in a permanent manner I also threw on the trans deck doors - and added the support cable (well, ez stretchy stuff) - which you can hardly see, but it's there. Same with the starboard side, and the winch hatch fitted, which now nicely hides all the work I did putting hydraulics into the winch... but I know it's there. All in all not a bad days progress. It seems like I am almost there but I know there is still a reasonable amount of work to complete before I'll be able to put this one to rest. So, at the end of today, this is where the Wessi is at.... Yes, I had to clean up my work area.... the Wessex has now become an absolute nightmare to handle. In fact I have resorted to turning the mat (hence the cleanup!) whenever possible and trying to avoid any kind of handling as I am bound to break something before too long. Well, 3 days left before this becomes a one year build - will he manage to get it finished ? Edited November 19, 2015 by hendie 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandy Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 Absolutely gorgeous Hendie, and to add your own initial on it just makes it even better. I would love to see this "in the flesh" but the chances of me getting to any shows down your way are slim... Ian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 19, 2015 Author Share Posted November 19, 2015 Absolutely gorgeous Hendie, and to add your own initial on it just makes it even better. I would love to see this "in the flesh" but the chances of me getting to any shows down your way are slim... Ian my own initial ! ha.. I never thought of that. y'know I don't even know if there are any shows around here. - maybe I should look into that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 Nice wires mate, that really nailed the look for me As for the front have a quiet and very satisfied wow It really looks R E A L ! I love it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martian Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 A really entertaining update and a wise move on the brass sleeve for the main rotor. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 Looking great, things do get very delicate in the final stages like this. Nice to know you are nearly there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
batcode Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 stunning work, looks fantastic. look forward to seeing her completed.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamden Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! - what else can I say? Will be sorry to see this finished Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moaning dolphin Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 More fantastic stuff, she is definitely looking the part now! Good luck with man handling her though, I had a good look and I cant see any way of picking it up without knocking something off! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 Aaaand we're on the home stretch. P. S. The one year thing... I sent a card.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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