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Wessex HC2 - A Dauphin's Stablemate: 520 days later.... IT'S FINISHED ! (why, yes it is indeed)


hendie

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And I vote for just one side open.

Otherwise we'll be here until Christmas

and your coach will never get finished!

and which Christmas would this be? lol.

Hendie, your devotion to the art of whittling plastic (and etched brass) should get you an MBE (Meticulous Britmodeller Exponent).

Trevor

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Pete I hope you have a good leave, has to be good news

Hendie man, although I understand wanting perfection (been looking at Fritag's builds enouogh lately afdter all) that door you made first doesn't look so very far away from the one on my pic of 525 up on her lofty perch

74ca1924-a378-4214-a08a-51aded568009_zps

And I see the warning notice isn't even properly circular anyway ;)

Edited by perdu
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and which Christmas would this be? lol.

The rather wonderful Neville Duke once asked me when I thought my aeroplane would be finished. I told him 'nine months, but they are not necessarily consecutive and I reserve the right for them to be all Decembers' He laughed and then said 'I am full of admiration for you chaps that rebuild aeroplanes, I just go to a showroom and buy mine'

I was very lucky to have known him, he was what you want your heroes to be like!

Melvyn

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The rather wonderful Neville Duke once asked me when I thought my aeroplane would be finished. I told him 'nine months, but they are not necessarily consecutive and I reserve the right for them to be all Decembers' He laughed and then said 'I am full of admiration for you chaps that rebuild aeroplanes, I just go to a showroom and buy mine'

I was very lucky to have known him, he was what you want your heroes to be like!

Melvyn

I feel the same way about Winkle Brown; a thoroughly nice man who seemed genuinely interested in a bog standard Lynx squadron Joe (as I was at the time, around 25 years ago, when I met him). A true gent. Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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However, I have decided to make another engine door.... 1) ..... and 2) .... oh, and 3) .... oh, and 5) and then 6) oh crap, ... I'll just make another one!

What happend to 4)? :)

hendie, I for one will be happy if you keep on doing and redoing and finding new stuff to do and to redo and well, anything really just to keep this thread alive :)

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What happend to 4)? :)

hendie, I for one will be happy if you keep on doing and redoing and finding new stuff to do and to redo and well, anything really just to keep this thread alive :)

ah.... number 4 was so heinous and horrible that my mind blanked it out.

I don't think you have any worries on that count Fritag - there's plenty of stuff (big stuff, small stuff, crazy stuff and even some fiddly stuff) left on this one - of that, I am certain!

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I feel the same way about Winkle Brown; a thoroughly nice man who seemed genuinely interested in a bog standard Lynx squadron Joe (as I was at the time, around 25 years ago, when I met him). A true gent.

With respect to the thread, and conscious of thread drift, I interviewed Eric at his home for my Flying Visit series in Aeroplane. I was on the wagon at the time and he asked if I would join him for a sherry. It would have been wrong to have refused!

And, as for Wessii, I grew up under the circuit of HMS Deadloss at Lee on Solent and had these circling around for a long time. I also remember seeing the two that were at Lee for SAR on their final flypast. One of the pilots was Norman Lees, who was sadly later killed in a Spitfire at Goodwood.

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There hasn't been much going on recently. I'm waiting on some materials arriving before I can really proceed with this build... and also trying to move forward with the rail carriage build.

I have lamented about the thickness of the plastic on this kit, and also the inconsistency of the thickness on even a single part. That issue provided a problem for me with the electrical bay panel that I had just cut out. The scale thickness of the panel was probably in the region of 150mm+ - not good. I had to figure out a way to come up with a reasonable solution.

I pondered the issue for a few days, not really wanting to commit to anything until I was sure about a way forward. I was almost at the point of vac-forming over the panel to get a replacement but that meant I would have had to remove all the surface detail like hinges, louver vents etc. and I didn't fancy trying to rebuild all that later.

Eventually I convinced myself that I could do it by grinding away the inside of the panel with a mini tool, and be able to get to something approaching reasonable.

- Here we are off to a scary start!

S5003201.JPG

I must admit there were a few heart stopping moments but in the end I managed to remove a substantial amount of italeri plastic.

With a bit of care, I managed to get an almost uniform thickness throughout the panel.

S5003202.JPG

That allowed me to build up the framing on the reverse of the panel and add some bits and pieces to make it look just a little bit better.

S5003204.JPG

In this shot you can actually see how thick the plastic was to begin with on the diagonal running down towards the nose.

S5003205.JPG

and lastly for tonight's update, I plucked up enough courage to start gluing on the mesh over the gearbox area.... I am using a new CA which allows more time to position parts. It seems to work but it is a bit thick.

Knowing how I always cack things like this up, I opted to take it in several stages - first gluing just the front edge to make sure I get it aligned and fully glued in place.

S5003200.JPG

and that's as far as I got tonight. I'll glue the remainder of the mesh in place later this week... and hopefully the new materials will arrive so I can plough onwards with this

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Hi Hendie

I'm following your build with great interest, hats off to you sir for your depth of detailing.

Just a tiny comment, the 'buldge' above the port exhaust should not be there, the bulge on the starboard side is the panel for the coupling gearbox sight glass and replenishment point. The bulge is the filler cap cover. The Wessex 2, 4 and 5 had this but not the Wessex 1 and 3. The small air scoop at the 8 o'clock position of the exhaust on the starboard side, 4 o'clock position on the port is a ram air intake for the coupling gearbox.

I really like the tail wheel yoke assembly, it's so accurate it's crying out for the tail pin flag in the yoke assembly.

Great build, keep on going.

Cheers the Woo.

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Hi Hendie

I'm following your build with great interest, hats of to you sir for your depth of detailing.

Just a tiny comment, the 'buldge' above the port exhaust should not be there, the bulge on the starboard side is the panel for the coupling gearbox sight glass and replenishment point. The bulge is the filler cap cover. The Wessex 2, 4 and 5 had this but not the Wessex 1 and 3. The small air scoop at the 8 o'clock position of the exhaust on the starboard side, 4 o'clock position on the port is a ram air intake for the coupling gearbox.

I really like the tail wheel yoke assembly, it's so accurate it's crying out for the tail pin flag in the yoke assembly.

Great build, keep on going.

Cheers the Woo.

Thanks Wafu - great catch... of course, when I double checked my references - it was obvious there was no bulge on the port side - so thanks for the heads up

Coming off later, it shall be!

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I am impressed with your thinning on the panel with a motor tool - I know only too well how easy it is to overdo things and cause softening and melting but you seem to have achieved a lovely result. :thumbsup2: I also like the resulting detailing.

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I am impressed with your thinning on the panel with a motor tool - I know only too well how easy it is to overdo things and cause softening and melting but you seem to have achieved a lovely result. :thumbsup2: I also like the resulting detailing.

I second this also, your modelling skills are top notch Hendie.

Cheers Woo.

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Evening folks!

The gearbox area mesh was finally laid to rest last night. Careful application of CA, some clamps, prayers, and a small animal offered to the gods resulted in a successful bonding of the parts.

S5003207.JPG

Only for the flipping thing to fall off tonight!!! I knew there was a reason I hated superglue. Now I hate it with a vengeance. horrible stuff. I'll need to have a think about how to attach the mesh in a proper sort of way - epoxy glue maybe?

S5003213.JPG

To calm the nerves, I added the two ribs in the tail wheel area. It's remarkably difficult to cut thin strips without the styrene curling up like a clockspring (polite version)

S5003208.JPG

Still following my obsessive compulsion to avoid painting, I looked for some more odds and ends to do and found a few things in the 'lecky bay. Here's a strange looking boxy thing.

S5003209.JPG

which nestles tucked up in the back corner along with a couple of ribs. I think the front face is supposed to be angled and not vertical but I won't tell anyone.

S5003210.JPG

That was followed by the vertical separator panel to divide the bay into two. The outer edge of the separator panel was finished off with a small length of rod pretending to be a sealing strip.

S5003211.JPG

I think that's enough base work for the 'lecky bays. The detail stuff can be added after priming.... talking of which.... I am really close to priming but I don't know what to do with the beetleback. It really is a horrible piece of injection molding.

I might go along with Pete's suggestion of sanding it down a bit and calling it a day, I dunno. It's that one part which is holding me back from priming. I want to keep the number of paint coats to a minimum to try and keep the detail sharp, and that's the last major component before the primer coat.

Some serious thinking ahead of me over the next day or two then....

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Hendie

How do you cut the plastic card so straight and so square ?

Do you use a cutter machine ? Im having hard time cutting straight .

I was looking at on of these tools .

http://www.micromark.com/duplicate-it,9546.html

Rick

I have one of those; it is brilliant

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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Hendie!

Awesome work as always. Re your problem with the mesh, have you tried annealing/bending the part to the correct shape (I know the theory but have never done it myself) so it 'should' rest in position.

Or sacrifice a slightly larger animal......

Trevor

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Hendie

How do you cut the plastic card so straight and so square ?

Do you use a cutter machine ? Im having hard time cutting straight .

I was looking at on of these tools .

http://www.micromark.com/duplicate-it,9546.html

Rick

Rick, I just use a steel rule and a craft knife. Start with several light strokes to get the cut going.

If I am cutting a wide section, I'll only cut part way through the styrene and then fold to break the cut. If I am cutting narrow strips then I find that folding doesn't work too well, and I have to cut all the way through

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Hendie!

Awesome work as always. Re your problem with the mesh, have you tried annealing/bending the part to the correct shape (I know the theory but have never done it myself) so it 'should' rest in position.

Or sacrifice a slightly larger animal......

Trevor

Trevor, I had annealed the brass prior to gluing it. I also pre-formed it as best I could before committing to glue. I'm running out of animals and definitely of the conclusion that me and PE are not meant to get along.

........ You have shamed me into getting a bit more done on my SH-34.

Martin

glad to have been of assistance!

Edited by hendie
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Its all coming along very nicely. I reckon those equipment bays are going to look amazing.

epoxy glue maybe?

This was my first thought, it will give a much stronger and robust solution compared to CA and if you use the five minute variety actually sets quicker. Clearly a bit of care will be needed not to fill in the mesh holes but should be doable.

It's remarkably difficult to cut thin strips without the styrene curling up like a clockspring (polite version)

You can of course buy pre-cut strip. I would have thought a serious scratch builder like yourself would find an assorted pack of strips a worthwhile investment.

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Its all coming along very nicely. I reckon those equipment bays are going to look amazing.

That's the intention... whether they do or not at the end of the day is up for debate

You can of course buy pre-cut strip. I would have thought a serious scratch builder like yourself would find an assorted pack of strips a worthwhile investment.

I'm Scottish... remember ? I baulk at the cost of those packets. I tend to buy bulk packages which work out a lot cheaper.

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