Frog Westland Wessex - finished

[AdrianMF]

I realise that I have been putting the Wessex off a bit because of "grille anxiety", to the extent that I started and finished an Academy Mustang! So last night I sat down after supper and played with some wire and Manuka Honey tea bag mesh to make myself a nose grille:

It's 20A fuse wire, glued with superglue, with the mesh progressively glued on round the edges with superglue. The fuse wire is a bit on the hefty side, and digital camera magnification certainly isn't kind...

Today I have located my brass wire stocks and soldering iron. If I can't do any better with that then at least I have one in the shop!

Regards,

Adrian

[Miggers]

In a slight adjustment the words of one of the comedy greats,

"What a fine mesh you've gotten that into"

Slookin' mighty good Ade.

[Tomoshenko]

That looks really professional, magnification be damned - seriously looks good x4. Good techniques noted for future reference. Looks like I'll have to man up and get me a stock of Manuka tea bags.

[heloman1]

Adrian, I think you've made an excellent job of the intake mesh. Not an easy exresize as you have fund out. The mesh around the main rotorhead GB, needs some extra detail which you may have seen in the +4 Wessex book. It looks fiddly but is wel worth the effort seing as you've got the intake almost spot on.

Colin

[perdu]

Handy hints for when I resurrect my Matchbox HAS thingy

(A good mate gave his old HU5 to play with -I need a naval Walter to put sonar into and it's already here...)

The tea? How does it taste?

I still have the HAS1/3 nose from my old HC2 conversion and you are giving me loads of inspiration to get started

[AdrianMF]

Thanks Chaps!

And it's nice to know the art of punning is not dead...

... Looks like I'll have to man up and get me a stock of Manuka tea bags.

Other fancy flavours are available!

... The mesh around the main rotorhead GB, needs some extra detail which you may have seen in the +4 Wessex book. It looks fiddly but is wel worth the effort seing as you've got the intake almost spot on.

Colin if you mean the central square with the three diagonal squares on the corners with the rods that push the swashplate thingey, I'm on it. I am going to cut it from card with a hole in and drop it over the boss. I've got some photos that show it quite clearly.

... The tea? How does it taste?

My daughter tells me it smelled nice up until she added the water...

Regards,

Adrian

[TheBaron]

Building a lovely Wessex AND getting Britmodellers to buy Manuka products. Who says men can't multitask Adrian?

Late to this (tea) party but staying to watch. Excellent stuff!

Tony

[825]

Looks like I'll have to man up and get me a stock of Manuka tea bags.

I've got rhubarb and ginger teabags. Will these be OK or is the weave on the Manuka specific for early Westland machines?

Edited July 11, 2016 by 825

[TonyTiger66]

I've just caught up with this one. Really learning a lot; plunge moulding, how to repair windows, creating instrument panels .... this is great! !

Thanks for sharing these great techniques. Good to see a Frog kit getting some well deserved tlc.

Best regards

Tony

[woody37]

Just caught up with this Adrian, lovely progress. Great to see an old kit getting spruced up with some great scratch building

[AdrianMF]

Hello All,

A bit more progress, although I should have stopped half way through last night's session and I would have had more sleep and fewer mistakes!

I've added all the detail I can see in my reference photograph of XM328 in its early trials and I've added selected detail from the right-hand side (which isn't visible in the reference photo). It's clear that the Wessex had lots of through-life modification and it's hard to find two examples that have the same detailing, so it's been hard to know when to stop. But I think I'm done apart from the tail grilles (next) and windscreen wipers (right at the end). I carved a flat down the middle of the vents behind the rotor too. It looks a bit messy but under a coat of paint I think it will do.

Well I got out the brass wire and solder. After cutting a few pieces and bending them up, I looked at them and put the soldering iron away! All stuck together with lashings of superglue and ready for the mesh.Top is the Mk1 from the weekend and bottom is the embossed clear kit part.

I couldn't resist dry fitting it together a bit:

I have just enough clearance under the rotor to add three rods. I hope this is the detailing that Colin was referring to in a previous post. You can see the new front grille test fitted - it looks just as ungainly and bashed as the real thing!

And I found some pictures showing some complicated lever thingys round the back of the tail rotor. I will have a think about what to represent there too.

Next stop is the undercarriage. I think I'm going to replace the lot with brass rod and tube, as the kit parts don't seem to align very well. And the slightly bulged sliding windows.

And then I can paint!

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

[Nigel Heath]

Looking forward to seeing what you do on the undercarriage.

[TheBaron]

All that detail is accumulating really nicely Adrian. I was walking round some of the choppers at Yeovilton a week or so ago reflecting on the variety and amount amount of 'sticky-out bits' they seem to have. That's coming through very nicely here. Love that mesh work

Tony

[AdrianMF]

Hello All,

I'm back at the bench. I had a little diversion into the Vignette GB but I'm back on the Wessex. So, more grilles. I am still on my first fancy teabag. Cut out a frame from 5 thou plastic card and a piece of netting to match:



Using a tiny amount of superglue, stick the netting to the frame without getting any glue the netting inside the frame (harder than it sounds!), then trim around the edge:



Here it is mounted (more superglue, one side at a time) , with the Frog clear plastic part for comparison:



I made some bulged glass for the side windows by cutting a hole in some thick plastic card to match the shape of the opening in the frame. Then I draped some heated plastic over the hole and dished it with the back of a small spoon before it cooled. It gives a rounded indent, not perfect but it saved having to make a curved master (one for each side!) to push through. I need to put some bits of strip on the top and bottom of the openings to give me something to put the side windows against, and I may pose one or both of them open, depending on how it looks.

The original owner of this kit had twisted the undercarriage legs off the sprue. Unfortunately the gate was tougher than the leg, so the mounting pegs stayed on the sprue. I had thought about replacing it all with brass wire, but I've decided to go with the kit items, and so I've stuck in some replacement mounting pegs and will butt join the legs to them. With the geometry of the tailwheel strut added in, this will be a pretty fragile model!

And here is the beast, waiting now for undercarriage and rotors before painting.



I'm hoping to wrap this up at the weekend.

By the by, I've been following Procopius's Hunter thread. Seeing a tiny red-haired boy reminded me of my son, who is now all grown up and six foot seven. When did that happen? He even pats me on the head occasionally:



Thanks for looking,
Adrian

[perdu]

You think you have a big un, huh.

My six foot+ son has a sixteen years old son who is getting close to dad's height already, just a hand's breadth below the door lintel

when did I shrink?

and those tea bags

Looks like I have to go shopping...

Great work on the best Wessex kit around - still!

[Pete in Lincs]

Nice work.

Those shots of the RH side rear,

You'll need the ratchet handle for

the tail fold locking rod.

[AdrianMF]

Nice work.

Those shots of the RH side rear,

You'll need the ratchet handle for

the tail fold locking rod.

Thanks Pete. How the hell did I miss that?!

Regards,

Adrian

[AdrianMF]

Hello All,

Well it's finished. RN blue-grey was a mix of 2 x Humbrol 67 tank grey and 1 x Humbrol 25 "classic" blue, with some variation for various brush coats and some Humbrol 64 added for dry-brushing. The tops of the rotor blades are mid-grey but they have washed out in the photis. Warning rectangles are the orignal 50-year-old Frog decals, roundels and characters are Extradecal, and everything else is paint.



I'd just like to thank everyone for their help about all sorts of things (including ratchet handles and dodgy opening windows!) based on real-life experience of Wessexes.

More pictures in RFI.

Thanks for looking,
Adrian

[TonyTiger66]

That looks great Adrian! Very nice paintwork, the colour looks spot on. I like the exhausts, they look real

Thanks for sharing this build

Tony

[Nigel Heath]

That's a very tidy looking model, right I'm now off to the RFI.

[71chally]

Thant looks superb, the hard work has paid off!

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

Sure looks the part. I'm off to RFI now

Richard

[JohnT]

Well done. Thoroughly enjoyed reading the thread as well.

[Tomoshenko]

Stunning mate. Well worth the expenditure on posh tea bags.

[keefr22]

Missed this thread originally Adrian, just found it by following the link from your RFI - thoroughly enjoyed reading through it in one go, some excellent techniques that have really breathed life into an ancient old classic! I've got one of these in that original boxing - shall I save it for a collector? Nah, I'm going to build it, stealing your ideas in the hope it might turn out somewhere near as nice as yours!

Cracking stuff!

Keith