Wessex HC2 Crab Cabs Pt II (Fly Wessex - why on earth did I?)

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 10/30/2019 at 11:13 PM, hendie said:

After making that last post, I got to thinking.... if I am modeling this in a blade folded condition, and with the tail folded, shouldn't it follow that the tail should have a gust lock applied ? That thought spurned another thought - it shouldn't be too difficult to make a gust lock, BUT, yes there's always a but!  If a gust lock is fitted, all the blades would be pulled forward.  The kit hub is molded so the blades are on on the same plane.  I guess I need to make a new blade hub.

Just to give you a bit more food for thought... it can be done, but if (when!) you so, don’t just pull the blades forward; they also need to twist because they’re on a delta-3 hinge (i.e. automatically feather as they flap).  [Pretty obviously, this is a Sea King tail rotor with gust lock applied, but you get the gist]

 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[hendie]

 

On 11/2/2019 at 4:49 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Just to give you a bit more food for thought... it can be done, but if (when!) you so, don’t just pull the blades forward; they also need to twist because they’re on a delta-3 hinge (i.e. automatically feather as they flap).

 

Noted Crisp, thanks

 

 this evenings post is going to be a bit of an epic posting. Just in the sheer volume of photo's, not the quality of the post.  No point in hanging around so lets get started then.

We all thought Crisp was mad with his riveting of that Sea King, well, I think I just went a step madder by actually fitting individual rivets everywhere.  Lots and lots of little holes, and lots of sacrifices to the little god of carbide drills, many of whom gave their lives for this needless task.

 

 

I found the best way to secure these little blighters was to leave them slightly proud, then paint of with a wash of diluted PVA. The rivets can then be pushed fully home and the excess PVA removed with a damp cloth.

 

 

There's just no stopping once you get going.  It's like - well, if that panel needed rivets, then this one does too, and so on and so forth, until your eyes fall out of your head.

 

 

But it does add an extra something to an otherwise bland surface. It's just a shame FLY got the panel size wrong.

I'm not completely mad you know - I did check my resin rivet sheets first to see if there was any matching patterns.  They were damn close, but  the spacing was slightly out. Damn rivet counters!

 

 

Eventually we are finished with the riveting and it's time for some primer to see what's going on.  This isn't looking too bad.  If I'm honest, I'd say those "screws" holding the panels on are a bit large.  I did consider sanding them down a bit, but that flattens the heads and then they just look like nails.  At the end of the day, this is the side that is going to be folded against the fuselage so I'm not going to fret too much. Once the paint is on, it should tone it down a tad.

oh - fitted the folding tail lock as well before priming.  I think we're just about ready for a top coat on this now.

 

 

The other side looks better for some reason even although the rivets/screws are the same size.  I also added the small access panel from .005" brass sheet with a little length of wire for the hinge. Not that you can see it.

 

 

Since we are doing daft things, I considered the option of the gust lock, taking into account what Crisp mentioned above, and y'know... what the hell, in for a penny as they say

I forgot to take any photo's of the soldering, but essentially I made a small brass loop and soldered a straight length of rod to it.  Then I trimmed most of the loop away, leaving a small curved section - this gets pushed against the blade cuff holding it in place.

I should mention that the gust lock for the Wessex is of the Pushme Pullyou type. Two prongs push two blades and two hooks pull the remaining two blades - look, I found one on ebay! (I don't remember the bungee cords though)

 

 

You can see the curved section in the photo above, and the one I just made in the photo below.

 

 

Then more bits of brass were brought in to play, and we end up with a small kit of bits to make a Wessex gust lock.

 

 

Two x 2mm wide strips of brass were drilled with a 0.8mm drill and formed the cross piece.

 

 

Then it was assembled to check that it actually fitted together.  I love brass for this type of work.  I don't think there's any real substitute - plastic parts just wouldn't cut it I'm afraid. In addition to being much stronger, brass actually looks better - particularly when it comes to rod sections. Plastic just never seems as sharp (on kits anyways)

 

 

Then a check for fit against it's intended final resting place...

 

 

So far so good.

But before we get that fitted we need to fix the tail rotor first.  Way back before I started throwing bits of this kit away, I had drilled the tail rotor hub to allow the rotor blades to sit at angles, instead of beign all on one plane (sic) as molded.

Even with that drilling, I still couldn't get much of an angle going at all.

 

 

So I printed one off on me new printer.  My first attempt was using 10 degrees fore and aft - a bit too much I think

 

 

Then I printed another, this time at 5 degrees fore and aft - I think this looks much better and is pretty close to reference photo's.  The blades were also rotated slightly - as per Crisp's post above.

I stared at reference photo's for a good half hour trying to see which blade rotated which way, and by how much.  In the end it's hardly noticeable, but that's par for the course on this build.

 

 

and now for the complicated bit(s).  Stringing it all together.  That Wessex tail rotor is a complicated bit of engineering.

There's a star on front and a spider on back, all tied together with tie-rods  After discarding a few ideas I hit upon this crazy method for the tie-rods... Some very fine stainless steel wire inserted through a length of 0.5 mm OD brass tube.  You can see that can't you ?

I figured that the wire would remain flexible allowing me to position the tie-rods at whatever angles I needed, and could be trimmed off later.  At least, that was the theory.

 

 

sorta like this...

 

 

Starting off with the star -this bit was easy, but it just went downhill from here.

 

 

The I needed another length of wire to hold the star onto the rotor as I wasn't sure what angles it was going to end up at.

 

 

Eventually, everything got glue din place and I trimmed off the excess wire. Seems straightforward enough, but that must have taken me the best part of an hour from start to finish.  I'm surprised it all stayed in one piece.

 

 

but that (above) was EASY compared to this little blighter.

 

 

which reminds me - I managed to find this photo on t'interweb, which shows that my guess at the shapes overall was pretty close.

 

 

 

Same process - again, checking reference photo's to see which way everything was connected and which direction all the bits were facing.

 

 

After another hour of stress and learning new words, I got the thing together.

 

 

Front shot here - I still have to clear coat everything and weather the hub etc.  I was more concerned to see that it all went together today when I had plenty of time. There's no way this job could be rushed.

If I'm really honest, I think the spider at the back and the counterweights are slightly too large, but now that I have it all together IT'S STAYING THAT WAY !!!

 

 

Then a final check to get the correct lengths for the Pushme prongs of the gust lock - the prongs were then soldered, and Meng resin bolts stuck on top, with a big one for the main hand screw.

 

 

Funnily enough, I never realized when I started making the guts lock, but I am going to have to fit it exactly the same way as on the 1:1... I can't solder the hooks in place as I'd never be able to get them around the rotor blades.  I'm going to have to fit the gust lock, and pull the Pullme's over the blade cuff, then superglue them in place.

SO just to finish off todays work I gave the gust lock a quick blast of red

 

 

note to self.... remember to make some RBF tags, cos this needs one.

 

and now I'm off to bathe my eyes.

 

till another day...

 

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by hendie

[Bandsaw Steve]

Goodness me!😱

 

Now I think helicopters might be even worse than biplanes! 

[CedB]

[heloman1]

Hi Alan, TR and gust lock looking good, nice work...

 

Colin

[Pete in Lincs]

19 hours ago, hendie said:

I never realized when I started making the guts lock,

Well it took guts to build it out of such microscopic bits, so why not. I did wonder if you'd need to fit it before you glued it together.

It's a very small thing of beauty. And, they would be mush head screws on those pylon panels, so a swipe with a sanding stick wouldn't hurt.

[keefr22]

23 hours ago, hendie said:

and now I'm off to bathe my eyes.

 

My eyes hurt just looking at the big pictures of those amazing teeny weeny things you keep insisting on making hendie...!!

 

Keith

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Fab; just fab.  Mine looks like a gust lock: yours actually IS a gust lock - it would work just like the original if you were foolish enough to leave your Wessex outside in high winds.

 

Incidentally, I came to the same conclusion as you, in that mine was fitted exactly like the original because it was the only way I could get it to work - in the Sea King case, that’s 6 hooks, each around the root of the blade.  I recall that getting it into position was hideous; essentially I added each hook and only then built the hub arrangement.  
 

Mon chapeau est duly doffed.

 

 

[Tramatoa]

Sorry to be pedantic but you have missed the jam nuts and locking wire off the tie rods on that tail rotor.................

 

Inspirational modelling, a guilty pleasure during an otherwise crappy couple of months. 

[hendie]

27 minutes ago, Tramatoa said:

Sorry to be pedantic but you have missed the jam nuts and locking wire off the tie rods on that tail rotor.................

 

They're there all right... the locking wire is so fine (true to scale) that the camera just won't pick them up !   

 

On 11/4/2019 at 2:20 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

And, they would be mush head screws on those pylon panels, so a swipe with a sanding stick wouldn't hurt.

 

micro-meshed and awaiting paint

 

On 11/3/2019 at 6:56 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Goodness me!😱

 

Now I think helicopters might be even worse than biplanes! 

 

only if you're daft enough to be as daft as me

 

On 11/4/2019 at 4:44 AM, CedB said:

 

careful Ced, or we'll need to wire-lock that jaw shut

 

On 11/4/2019 at 5:08 AM, heloman1 said:

Hi Alan, TR and gust lock looking good, nice work...

 

Thanks Colin, I'd love to say it was fun doing it

 

14 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Incidentally, I came to the same conclusion as you, in that mine was fitted exactly like the original because it was the only way I could get it to work - in the Sea King case, that’s 6 hooks, each around the root of the blade.  I recall that getting it into position was hideous; essentially I added each hook and only then built the hub arrangement.  
 

Mon chapeau est duly doffed.

 

doffed cap acknowledged Crisp.  I dunno how you managed 6 hooks - this only had two but it had me going round the bend this afternoon.  Hence why there's only a couple of photo's and they're all of the same thing.

 

On 11/3/2019 at 6:41 PM, hendie said:

If I'm really honest, I think the spider at the back and the counterweights are slightly too large, but now that I have it all together IT'S STAYING THAT WAY !!!

 

I really should keep my mouth shut shouldn't I?   I took a couple of days off work to spend time dans la basement.  When I got down there this morning, I looked at that tail rotor. And I looked at that tail rotor.. and kept looking. The more I looked the more I knew I had to do something. The tail rotor was sitting too far out from the tail.  The tie-rods I made for the spider thingy were too long, and they were too close to the tail structure. So, drastic it was.  I snipped off the tie-rods and removed the spider assembly, then had to start all over again. It took a while, a long while, but I got it back together again without breaking anything (I was astounded) and made the new tie-rods about half the length they were previously.  That's much better.

 

 

Then came time to fit the gust lock. I won't bore you with the details but trying to get this together without breaking anything tested my mettle. However, here we are... Gust lock fitted

 

 

3/4 view

 

 

and front'ish view

 

 

 

I had planned on getting the tail painted this afternoon, but when I picked up my jar of dark sea grey, there was only a few drops left in the bottom.  Okay, that's what the internet is for isn't it ?

Has anybody been following that Testors/Rustoleum saga recently ?   Well, Testors are discontinuing a lot of the paint line - both Testors and Model Master.   I had a frantic episode a few days ago when I realized I could no longer get the brown paint for my train build (I must check and make sure my order is actually being fullfilled). Anyways... I went to order Dark Sea Grey and guess what?  Yup, they've discontinued that too.  Dammit!

Testors and Model Master were my go to paints here in the US. Now I need to find an alternate brand.  Can anyone recommend a supplier?  Forget Humbrol, I'm not touching them after my last experience with their paints.

You'd think ordering paint would be the easy part wouldn't you ?

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

Utterly amazing spider pieces with the amended tie rods, just wow

 

Funny we are both stuck at the same part of our helicopter builds, your sublime Wessex needs Dark Sea Grey paint

So does my Chinook

 

I thought I had a tin of Colourcoats DSG ready to lay down a base coat, seems I was mistaken

 

I dont want to use Humbrol either

[Fritag]

I’ve read and re-read the last several posts and I still don’t understand much of what’s been going on.  I need more coffee and a bigger brain.......

 

However, a few things at least are clear to me:

 

1. This is quite stunning multi media model making.   What with this and the Pullman Carriage build I’ve simply run out of superlatives and need a thesaurus (how about “amazeballs”?  - that’s one I would never have got to without googling).

 

2. Hendie has microscopes for eyes and steadier hands than any middle aged bloke reasonably ought to be in possession of.

 

3. No self respecting aviating machine ought to be this mechanically complicated to start with.  I can’t help wondering how many insanely rotating, pushing, pulling and otherwise moving bits and bobs have to coordinate themselves to get and keep these things airborne.  I’m glad I didn’t think about this when I was letting myself be carried by them.

 

Bravo Master.

 

 

 

[perdu]

Was it not one of these sublime devices that collected you from the moor side Steve?

 

I would lay back and sing Walter's praises if so, but if it was one of those French things?

 

S H U D D D D E R !

 

Consider if you will what mechanical contrivances allow Messrs Porsche to operate against the will of gravity

 

Just saying...

 

[Fritag]

2 minutes ago, perdu said:

Was it not one of these sublime devices that collected you from the moor side Steve?

One of them arrived first Bill,  but bigger sister Sea King arrived not long after and did the collecting and transporting.

 

I was, however, collected from the oggsplosh on more than one occasions by one of these devices.  Indeed whenever I was chucked orf the back of a boat in the course of allegedly practising sea survival drills one of these devices was hovering nearby ready to pluck and dunk for the amusement of said device and boat crew.

[perdu]

Well it's only fair to allow some amusement for the boys (girls too? ) 

 

Quite a noisy workplace after all

 

😇

[heloman1]

Cracking result Alan. Far better than anything that was offered in the kit...

 

Colin

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

3 hours ago, Fritag said:

No self respecting aviating machine ought to be this mechanically complicated to start with.  I can’t help wondering how many insanely rotating, pushing, pulling and otherwise moving bits and bobs have to coordinate themselves to get and keep these things airborne.  I’m glad I didn’t think about this when I was letting myself be carried by them.

What, you mean unlike all those bell-cranks, push-rods, actuators, wires, counter-balances, pistons, valves, springs and other mechanical mundungus required to provide the illusion of control at 450 kts in your plankwing johnson?  
 

Always best not to ponder theory of flight while a passenger, especially in a military aircraft (where creature comforts, soundproofing et al are very low on the Spec).  I was always an awful passenger in helicopters, but perfectly happy to do stupid things if I was flying one.  To be fair, though, this was mostly because my passenger flying was mostly in the back of a cab en route somewhere they wanted more crews than airframes (e.g. exercise or squadron embarkation).  This meant that I invariably knew the half-crazed muppet in the front all too well, and thus had every reason to be afraid...

[Fritag]

15 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

This meant that I invariably knew the half-crazed muppet in the front all too well, and thus had every reason to be afraid.

Empathise.

 

As a grand old man of 26 years and squadron QWI, I had the dubious pleasure of sitting in the back of the T-bird as younger (or rather, less experienced) muppets in the front worked themselves down from their comfort(?) zone of low flying at 250ft to the 100ft permitted for Nato exercise such as Red Flag & Maple Flag.  At least I had a spare control column to use in extremis as said muppet aimed himself (and more importantly me) inexorably towards the hard stuff at the end of a climbing valley as he looked over his shoulder for the bounce aircraft or inside the cockpit at his fuel gauges or map, and his poor over worked and maxed-out brain failed to think it might be a good idea to look out the front now and then - and especially NOW....

Edited November 6, 2019 by Fritag

[Brandy]

What???

If I type my thoughts I'll be banned, so I'll settle with the very safe "that's rather impressive!"

 

Ian

[Jonners]

Strewth, Hendie; when I saw that you were rivetting a model with individual 'rivets' I was astonished, but then going on to watch you building a scale gust lock that fits in a true-to-prototype manner around a scale rebuild TR hub...well, what can I say? Don't worry - those men in white lab coats will be with you soon.

 

I practised fitting TR gust locks on Sea Kings (the 6-hook affairs mentioned by Ex-FAAWAFU) quite a few times in the 'comfort' of a hangar, but only once did I try to fit one in anger. After trying and failing for about 10 mins I came to the conclusion that standing on the spare wheel mounted on the bonnet of a Landrover, in 30-odd knots of wind and driving rain in the dark on an unfamiliar and badly lit dispersal whilst wrangling above head height with a medieval torture device, probably wasn't such a great idea after all.  After that I learned to just park with the wind from the left of the nose so that all the TR blades would be blown back against their stops instead of banging around between their stops. Obvious, really, with hindsight.

 

Agreed with previous posters about the disconcerting complexity and number of moving parts in older helicopters. Mechanically hinged, hydraulically-folding (Sea King) rotor systems seemed perfectly normal a few years ago, but these days it seems really quite disconcerting compared with the elastomeric bearings that help to keep me aloft (and pretty much remove the requirement for TR gust locks...).

 

Happy days...

Jon

[TheBaron]

All these photographs of your hand with various bits of a real Wessex Photoshopped into the frame are fooling no-one...

 

Seriously dear fellow my chin has been boinging repeatedly off the ground catching up with those last three updates. This is an education.

 

Nothing less!👏👏👏

 

 

[hendie]

21 hours ago, perdu said:

Utterly amazing spider pieces with the amended tie rods, just wow

 

thanks Bill, I think it looks better for shortening those tie-rods

 

13 hours ago, Fritag said:

What with this and the Pullman Carriage build I’ve simply run out of superlatives and need a thesaurus (how about “amazeballs”?

 

I had to google that one myself  - with baited breath - and on the home computer!

 

13 hours ago, Fritag said:

and steadier hands than any middle aged bloke reasonably ought to be in possession of

 

I found that holding my breath and supergluing my elbows to the table helps avoid the shakes (for a moment or two) though it takes 10 minutes to recover from each attempt

 

10 hours ago, heloman1 said:

Cracking result Alan. Far better than anything that was offered in the kit...

 

There's a kit ?  must look out for that one

 

6 hours ago, limeypilot said:

If I type my thoughts I'll be banned,

 

Funny that we were both thinking the same thing.  You were thinking about Fly weren't you?

 

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

All these photographs of your hand with various bits of a real Wessex Photoshopped into the frame are fooling no-one...

 

Rumbled again!

 

1 hour ago, Jonners said:

Strewth, Hendie; when I saw that you were rivetting a model with individual 'rivets' I was astonished, but then going on to watch you building a scale gust lock that fits in a true-to-prototype manner around a scale rebuild TR hub...well, what can I say? Don't worry - those men in white lab coats will be with you soon.

 

 

 

great banter @Fritag & @Ex-FAAWAFU, almost made a sandbag so I had a comfy seat to eavesdrop.

 

With no paint on hand to start the camo, I sat for about 30 minutes looking around the basement wondering what I should be doing. After the 30 minute reverie, I was no further forward so I spent the next hour or so micro-meshing the new Pegasus sideframe, sanding the table tops, and micro-meshing the Wessex to get her ready for when the paint finally arrives.

 

I had to find something else to do, but what?  Ah...   Still with the tail.  Still with the brass.  Still with this damn Wessex - when will it all end?

I had the tail casting and the tail axle printed at Shapeways sometime earlier this decade, but looking at all the additions I've made to the air-frame and all the extra brass and whatnot that's been added, I thought it may be worth trying to make a tail axle in brass... and why not ?  It would be a nice little challenge.

I threw some brass stock in the lathe and after a few false starts, managed to get a taper on a small section. I trimmed that to length and then soldered a piece of solid rod on each end.  Obviously I'm showing the cleaned up version here.  When it comes to jobs like this, I don't do finesse - I've learned that functional beats pretty every time. The solder is easy to clean up with a selection of files, then a quick rub down with wire wool to remove and roughness.

 

 

You can see the Shapeways part next to my version above - I was using the Shapeways part as my template.

Next job was to solder a small piece of box section to a tube - using a small length of rod inside to keep everything aligned. I then added another length of rod to the box section - this time to act as a pin for locating on the axle.  I think you can just make out the pin between the two parts in this shot.

 

 

I tinned the pin and the brass receiver, and then aligned the parts with the printed version to get the angles right. 

 

 

Oops, I should mention - all the soldering above was done using standard (higher temp) solder.  The next step was to solder the two parts together, this time using low temp solder to avoid the other parts falling to pieces in my hand with the heat... and it worked!

 

 

Fitted to the tail casting - looks the part

 

 

and looks even partier with the tail wheel in place

 

 

I was so pleased with how that went I decided to start painting the white on the big one.  It looks okay here but it was a bit of a disaster.  I think my jar f white paint got some contamination.  The paint kept spluttering and wouldn't flow properly at all.  It's a good job I decided to do this as the first color - it's going to take a fair bit of micro-meshing to get back to a decent finish

 

 

and at some point during the day, the mail-woman arrived bringing gifts.

 

 

Another 28 Sqn effort for the future though I may be starting this earlier if I can actually find any info on 28 Sqn Hurricanes.  All I can find is that they had the IIc version and I've found one photo on t'interweb.  The whole interweb and all I can get is one measly photo.  I ask you!

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

Nice pink mouse

 

tail wheel yoke not so dusty neither

 

lovely work

[Fritag]

What? There’s different temperatures of solder? OMG - it’s all too much for me......

 

Amazeballs BTW 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

2 hours ago, Jonners said:

After that I learned to just park with the wind from the left of the nose so that all the TR blades would be blown back against their stops instead of banging around between their stops. Obvious, really, with hindsight.

Obvious, yes - but as a tactic for avoiding TR gust locks in the RN it has one small - but critical - flaw.  You park on dispersal with the wind from the left of the nose... and then some idiot on the Bridge says “Port 15” and you find dispersal has started to turn.  Bloomin’ carriers!

 

[To be fair to the mechanically hinged, hydraulically folding masterpiece of sliprings and sequencing valves that was the Sea King main rotor head, it was designed in the 1950s, and it was probably pretty cutting edge at the time.  It’s not Sikorsky’s fault that we decided to keep them flying for 50 years!]

 

Top multi-temperature soldering, there, Hendie.  You make it all look so easy.