Jump to content

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


hendie

Recommended Posts

The Servicing Manual (AMM) shows that what I called jointing plates above are correctly called Spacers and are held in place by four short bolts top and bottom and one long bolt which goes right through the MRH and is used for hoisting.

 spacer.png

The Damper retaining plates are each held by two bolts with the head outermost, to which are fitted self locking nuts.

spacer.png

Pip Pip,

Tramatoa

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

mucho thanks to @Tramatoa for those golden memory triggers above.

Work has been rather demanding of late and I have not been able to get near the bench at all, however that did not prevent me from sneaking a few minutes here and there during the work food break

 

On 8/28/2019 at 5:27 AM, perdu said:

 

I suppose you can make the 3d version in two halves Hendie, all of each major casting twice with each one getting a pair of joining plates to clamp together

 

Bill, I can be much lazier than that...

 

It appears Fly did not bother to include any rotor head detail... dampers, bellow, hinges, etc. etc. etc. in early (or at least my) version(s).  Nothing whatsoever on the part trees and nada, zilch, zero in the vague instructions.  A check of online builds (which was quite frightening to be honest) shows a mixture of bland devoid of detail rotor head shaped lumps and a few more detailed versions.  I can only assume Fly added more detail to later versions without bothering to let anyone know, - or be proactive in sending out the necessary parts to those poor sods like me who had purchased directly from their website.  You had my address Fly! Why didn't you send me the last installment ?

 

Anyways, no use crying over what might  should have been...  I continued meandering my way through the rotor head using the HC2 walk round on BMland and ended up with this.

Okay, it's nowhere near accurate but all I had to go on was dimensions from the Fly parts and the walk round piccies.  Lots of lumps, bumps, and assorted greeblies make it look reasonably interesting

 

Capture2.png

 

Remember - this is CAD - I can model things down to the 0.0000000000000000000000Xxxxxxxx'n' a smidge of a millimeter - way more accurate than any printer or CNC machine can ever handle, so lots of detail shown here will never translate into a finished part.... but it was fun to do so why not ?

 

Capture3.png

 

Dammit!     I just spotted that the rib encircling the flap and drag hinge linkage rubber boot has slipped.  I couldn't have had that constrained properly.  Still, that's a 10 second fix.

 

Capture1.png

 

The real question was... now that I had spent all that time on creating the model, could Shapeways  printers handle the mesh, and how much of the detail was I going to have to change ?

The pic below is from the SW site.  As you lot have correctly surmised, green is good, red is bad.

 

Capturex.png

 

Based on that, it looks like I only have a couple of very minor tweaks to make it printable and I should see an acceptable level of detail. Now if only I wasn't heading off next week (again!)

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fantastic CADding H

Looking at the Faceways render they have detail on the side face of the droop? hinge which your own render doesn't show, they have it right don't they?

 

Tell you what, you clever buggers are completely and radically changing plastic modelling for ever

I love it

 

Awesome!

 

I see from tramatoa's diagram the hinge they render is right

 

Double awesome!!

Edited by perdu
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, hendie said:

The pic below is from the SW site.  As you lot have correctly surmised, green is good, red is bad.

 

Capturex.png

 

Based on that, it looks like I only have a couple of very minor tweaks to make it printable and I should see an acceptable level of detail.

Forum members after seeing that:

'Everyone do the Rotor Blade!'

giphy.gif

More immaculate than the most immaculate thing on Planet Immaculata. :clap:

  • Haha 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fantastic  CAD work Hendie, I hope it prints well!

 I've been toying with the idea of designing some more bits, but will hold off until I know I absolutely need them as I'd rather by doing plasticky stuff than computery stuff!

 

Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, perdu said:

Looking at the Faceways render they have detail on the side face of the droop? hinge which your own render doesn't show, they have it right don't they?

 

aye Bill, they have it right.  I made some changes between taking the screen shots and uploading the model

 

1 hour ago, limeypilot said:

I've been toying with the idea of designing some more bits, but will hold off until I know I absolutely need them as I'd rather by doing plasticky stuff than computery stuff!

 

 

me too also Ian, but this build has gone on so long and I'm really wanting to get to the end of it.

 

 

and just realized this morning that I stuck the windscreen on without adding the curtains inside first.  :rage:

  • Sad 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ever had one of those weekends where nothing you touch goes right ?  I think I just had one.

After the 'doh moment when I realized I hadn't fitted the sliding curtains inside the windscreen, I took a few deep breaths and wondered what to do next. The short straw was making some location points for the windscreen wipers and the wiper stops.  Fly give no indication of these, surprise surprise.

As always, it was one of those tight underpants moments while drilling, but nothing went awry thankfully.

 

P8250001.jpg

 

Then it was time to get masking.  Back when I purchased this kit I made the (wise?) investment of purchasing the masking set.   Looks a bit complicated don't it?

It also tells you that not all masks are included, though there are some spares... for what I do not know!

 

P8250005.jpg

 

Let's make a start.

These went on easier than anticipated

 

P8250006.jpg

 

... and later that day...

 

P8250007.jpg

 

Next up was to spray the beast black.  I'm still not too sure about this Alclad black primer - it seems to be lifting off at the most inopportune moments but I need to lay black down first over the window area as the inside will be seen (maybe), so the green has to go over the top of that.

Notice anything else here ?

NO ?

Me neither.

Where's all those lovely rivets that adorn the windscreen area?  MIA apparently.  Not a rivet in sight dammit.  I have a plan though.  Maybe not a very good one but a plan nonetheless.

 

P8250008.jpg

 

Here's one for quiz of the week.

What is the grey plastic object directly in front of my middle finger?

Clue:  I think it's something to do with the rotor head.

Could it (and it's partner to the left) be the dampers for the rotor head ?  Yes those dampers which aren't mentioned in the instructions anywhere.  By golly I think they are.

 

P9010009.jpg

 

well, wasn't that a surprise.  Trouble is, I don't see any way of fitting them to the resin part - unless you cut chunks out of the resin to the point where it will probably fall apart.

I'm not going to worry about that now.  I'm going to make a better rotor head says he nonchalantly.

 

Whilst perusing the bench of disasters I espied the undercarriage components which have been lying there for many, many months now, and thought it might be worth slapping some paint on them.

After etch priming, I mixed up a custom greenish shade and sprayed them, followed by sticking on small rectangles of BMF dull aluminum to act as plaques, followed by a coat of aqua gloss, followed by dropping one of the parts on the floor, followed by several exclamations of dubious origin.

It didn't matter that I had just swept the floor only the day before.  The undercarriage leg managed to find every bit of hair, fluff, oose, and sticky thing in a 24 inch radius.

 

P9020018.jpg

 

Then decided I didn't like the color as it was too dark and didn't look faded enough.

Ho hum

 

But lets finish on a high'ish point.

Pitot.

The kit part is fine, but as may folks will know, sometimes plastic just doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to replicating thingies that are round in nature.  Brass is the go-to in these cases whenever possible.

So, starting with a piece of bent tube, a ridiculously small piece of straight tube, and a short stubby piece of tube...

 

P8250002.jpg

 

The gentle application of a soldering iron can produce something more akin to a pitot.

You can se the kit part just below the brassy one.  As I said, there's nothing really wring with the kit one except that it would never withstand my handling whereas the brass one at least has a snowballs chance of staying in place one fixed in position.

 

P8250004.jpg

 

 

Question to the hive:   Regarding the masking of the windows up above.  I am tempted to try putting rivet transfers on the window frames but am wondering how the tape/masking etc will be affected by the micro sol/set.  Basically I think if I put enough set/sol solution on the frames to actually work, it will affect the adhesion of the masking.  What does the hive think ?

Should I go for it or am I going to end up screaming ?

 

now I'm heading off to update a train build no too far from here

 

 

 

 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

On 8/31/2019 at 8:55 AM, perdu said:

Fantastic CADding H

....

Tell you what, you clever buggers are completely and radically changing plastic modelling for ever

I love it

 

Awesome!

Ditto.  

 

I sooo wish I could do CAD.  Dunno what I’d use it for, but I just want to be able to..........

 

All I’m gonna say about the recent work is that it’s typically hendie.  I believe I will petition the Oxford English Dictionary to acknowledge the word ‘hendie’ as a new superlative....

 

9 hours ago, CedB said:

Can't help with the MicroSet and masking but you could try it on a mule?

Ditto and wise counsel re the mule.

 

I suppose at the risk of building up too much of a paint thickness you could try and seal the edges of the masks a bit more using Klear or some such? Some folks recommend a prior spray of Klear to prevent paint creep under masking I believe?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Fritag
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly the build looks superb and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can do with that rotor head.

 

Regarding the fasteners around the windscreens I think they are screws not rivets, one of the things that gives Walter his unique aerodynamic finish. The 72 Squadron aircraft at Newark has pretty much the same paint job as a 28 Squadron machine;

 

spacer.png

 

As I've said before I'm a total newbie when it comes to actually producing this kind of detail to scale but there is a build which I think I've mentioned previously where a Japanese chap produces a Fly 1/32 Wessex and he gives brief details of how he tackled these fasteners in his build log. I appreciate his build has quite a bit of artistic license in it but I felt he did a pretty good job in this area using 'fasteners' produced from soft wire with what he refers to as  a 'Tami Guri' punch. http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/explanatione-fr.html. It isn't a technique I had seen previously so please forgive me if everyone and his dog is doing this kind of thing.

 

I fully appreciate I'm not the one who's going to have to produce 500 screws from wire the thickness of human hair but I thought I would mention it as I know you enjoy a challenge........ 😉

 

Pip pip,

Tramatoa

  • Like 2
  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The traveler returns once again.  This time I may get to stay home for more than a single week - not guaranteed though.

 

 

On 9/2/2019 at 5:52 PM, CedB said:

Can't help with the MicroSet and masking but you could try it on a mule?

 

The obvious suggestion (that I completely failed to consider) - thanks Ced.

 

On 9/3/2019 at 2:59 AM, Fritag said:

I suppose at the risk of building up too much of a paint thickness you could try and seal the edges of the masks a bit more using Klear

 

Another great suggestion that I completely forgot about this afternoon when face to face with the beast.

 

On 9/5/2019 at 5:31 PM, Tramatoa said:

Regarding the fasteners around the windscreens I think they are screws not rivets

 

Of course they are.  My mind was thinking screws but my fat fingers translated that to rivets.  What say we split the difference and call them scrivets ?

 

On 9/5/2019 at 5:31 PM, Tramatoa said:

I think I've mentioned previously where a Japanese chap produces a Fly 1/32 Wessex and he gives brief details of how he tackled these fasteners in his build log.

 

I've been using his site as a reference for years now.  He has an incredible selection of photographs - taken from a modelers point of view.  Some great reference work there, and not just Wessex

 

 

 

On 9/2/2019 at 4:59 PM, hendie said:

Basically I think if I put enough set/sol solution on the frames to actually work, it will affect the adhesion of the masking.  What does the hive think ?

 

It was a trick question.

If you do nothing, all the vinyl masking lifts of it's own accord.  Look maw... this Wessex grew eyebrows!  Reminds me of Denis Healey during his Goth period.

 

P9070001.jpg

 

Right. Scrivets.

I dusted down my trusty sheet of railroad rivets.  I can't remember if I have shown these before, but these are from Micro Mark and from what I can remember were pretty good value. You get two sheets of various rivet patterns

 

P9070002.jpg

 

They even include some 'vents' and other useful shapes that I haven't found a use for yet.  The sheets are a lot larger than the Archer sheets, and I've found that they also work a lot better (but that could just be me)

 

P9070003.jpg

 

I'm still not sure I trust this Alclad black yet. It seems to behave quite differently from the grey which was my usual cup o' char for priming.  I found the MicroS-1 didn't want to lie on it even after a good micro-meshing, however I blundered on regardless.

After considering the suggestions above, and forgetting some (sorry!) in the end I decided just to go for it.  The vinyl had already peeled but that was easy to replace.  More important to me was getting the scrivets in place - the windscreen just didn't look right without them.  It doesn't look right with that big panel missing at the bottom of the glass either, but that's another matter.

I splashed some MicroS-1 down and went for it.

 

P9070004.jpg

 

Now, if I had any sense whatsoever, I would have sprayed a light coat of Alclad grey now that I had the interior color in place - before I started laying scrivets.

Just how much fun can you have with black scrivets on a black background and trying to line up the scrivets so they sit nicely on the center line of each frame ?

None I tells ya. None!

It's no fun at all.  I did my best though I won't knowhow successful I was until I lay down a color that actually shows things up

I know this shot below is very similar to the shot above but I wasn't sure what could actually be seen of the scriveting so took a few shots just in case.  First scrivet line down.

 

P9070005.jpg

 

More scrivets added - I think you can just see them catch the light here.

My process was to lay down (or at least try to lay down) some MicroS-1 immediately prior to laying down the scrivets.  Periodically brushing on another layer every few minutes to soften up the carrier sheet.

After they were all in place, I called in my trusty (very damp) kitchen towel wrapped digit and rolled said digit over each and every scrivet row a few times. Once that action was complete I brushed on some MicroS-2 over each row several times, then took a chance and rolled the wet digit/towel combo ever them again to press everything as hard as I could against the airframe.  Thankfully no damage was encountered.

A final brush of MicroS-2 was applied and they were left in peace to hopefully settle down.  I heard no further complaints.

 

P9070006.jpg

 

Some scriveting later...

 

P9070010.jpg

 

Then finally...

 

P9070011.jpg

 

Compare that to the bland uninteresting first shot in this post.  I can't believe Fly completely ignored such a prominent feature.  Actually I can, that's the sad part.

 

I'm quite happy with the appearance - the scrivets don't look out of scale and add just enough mystery and intrigue to the overall presence. So much so that I am tempted to add more rivets, but I'm going to try and hold back. 

Look what happened to @Ex-FAAWAFUwhen he did all that riveting - he ended up building floaty things. 

Then @Fritag only did a couple of rows and he disappeared for several years (therapy is my guess)

 

though the more I look at it, that nose view in the last shot is incredibly boring below the window line

 

Remind me to mask over those un-vinyl'd windows before I hit it with any more paint won't you ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 10
  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That looks very good, nicely understated and much more to scale. 

Believe it or not scrivets actually exist in the cargo bays of 767’s, they are a plastic push in fastener with a centre pin which locks them in place. Not one of Joe Boeing’s better ideas.........

  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, hendie said:

I'm quite happy with the appearance

…and so you should be - nicely done Sir :) 

50 minutes ago, hendie said:

Remind me to mask over those un-vinyl'd windows before I hit it with any more paint won't you ?

Don't forget to mask over those un-vinyl'd windows hendie 🙄

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, hendie said:

So much so that I am tempted to add more rivets, but I'm going to try and hold back. 

Look what happened to @Ex-FAAWAFUwhen he did all that riveting - he ended up building floaty things. 

It wasn’t the rivets that drove me elsewhere for a rest; it was the complexity of the soldering involved in building a decent-looking rotor head.  

 

Go on.  You know you want to really.

  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thought of Dennis Healey is, on it's own, very disturbing. Add the Goth bit and it starts getting very strange indeed, especially when you work with someone whose eyebrows enter the room 5 minutes before he does.

Spitting Image has a lot to answer for!

Oh, and don't forget to mask the windows again!

 

Ian

(great improvement with the rivets btw!)

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Tramatoa said:

That looks very good, nicely understated and much more to scale. 

 

 Thanks T

 

10 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Go on.  You know you want to really.

 

Yes, I really do

 

but I'm not going to!

 

 

21 hours ago, CedB said:

Don't forget to mask over those un-vinyl'd windows hendie 

 

4 hours ago, limeypilot said:

Oh, and don't forget to mask the windows again!

 

Done and done!

 

I had the primer going for a train build going on not too far from here, so while the pigment was flying I thought it worthwhile to go over the scrivets:  a) to see what they looked like under primer, and b) to seal them in before the final coat of many, well, two colors.

 

P9080022.jpg

 

Looking pretty respectable, especially from above.  That's looking more like a Wessex now.

 

P9080024.jpg

 

I also took the opportunity to recolor the undercarriage parts.  My last attempt was way too dark.  This time I used RAF dark green with several splashes of light grey to add that faded effect - at least that's my theory.

 

 

P9080026.jpg

 

Looking better I think.

 

Okay folks, that's it for Wessexing today. 

 

Now over to comfy chairs and table cloths - yes, really! (or will be in about 10 minutes!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Well folks it seems this is the week for stuff arriving - within two days I've had the transfers for my Pullman build, and this evening I got a small lump of plastic from shapeways.

 

Be forewarned though.  No actual construction will take place during this post and you're likely going to get bored by many shots of the same little part.  I warned you!

So what arrived then ? If you've been following this post you probably have a darned good idea.

I present to thee, a plastic rotor head, in all it's glory.

I spent about 20 minutes or so looking for the kit part this evening, getting into a bit of a panic because I could not find the bits anywhere and I wanted to show the kit parts next to this to give a direct comparison.

Then I remembered... I have them at work as I was using them for reference when designing this part!  'doh!  Panic over (I think...)

I've messed about with color settings on these photo's to try and show the part more clearly.  I do not profess to be knowledgeable in the ways of compooter imagery stuff and I just slide sliders and things about until I (think) I can see what I'm looking at - so forgive the weird photo show to follow.

How's this then ?  Palatable?

 

P9170001.jpg

 

This any better ?

 

P9170002.jpg

 

By now, I've had a fair few parts printed but I'm still always amazed at the detail that can be captured by this media.  The bellows have come out nicely, as have the swivel links etc.

 

P9170003.jpg

 

I'll do a direct comparison when I get the other parts home as I think it could be valuable for others building this to see what Fly have left out.

 

P9170005.jpg

 

But what's it look like in-situ then ?

Not bad at all. I think it will look a whole lot better than the basic kit parts, that's for sure.

 

P9170008.jpg

 

No primer as yet - I'm still part way through the cleaning process.  Learning by my previous oopsie of trying to clean using IPA - this time I just used tap water with a drop or two of washing up liquid.

This is about 15 minutes cleaning - believe it or not but the part is still in there. Somewhere.

It appears there is a lot of gunk to clean off these parts, even after Shapeways 'clean' them up.

 

P9170013.jpg

 

Undersides after cleaning.  Looks pretty good with not too much to clean up here.

 

P9170014.jpg

 

Top side after cleaning.  You can see bits of white residue here and there - that's what I am trying to clean off.

 

P9170015.jpg

 

The cleaning process is a bit delicate.  The ultrasonic bath warms up the part during the cleaning process, so the smaller sections of the part start to become pliable.  I'm using the old toothbrush for cleaning so have to be extra careful not to 'catch' any of the small parts and break them off - but still need to be quite firm in order to remove that white gunk.

I reckon another 20 minutes to half an hour and some fervent scrubbing with the toothbrush will see it about as clean as I can get it. Then I can put the toothbrush back and hope the wife hasn't noticed

 

Then we can prime the beast and see what it really looks like

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by hendie
  • Like 14
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...