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


hendie

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a question for the old Wessi techies out there.  I know I have asked this before (probably on multiple occasions - but always forget the answer) How may troop seats were there on the port side ?

 

I know there are 5 on the starboard side, but none of my reference photo's help me to determine exactly how many there were on the port side.  The 4+ book states 13 of the 16 seats can be folded, but that doesn't sound right to me as that would leave three unfolded.  I'm assuming the loadies seat was one and there was only one other seat beside the loadies position.

If 13 can be folded and there's 5 on the stbd side that means there's only 8 on the port side - again, doesn't sound right.

I'm swithering between 9 seats or 10 seats on the port side.  Can anyone confirm ?

Then again, that's always assuming that Fly got their math right on the cabin dimensions. I may just have to wing it so it looks right but it would be nice to know

 

 

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Well, after scouring references here there and everywhere I think the answer is 10 but in the end it's all immaterial.  The Fly kit isn't completely accurate in the cabin area anyway.  I can't really fault them on this.  They're not making a real Wessex after all, and they have done a pretty good representation of the interior.  However, they appear to have missed a few floor tie-downs and those that are there are not all in the right place.

I discovered this as I was making up the frame for the port side today. I have a few photo's where I can get pretty good positions for the seat floor stanchions - but they don't tie in with the model.  As I have already fitted the floor, and made the floorboards, I am not going to rip that all out and start again.

 

That means the decision is made for me - I will make the seats as close as I can to the original, but will have to make allowances for the design of the kit.  Therefore, I will be making only a representation of the seats, which will be fine at the end of the day.  I can live with that.

 

 

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47 minutes ago, HAMP man said:

Are you sure?? Are you really really sure????

 

Well, I made the seat frames and I'm not doing them again!

 

oh go on then.. another post before I head off up north again.  Seat frames.  Rather boring but ultimately necessary.  I had made the stbd seat frame many months ago, and thankfully had not put it in a safe place so I found it again fairly easily. I needed to - as I had used different sized rods and tubing and wanted to make sure I used the same materials again.  Let's begin by cutting up various lengths of rod n bits.  You can never add too much brass to a build.

 

P3250001.jpg

 

By this time I had spent probably an hour or so looking at reference photo's and trying to work out dimensions but in the end, the frame was pretty much dictated by the cabin floor tie downs.

Starting at the rear end I used my earlier frame as a guide for positioning spars.  (My old bit of granite was brought out again - very useful for soldering on - and keeping things flat!).  On the port side there's a double spar where a second seat frame begins but I'm keeping this all as one to aid assembly and fitting.

 

P3250002.jpg

 

 

I almost made a booboo - the tube goes to the front of the seat frame and I was building this back to front as I was using the other seat from as a reference - the gods must have been smiling on me today as I remembered just in time to switch things about.

Then this is where it started to get hairy - double checking dimensions continually along with dry fitting to make sure I kept things right.

 

P3250003.jpg

 

Eventually I ended up with something resembling a seat frame.  A little bit extra on the right hand side, but that was trimmed off after this photo was taken.

 

P3250004.jpg

 

Now came the difficult bit - the seat stanchions. Very fiddly, and made all the more difficult as I needed to keep the existing solder cool as more soldering was done.

The seat stanchions have to be in the right place or they won't fit into the floor cut outs for the tie-downs.

 

P3250005.jpg

 

First couple of stanchions in place - so far so good!

 

P3250006.jpg

 

Here you can see where there is a floor tie down missing at the front end.  That will be easily remedied as I haven't fixed the wooden floor in position just yet, though there will not be a corresponding tie-down set into the floor.

 

P3250008.jpg

 

All 4 stanchions in place and a dry fit of both seat frames. One stanchion looks to be slightly out of position but I reckon I can tweak that one later. Hopefully it won't all go PING!

 

P3250009.jpg

 

Once the stanchions were in place, the angled support bars (smaller diameter rod) were next.  I came upon this high tech method of securing everything in place for soldering.

 

P3250010.jpg

 

Following the high tech theme I used this method to keep existing solder cool while I soldered the adjacent part.  High tech maybe - but it worked.

 

P3250011.jpg

 

Then when all is said and done, we have a seat frame for the port side.  The solder needs a bit of clean up but a few deft swipes with a file should see that okay.

 

P3250012.jpg

 

Next up, on my return will be the seats themselves.  I applaud Fly for trying something new with their printed on paper seats, but sadly, that just doesn't work for me. That means I have to find an alternate material.

Last time around I used aluminum tape and it seemed to work, but I don't think it will work as well in this larger scale.

 

Almost forgot... I had a win this week.  I had ordered a pack of 6 x 0.005" brass sheets when doing the instrument panel.  When the supplies arrived I found they had sent me one single sheet.  I emailed them and to their credit, they apologized and acted fast in getting the next lot out to me - but they got that wrong too!   This time they sent me six packs of 6 x 0.005" brass sheets!!!  :yahoo:

I now have enough brass to keep me etching into the next decade I think!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just had a marathon catchup on your thread. Its like binge watching a whole series on netflix :hypnotised:. your previous Wessex builds were a BIG help to me when i did one myself. Glad to see you are still at it!

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Nice soldering Hendie, those frames look great (and I've picked up more tips - thanks!)

Glad you got lucky with the brass order :)

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Awesome work Hendie 

Couple questions if you don'y mind 

1st what soldier device do you use 

2nd what material solider do you use 

3rd where you get the small brass rods 

4th looks like you solider on marble 

Thanks 

Rick 

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On 3/27/2018 at 12:54 PM, infofrog said:

Couple questions if you don'y mind 

 

Rick

I bought a cheapo soldering station

https://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-Variable-Soldering-Station-Removable/dp/B00MCVCHJM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1522340920&sr=8-4&keywords=aoyue+solder+station

 

I bought that as I wasn't sure how much I was going to be using soldering in my builds and didn't want to spend too much.  To be fair, it's done a great job but the one thing I don't like about it is that it only has a 1 to 10 indication of power range so I don't know the actual temperature of the solder tip.  Now that I know I solder quite a bit on my builds I plan on upgrading to a solder station that has a temperature readout so I can control it a bit better.

 

 

for solder I use standard off the shelf solder, and this low temperature stuff which is really good.  Not cheap but very easy to use and even easier to clean up.

https://www.amazon.com/Tix-Solder-Kit-Jewelry-Soldering/dp/B017L4EHCY/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1522340964&sr=1-1&keywords=tix+solder 

and  also some low temperature solder I got from a model train company (though I can't find the link at present)

 

for brass I mostly buy from Hobbylinc as they have a good selection of rods, tubes, angles and other shapes and sheets, and are generally cheaper than other places.  They do take their time with shipping though which can be a pain

 

If I need anything a bit out of the ordinary, or longer than the standard 12" length I use SpecialShapes - you have to time travel back a few years and pick up the phone to place an order but they have a lot of stuff I just can't find anywhere else.  For example I got all the C Channel and brass angles that I am using on the train build as they were the only folks I could find who supplied 24" or 36" lengths.  They are easy to deal with and their prices are pretty reasonable, it's just a pain that they don't have on-line ordering

 

I use and off-cut of granite for soldering on as it's perfectly flat and can take the heat easily.  Marble would do just as good but would be harder to keep clean.  Most of the kitchen worktop shops will likely give you a small off-cut free. Mine is about 4" square and big enough for most soldering jobs.  I have another piece about 24" long which I used for the train chassis to keep everything flat and level.

 

 

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51 minutes ago, hendie said:

 

Rick

I bought a cheapo soldering station

https://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-Variable-Soldering-Station-Removable/dp/B00MCVCHJM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1522340920&sr=8-4&keywords=aoyue+solder+station

 

I bought that as I wasn't sure how much I was going to be using soldering in my builds and didn't want to spend too much.  To be fair, it's done a great job but the one thing I don't like about it is that it only has a 1 to 10 indication of power range so I don't know the actual temperature of the solder tip.  Now that I know I solder quite a bit on my builds I plan on upgrading to a solder station that has a temperature readout so I can control it a bit better.

 

 

for solder I use standard off the shelf solder, and this low temperature stuff which is really good.  Not cheap but very easy to use and even easier to clean up.

https://www.amazon.com/Tix-Solder-Kit-Jewelry-Soldering/dp/B017L4EHCY/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1522340964&sr=1-1&keywords=tix+solder 

and  also some low temperature solder I got from a model train company (though I can't find the link at present)

 

for brass I mostly buy from Hobbylinc as they have a good selection of rods, tubes, angles and other shapes and sheets, and are generally cheaper than other places.  They do take their time with shipping though which can be a pain

 

If I need anything a bit out of the ordinary, or longer than the standard 12" length I use SpecialShapes - you have to time travel back a few years and pick up the phone to place an order but they have a lot of stuff I just can't find anywhere else.  For example I got all the C Channel and brass angles that I am using on the train build as they were the only folks I could find who supplied 24" or 36" lengths.  They are easy to deal with and their prices are pretty reasonable, it's just a pain that they don't have on-line ordering

 

I use and off-cut of granite for soldering on as it's perfectly flat and can take the heat easily.  Marble would do just as good but would be harder to keep clean.  Most of the kitchen worktop shops will likely give you a small off-cut free. Mine is about 4" square and big enough for most soldering jobs.  I have another piece about 24" long which I used for the train chassis to keep everything flat and level.

 

 

Thank you . i will order that set up . The solder station has great reviews . That solder kit looks like thats all I need 

Thanks again 

Rick

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I remember the false floor as being 1/2 inch plywood with square holes to allow access to the tie-downs, each about 6-9 inches across to allow for mis-alignment. They were painted with dark grey non-slip. The colour was the exact match with the outer fuselage grey, but took some ferocious stirring as it was "paint-with-sand-in it" Each lasted about a year under Gurkha boots before it splintered too much, but were replaced sooner if a cab was needed for VIPs.

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On 3/29/2018 at 2:45 PM, Ossington said:

I remember the false floor as being 1/2 inch plywood with square holes to allow access to the tie-downs,

 

That's a good point Ossington.  It's that long ago I can't remember whether they were square or round holes - I've just been going off reference photo's.  Now that you mention it I might go square.

We took the floorboards out for a VIP fit.  I distinctly remember sweating my danglies off trying to fit the carpet when Maggie came over for a jollie and discuss handing HK back to the owners.

 

Seats. Darn seats.  As I have no doubt mentioned several times, I don't like/want to use the paper seats supplied with the kit.  That meant I had to find an alternative.  I found this magic top secret stuff at work and thought it had potential.  As you can see here, it is very, very thin. 

 

P3300001.jpg

 

Since it's secret stuff I had to do a quick paint test to see if the paint would adhere. Ignore the color - I'm testing the paint not the shade.  Paint was slapped on the front side (left) and the rear side (right).

Paint obviously adheres better to the front face.  It does have a quilted texture to it though which is a down side.

 

P3300003.jpg

 

Then I did a quick test to see how it hung on the frame.  Positive - very easy to wrinkle. Too easy in fact.  The material is very prone to static and kept folding up on itself. However, I persevered... for a while

Then Percy left the building

 

P3300002.jpg

 

Wrinkling was all fine and good - but it had to stick to the frame as well, and this was where things started to go awry.  It was difficult to glue, and even more difficult to glue with any degree of accuracy. But it was an absolute nightmare to handle and this bi here too me a good 10 minutes from start to finish and it's nowhere near good enough.  Oh well... it was worth trying.

 

P3300006.jpg

 

Remember that floorboard I did way back... well, it sort of warped a little bit

 

P3300004.jpg

 

but that is easily fixed with my sooper-dooper anti warp fixer machine (patent pending).  The board was wetted slightly then taped to an old spray can. I'll leave that overnight to dry and see if it flattens out any. (Then add square holes maybe)

 

P3300005.jpg

 

So while all that was going on, I remembered that I still had to make up the loadies seat.  This was a bit more awkward to manufacture with so many joins in close proximity but we got there in the end.

You saw enough photo's of soldering in my last post so there's no need to repeat those again.

 

P3300007.jpg

 

After all that huffing and puffing with the super secret stuff earlier, I resorted to my old fall back - the aluminum tape.  Well, at least for the moment.  It's easy to handle, easy to cut, and it stays where you put it.  I had used this on my last Wessi build and it turned out pretty reasonable so I thought I'll give it another try and see if I can improve on last time.

 

P3300009.jpg

 

Then nothing is complete of course without the obligatory dry fit.

 

P3300011.jpg

 

So far so good.  I have some ideas for the seat backs so I'll be trying that out next session - in between working on the train, which I have kicked off again.  That one has been dormant far longer than I wanted so I am forcing myself to get back to it.  Today was paint day for the side frames (again, so far so good!)

 

 

 

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That interior really is looking the part, almost worth leaving the side off completely! Shame about the slight warp, but I'm sure your patented anti-warp device will come through!

 

Ian

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Good work with the foil, the secret material didn't look good at all. I think you need a tad more sag in them though! I could be wrong...

 

Colin

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2 hours ago, heloman1 said:

I think you need a tad more sag in them though! I could be wrong...

 

nope, you're not wrong. Added sag to be applied later - that's easy.  Getting the foil to look like seat backs is a much more difficult prospect

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The seats? Well they look entirely Hendie to me

 

I don't think textured stuff, however special, can look right to replicate fabrics   :(

 

In whatever scale you like, so I am very glad the aluminum tape came back into its own

When painted 'proper like' it will do it perfectly

 

I have used tea bag material for the sheepskin seat covers but that really doesn't look a lot like sheepskin either

 

I will be taking several leaves from the Hendie Wessex book when I build my next  Wessex

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