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

[Pete in Lincs]

Anyone else spotted the baby Wessex peeping out of the cabin?

So cute.

 

Congratulations on a successful mission, Ced.

[71chally]

2 hours ago, CedB said:

They have a few Wessexesses so I asked one of the volunteers which was a '2' and if I could, er, measure it's legs.

A very nice man called Roger showed me to this one:

It's clearly a '3' but I doubt the u/c  legs changed.

The Royal HCC.4 there is more assimilated to the HC.2.

 

Great photo's hard to believe that they are from a phone, so sharp and clear - think I will ditch my DSLR! 

 

Interesting what WAFU says above, just shows you really have to check in service as well as museum references

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by 71chally

[CedB]

Thanks James - iPhone X, great camera(s) and even better with a specialist app like ProCamera if you want to fiddle with the settings.

It's a '3' is it? To be honest (and as you say) the legs all looked very similar.

The guys also admitted that they're volunteers and not helicopter experts... and the label was missing on the blue one!

[hendie]

6 hours ago, hendie said:

 If memory serves me correctly (at work now so can't check parts) the diameter of the Fly leg was a smidge under 3 mm so they may have got the oleo diameter correct, or pretty darned close.   I'll try and check tonight. 

 

Well, my memory is as good as well, my memory apparently.  Following Ced's marvelous adventure's to measure my legs and providing said data, I rushed home to measure my Fly's legs for a comparison.  More of that later (What a cliff hanger eh?)

 

Pushing onwards with this kit, I decided that there was still some work needed at the back end, but first let's see what horrors await the unsuspecting modeler.  I think I may have mentioned this before, but it's probably worth mentioning yet again  - have a swatch at this photo.

I've tried to hold the ruler as perpendicular as I can to the fuselage center-line.  It's not perfect but I think you can still see what's wrong here... the tail hinges are 1mm further apart on the starboard side than they are on the port side. Nice one Fly!

So we're off to a good start then!

 

 

Regardless of where those hinges are located, I still need to make some relatively convincing looking tail fold mechanism.  That process began by finding a scrap piece from a former build that just happened to be the right diameter which was then dutifully drilled and a couple of thin slices sawn off.

 

 

Those two small rings were then glued to a styrene sandwich which was then shaped, dropped, found, dropped again, and eventually shaped and fitted.  (I forgot to take pictures of the process, sorry)

 

 

It shows up better in this picture - you can just about make out the two grey rings stuck to the edge of the white styrene.  They're just begging to be knocked off aren't they?

 

 

Now to the exciting part... Thanks to Ced's altruistic endeavors earlier I was now armed with the ammunition I needed.  - Some time back I had questioned the dimensions of the Fly undercarriage, then at lunchtime today  after I saw Ced's data, I started thinking maybe I got it wrong - maybe Fly have made a good job here and I'm just a general down in the dumps grumpyguts..... Well....

Cast thine eyes over my scribblings below

 

 

Yup.  Fly's researcher once again comes up trumps.    Extreme left are the measured dimensions, under the 1/32 column are what the scaled dimensions should be, and on the right are the actual measurements.   The asterisks denote how far out Fly got it wrong.

So, top of oleo is nearly a full millimeter too small in diameter. On a less than 3 mm diameter that's a HUGE error

The sleeve part of the oleo is 3/4's of a millimeter too small in diameter.

The lower part of the oleo again is the best part of a millimeter too small in diameter.

The swing arm of the undercarriage is better but still greater than 1/2 a millimeter to small in diameter.

 

Well, what can I say ?  bloomin' amateurs.

 

Now that I am armed with that information I have no choice here.  Remember how badly these (undercarriage) parts fitted ?

 

 

Well, it doesn't really matter how badly they fitted anyway - some polymeric butchery is the order of the day

 

 

Can you see where I'm going with this?

 

 

Maybe this photo will clear up any confusion....

 

 

That brass tube is not the right diameter for the job, but shows the way forward rather nicely.   I think the effort will be worth it in the end as the photo's I have seen of a completed Fly kit always just looks a bit amiss and I could never put my finger on it before - now I know

 

At least hendie's helo helper is getting a good work out.  It has come in very handy over the last week or two - especially when working on small details like the tail structure.  Yes, I did ask my man with a laser and he's going to get back to me soon.  He has a trade fair in a couple of weeks so is getting ready for that and will get back to me after things have calmed down a bit for him

 

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

Ah me, the virtues of pure research.

Well worth it, Pukka Pie and chips wasn't it?

About three pounds fifty round here but if Ced wants peas too the price goes up 

 

I'm liking the little ringythingys, they look the part very nicely

 

As to being vulnerable to knocking off, if they haven't you could try discretely laying a thin cyano skin over them and the immediate area which when it hardens makes for thin armour plating round the dodgy places nearby

 

Anyway it is coming along nicely now, yippee 👍

[Brandy]

I don't know why it looks so surprised in the head on shot above. You'd think it would know it was needing surgery by now!

 Looking forward to seeing the new legs take shape.

 

Ian

[Pete in Lincs]

Surprised? I think that was it's guppy impression 

for a new TV show called Britain's got Helicopters.

 

I could see those legs were too thin from 3000 miles away (approx).

 

I had pie, chips and curry sauce tonight and it cost four pounds sixty!

Probably around six Dollars nowadays. (Worth it though).

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Great stuff all round - not least at the Helicopter Museum.  I was last there about 2 years ago, and at that stage the HAS3 was in bits all over the workshop, as they were deep into its restoration; she’s looking mighty fine now.

 

The only UK Wessex Mk with a radar on its spine was the HAS3; that makes it the easiest version to identify at almost any distance and/or angle.  I think it was the only one ever to get that odd extended upper lip over the nose intake, too, though I might be wrong about that.

 

I predict that Hendie is about to raise the bar yet higher with his undercarriage (fnarr).

 

 

P.S.  Look at all them lover-ly rivets.  Just saying...

Edited September 21, 2018 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[hendie]

Greetings fellow muddlers.  Time for a quick update on the Wessi collective.  Life has been a bit of a female dog over the last few weeks and I've hardly had any time down in the basement.  I have hardly had any time to catch up on what's been going on here either. 

 

The only good thing about not being able to get down to dingley dell is that when I eventually do get a bit of spare time, there's generally a few bits and pieces that have arrived through the post and there's always that little bit of excitement when shiny new things arrive... in this case, lots of brass - tubes, rods that sort of thing.

 

In our last encounter I was not particularly enamored with Fly's attempt at the undercarriage.  A bit pitiful if you ask me.  I wanted to try and see of I could improve upon it so I set to with some brass tubing and anything else I could find.  If I remember correctly, the diameter of the swing arm worked out to be around Ø3.25mm and Fly's was undersized at less than 3mm.

I had bought some Ø3.5 brass rod - which looked good, but it was solid rod, and I wasn't sure I could bend it accurately enough.  After rummaging around in my brass off cuts bucket I found a piece of tubing at Ø3.2 - close enough.  Even better I had apparently annealed it some time in the past.

I did a quick test bend it it was very easy to bend to the right angle, however, being tubing, it wanted to collapse in the center of the bend.   Another quick rummage and I found some soft aluminum rod that I had purchased years ago and voila!  it was the perfect diameter to fit inside the brass tube.  The only issue was that I knew once I had bent the brass, the aluminum rod was never coming out again.  No matter - all I had to do was make sure I had enough inside the brass tube to prevent the tubing collapsing when bending, and not so far that it would interfere with a potential soldering action later.

What a boring photo huh?

 

 

But it did allow me to achieve this by bending the tube around the handle of my razor saw.

 

 

A quick cut to length then filing the end of the tube with a round file gave a nice seating for the next section of tube - here just dry fitted.  I can only hope that Fly at least got the angles and lengths correct as I am using that as a template.

 

 

The swing arm then gets sleeved inside another brass tube and we have something approaching a Wessex swing arm.

 

 

Now for the oleo's.   The diameter of the upper and the lower section of the oleo's are so close in dimension that I am not going to try and get exact here - and extra layer of paint will probably make enough of a difference.  However, the sleeve portion of the upper section definitely needs to be larger as it is reasonably prominent if you know what you are looking at.  That was achieved by cutting a small length of tubing, sticking that in the lathe to file a taper on one end, then to make the small flare on the other end, I used a small bradawl that I had left over form screwdriver set, now long gone.  A quick tap on the end flared the tubing nicely.

 

 

A quick dry fit to test visuals.  (the sleeve needs a tad more flaring).  I also need to check lengths of the sleeve - I don't trust Fly's dimensions, or position for the sleeve.

 

 

That's it for now on the undercarriage - I still have some things to attend to on the fuselage before I can get those things fitted.

 

The tail.  The never ending saga of the tail.  I still have to finish up the interior of the tail section on the fuselage end.  That involved sticking a few bits of scrap styrene here and there and then slapping some paint on so you can see it a bit better.  Note that the tail is actually sitting there all by itself - just the hinges holding it in place.

Don't those close ups look gruesome?

 

 

Of course I have got this far and realized that some of the detail in the tail sections is in the wrong place - but I'm far too far down that road now to try and correct it.  Suffice to say - don't trust any of Fly's detailing, locations, or dimensions.

I think I can make it work though  - at least look convincing enough to the casual observer.  Most of the detail work is now done and all that's left here is the bellcrank that joins the two rods protruding from the end of the tail sections - you can just see one rod sticking out of the tail if you look hard enough

 

 

and to finish off, little Wessi got masked up ready for the next coat.

 

 

The white is awful -when I was masking, bits of it kept flaking off so I know there's going to be some touch ups required after removing the masking, but it took me so long to get the darned thing masked I wasn't going back to square one when the paint started flaking off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CedB]

Nice legs Hendie (oh, have I said that before somewhere?)  

[HKindependent]

5 hours ago, hendie said:

Suffice to say - don't trust any of Fly's detailing, locations, or dimensions.

Oh, that mean I have to do plenty of research before I build the Wessex . Keep on reading your posts. 

[TheBaron]

'Britmodeller Makes Tube Bending Look Sexy in Fly Wessex Scale Horror Sensation.'

 

Sorry to hear of life's travails hendie but at least we get to benefit from the respite that your craft provides.

 

Lovely progress.

[Terry1954]

9 hours ago, hendie said:

The white is awful -when I was masking, bits of it kept flaking off

What white did you use? I had an experience like that with Valejo white but I put it down to not applying to clean surface.

 

Like the work on the U/C. 

 

Terry

[perdu]

Since I hate white paint intensely I sympathise with you entirely

 

I'm still trying to find a safe, easy to use but not 'hot' paint

I doubt if I ever will

 

I like the tail hanging up there where it should, looks like it should hang up there where it sh...

Nice hinges

 

Coming along nicely, I reckon you do have the swing arm right

Looks good to me

 

👍

[AdrianMF]

Nice work on the oleos - I was thinking plastic rod to stop them collapsing on the bend but alumin(i)um tube also does the job!. As to peely whites, my sympathies - on my current build I'm finding that Citadel <insert silly name here> white acrylic covers quite well but has adhesion problems. I've been holding my breath and pulling the tape back as close to the surface as possible...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[hendie]

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

'Britmodeller Makes Tube Bending Look Sexy in Fly Wessex Scale Horror Sensation.'

 

 

3 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

What white did you use?

 

I used Testors semi gloss.   My usual goto is Testors flat white but when I opened my jar the paint had gone a bit funny so I chose to use the semi gloss instead of waiting for new paint to arrive.  I've never had any trouble with the flat white and it always covered fine but the semi gloss seems a bit more troublesome.

 

 

57 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Nice work on the oleos - I was thinking plastic rod to stop them collapsing on the bend but alumin(i)um tube also does the job!.

 

'doh!  You know - my mind never even went to plastic rod.  Great suggestion and I'll try to keep that in mind should I need to indulge in some more tube bending.

 

 

 

[keefr22]

13 hours ago, hendie said:

Suffice to say - don't trust any of Fly's detailing, locations, or dimensions.

 

13 hours ago, hendie said:

I can only hope that Fly at least got the angles and lengths correct as I am using that as a template.

 

Oh dear.....

 

 

Keith

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Even if Fly’s dimensions are wrong, my money’s on Hendie to fettle the Platonic ideal of a 1/32 Wessex undercarriage.  And make it look easy.  

[Pete in Lincs]

Yep. Wot they said.

Legs and tail joint look pretty good to me.

Of course we're not forgetting the tail lock flag etc.

No doubt you're waiting for the electron microscope to warm up before attempting the microswitch.

[hendie]

3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Of course we're not forgetting the tail lock flag etc.

 

that was done as a bit of etch way back when I was doing the instrument panel.  (it's around somewhere)

 

3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

No doubt you're waiting for the electron microscope to warm up before attempting the microswitch.

 

that's all sorted... amazing what you can find to use out of cell phones these days

 

No Wessex work today I'm afraid - still waiting on some goop to harden up before I continue so I spent the day working on Pegasus... nothing to show over there either I'm afraid.  I restarted the end vestibules yet again so there was no point in showing photo's of something you've already seen half a dozen times so far.

 

 

[Wafu]

Just to demonstrate, the Salt Water actuator is in the correct orientation and position on the oleo pictured. I do appreciate that the Helicopter museum staff and volunteers are not type engineers. It echo's the hard and fast rule of modelling to a specific picture or aircraft/subject on a certain date in time.

 

 

 

The radius arm and oleo look a lot better than the Fly parts, how many times can we say that about Hendie's parts though?😁

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

10 hours ago, Wafu said:

the Salt Water actuator is in the correct orientation and position

Bit dodgy if the Skippers dog has a widdle up the radius arm.

Mind you, it could get a big surprise

[perdu]

Maybe it wouldn't work with Widdle 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But maybe it'd better...

[keefr22]

2 hours ago, perdu said:

Maybe it wouldn't work with Widdle 

 

 

Depends if it comes out of a salty old seadog....

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

I was having a trawl through the thread again and thought it was time to remind those poor unfortunate souls who have never seen or heard a Wessex fly what they have missed 

Note this is an HU5C not an HC2. 

 

I want one!!

I'll make no apologies for the hijack Hendie.