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

[TheBaron]

Despite the proximity of halitic komodos to the Palais de Hend, those last few updates are a typically pleasurable tour de force.

 

This feat of brass:

20 hours ago, hendie said:

 

 

just looks capable of being operated by feet! Love it.

 

As for your blue knob dilemma, a soupçon of dark grey rubbed on with a fingertip may be just enough to mute the hue?

 

Your PE is performing splendidly on the evidence here.

 

20 hours ago, hendie said:

Now the neighbors can see our house through the gap.

Walk around your property in Speedos and a leather waistcoat at weekends - they'll soon put up some tall hedging.

 

 

[perdu]

But surely Tony he is allowed a change of garb for the weekends...

 

I know, maybe remove the studded leather collar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

srsly wott r u like

[hendie]

40 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Walk around your property in Speedos and a leather waistcoat at weekends - they'll soon put up some tall hedging.

 

you mean I have to put something on now?

[Hamden]

 

That etch work and the rudder pedal assembly look fantastic.

 

  Roger

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Budgie the Helicopter, or Budgie Smuggling...?

[perdu]

Stop stop

 

 

 

I'm sorry but this is too silly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now for something completely...

 

 

 

 

 

I hope, er, nice etch you are planning now you have the 'stuff'

 

[Brandy]

I hate to think of the effect of Speedos and leather on the neighbours, let alone our Hendie! Having said that, if it's good for the RN.....

 

Ian

[perdu]

Those etcheries

 

Flipping awesome, what a difference to the tail pylon that agricultural looking plate makes

 

I really really love the drive plate for the tail rotor, it is immensely  magnificent

 

 

Just a thought while you do your next alchemyck expedition

 

A 'set on a etch' piece of pedals to hang under and in front of a 1/72 Wessex dashboard

 

Wouldn't that be something, brake dabbers on the drivers side and plain on the passengers side all on a single rod like yours here...

 

I am going to have to think etch soon and that copy of your pedal layout seems an ideal beginning

 

 

[perdu]

Doh

 

Just remembered seeing something of that ilk on a Eduard sheet

 

Must consider spending money some fine day...

[Martian]

A couple of really interesting updates there Hendie. I see that Fly are planning to release an HAS3 kit this year and I feel that any resistance on my part will be useless.

 

Weak Willed of Mars

[perdu]

I'm glad I don't do big scale, my resistance would have failed too

I hope that Fly have been taking notes and aren't just going to use 'what is - as is' as the range expands

Hendie's efforts have already outlined some immense cavities in their excellence, certainly all of which could be cured

[Pete in Lincs]

21 hours ago, hendie said:

as I now have other things to attend to

Tsk!

 

Exquisite etchery, Excellency.

[hendie]

greetings fellow modelers and what a fine day it is too.  A day off work with a few hours downstairs and no-one else in the house.. except for the plumbers fitting a new water tank, and the lawnmower people delivering my mower after a service.  The most expensive days modeling I've had for years... at least the water tank is done now so we can live without fear of the darn thing leaking again.

 

It's been an action packed couple of evenings or to be more exact, and action filled evening and morning.  Since the alchemists kit arrived I thought I had better get on with the instrument panel and fired up the CAD.  The beauty of this (to me at least) was that since I am making the photo etch directly from this drawing, then using it for the instruments means that everything will be in exactly the right place.  It took a bit longer than expected - first, finding decent photo's of actual instruments, then trying to replicate those in CAD.

 

 

Slightly better resolution here and you can see how much work goes into each instrument - a bit time consuming.

 

 

 

 

Then, since it was taking a lot longer than I anticipated, I thought I had better try a quick printout to see what I'm actually getting for my money.... hmnnnnn....

 

 

Not great if I am brutally honest.  I tried printing them out on the same film I am using for the photo etch as it's been giving me really nice sharp prints.  However, I think I am at the hairy limits of what home printing can do.  I may persevere for a bit longer and see if there's any other tweaking I can do to get a better quality print.  I'm not holding my breath though.

Just as well I invested in some Airscale instrument decals... that I put in a safe place somewhere!.

 

Anyways.. onwards and upwards as they say.

I did get some fettling in today at long last.  All in all I am quite pleased with todays efforts.  First up are the cockpit seats which are fine as they come but are missing some features - see if you can guess what bits!

Now that I look at this photo, the brackets seem a bit on the hefty side.  Hopefully some primer will take some of the omilordy away from the seats and tone things down a bit.

 

 

Next up was a bit more exciting.  Collectives!   Oh yes. 

Fly gave me this to work with - which was fine... except it was a bit bent and twisted, and had some monstrosity hanging off the side of the collective.  It made me go and check my references again... nope... that's not in any photo's I have of collectives.  Wossit supposed to be then?

 

 

Well, I'm flummoxed - truly no idea.  It's a bit of Fly's imagination, that's what it is.  Flymagination.  

Well, let's start by copying the mounting block - that's nice and easy.  Always good to start with something nice and easy.  

Simply cut to shape and drill a hole through it - all the while hoping that you got the angle right and the shape right or the collective could end up pointing skywards.

 

 

Flippin' nora onna stick - no going back now is there?   Calamity!

 

 

Some time later with yet more hold-my-breath-while-I-drill-this-hole-here-and-hope-for-the-best shenanigans and with a couple of slices of tube thrown in for good measure and it's starting to look like I might be able to pull this off.  But don't get too excited just yet - there's a long way to go.

That little bit of wire poking up at the left hand end is the collective locking lever (if you try hard enough you can almost imagine it)

 

 

During which I took almost no photo's save for this sort of finished item.  I say 'sort of finished' cos it's not really finished yet.

You can see Fly's offering compared to the newly assembled collective - yes there's quite a difference.  I dunno what Fly were thinking.

 

 

Now I just need to figure out just where it goes using this little trick  - using the kit part, I drilled a small hole in the rear of the mounting block and fitted a short piece of rod with everything lining up to the best of my ability.  Then I simply pressed the kit part against the bulkhead and the pin made a nice little hole in my tinfoil soundproofing just where the back end of the collective lever will go.  All that was needed then was to drill through the bulkhead hoping not to cause any irreparable damage.

 

 

Oops - time for a quick dry fit when I realized that I had never even tried the kit part in place for size.  Well, what do you know.... it's a bit long innit?

 

 

After the initial fright and panic of thinking that today's work was all down the swanee I came to the conclusion that sniping a little bit off the back end of that styrene block will allow me to position the collective slightly further back. Yipee!

Like so...  (yes, I know, I know, that styrene triangular sliding thingy still needs a little bit of fettling to look more in scale).  I was just so excited it all worked.

 

 

But will it all fit with the canopy in place?  Well, it looks like I have just enough room to make it work... phew....

 

 

A final parting shot from the side shows that it's all looking much better now.  Almost ergonomic it is.  For a helicopter.

I think the collective could do with sitting about a millimeter or so further back but considering where we were when I started all this messing about with the cockpit I feel pretty good about this.

 

 

I wish now I had taken a 'before and after' shot of everything dry fitted in the cockpit just to see the difference.  Too late now though.

 

And that's my story for today.  Now it's cat feeding time, dog feeding time. Dog walking time, then at long last, me feeding time.   G'night all

 

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

S'looking great, fabulous stuff on the collective

 

When I was delving deep into Wessex cockpits for my tiny scale HAR2 I found pictures of the front cabin wall that indicated that the two collectives were linked across the upper frame by a tube, do you have anything that would confirm this?

 

Seems mostly to be hidden in pictures so I never did confirm it

 

filed under 'need to know 

[speedy]

From what I've read this is an iconic build. I finished mine on Sunday which has revealed that the tail wheel undercarriage arm join is very week. My tail wheel sits at a slight angle and the wheel touches the main part of the undercarriage. I've pinned it but quite simply it look like the plastic arm is the weakness and can't take the weight. I don't know if this has been mentioned but........most annoying.

 

Also does anybody know of a pressure tube behind the rear cowling aft of the cockpit. I showed the model at work yesterday to somebody who worked on them and he noted I'd left of the said tube, but I can't find out what he's on about when looking at photos.

 

Steve.

[CedB]

Nice collective Hendie, great work

I feel your pain on the instrument printing. I learned during my attempts at 'Wacky Wabbit's' transfer printing that 'home printers', even the high resolution Inkjets, can't replicate the smooth results you get from professional, multi-layer printing. Hard lessons. Professionally printed decals are the right way to go, especially as it's not my wallet!

[heloman1]

Soory, I've been sick in bed over the weekend, when I had  the opportunity to do lots of modelling. However, my GF said come over and let me spoil you, how could I refuse...

 

Anyway I'm back in the front row, popcorn replenished. Great work Alan, I do like your attention to detail.

 

Colin

[Hamden]

 

You are truly the master of micro engineered detail absolutely stunning!

 

  Roger 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 3/5/2018 at 9:33 AM, Martian Hale said:

A couple of really interesting updates there Hendie. I see that Fly are planning to release an HAS3 kit this year and I feel that any resistance on my part will be useless.

 

Weak Willed of Mars

Oh God.  Mine too.  The real question is... will it have a sonar and radar in it...?

 

Salivating of Salisbury [and no, nothing to do with any dubious Russians and their eating habits in these parts - the place feels like 1970s East Berlin rather than Wiltshire this morning!]

[Martian]

46 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Oh God.  Mine too.  The real question is... will it have a sonar and radar in it...?

Not holding my breath on that bit Crisp. Everyone who has done an AS Wessex in any scale has bottled it so far.

 

Pessimistic of Mars 

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

14 hours ago, hendie said:

see if you can guess what bits!

No idea..do tell us 

14 hours ago, hendie said:

the collective could end up pointing skywards.

Been there..I think I bent it and the pedals..but the guy in the right hand seat seemed totally at ease..difficult to break a Wessex it seems.

 

To the model

Absolutely superb work.

This looks like it could actually work if you flicked the correct switches.

[hendie]

17 hours ago, perdu said:

When I was delving deep into Wessex cockpits for my tiny scale HAR2 I found pictures of the front cabin wall that indicated that the two collectives were linked across the upper frame by a tube, do you have anything that would confirm this?

 

Bill, from memory I think the two collectives were connected by some torsion tube affair which in turn operated the swash plate up or down.  

 

 

10 hours ago, speedy said:

Also does anybody know of a pressure tube behind the rear cowling aft of the cockpit. I showed the model at work yesterday to somebody who worked on them and he noted I'd left of the said tube, but I can't find out what he's on about when looking at photos.

 

Speedy, I'm not sure what he's commenting about either - may need a bit more information on that one.

 

 

10 hours ago, CedB said:

Professionally printed decals are the right way to go, especially as it's not my wallet!

 

Now I just need to find that 'safe place' I put them

 

 

8 hours ago, heloman1 said:

I do like your attention to detail.

 

it's a disease

 

 

7 hours ago, Hamden said:

You are truly the master of micro engineered detail absolutely stunning!

 

Still the same disease!

Actually, not quite the master.... The angled part of the rod on the underside of the collective should be further back to allow the collective to raise higher.  As it is the Wessex probably wouldn't get more than 10 feet off the ground.  - But I'm not making them again!

 

5 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

will it have a sonar and radar in it...?

 

mine doesn't so I don't care!

 

4 hours ago, Scimitar said:

Absolutely superb work.

This looks like it could actually work if you flicked the correct switches.

 

Thanks Scimitar, and everyone else for your comments.  Much appreciated.

 

10 hours ago, speedy said:

I've pinned it but quite simply it look like the plastic arm is the weakness and can't take the weight. I don't know if this has been mentioned but........most annoying.

 

The plastic is very soft.  Judging by the rest of the kit, I think the mold has been flashed before they could properly pack it out.  Thanks for the heads up though.  On my last Wessex build I made the tail wheel axle from brass.  I may do the same thing again (or even look into 3D printing again)

Edited March 6, 2018 by hendie

[Martian]

Lovely collective there Hendie.

 

Martian

[speedy]

Right I asked him again this morning and we were both sat looking at google images but couldn't find anything for reference, but to quote what he said it was a pressure sensor in the form of a white painted disc with a hole in it. The disc was about the size of a mug!       

and he said he'd put an RBF tag in the hole after every shut down. Respectfully I thanked him but I can't find any references, so perhaps some other ex-Wessex chap will chip in........

 

Steve.

[Massimo]

...well...what can I say...on this scale, if you don't do things properly, the risk is to have a toyish model.

I don't think this is going to be the case!!!

To start, that pedalling system is really , as well as the seats and all the cockpit...I feel I could sit in it...on second thought I'll avoid that!!!

The folding tail is astonishing and it's worth all the efforts you put in it!

And to finish....THAT'S WHAT I CALL A HANDBRAKE!!!