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


hendie

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22 hours ago, hendie said:

you can see how much work goes into each instrument - a bit time consuming

A bloody understatement if ever - that's some prime and patient delineation.

22 hours ago, hendie said:

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

More like Massey Ferguson...

 

Your modification however demonstrates collective wisdom hendie. A lovely result.

 

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3 hours ago, speedy said:

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........

 

 

ah... if it is what I think it is - and it may well not be.  It's a vent or hole just aft of the beetleback and before the pin for the wing fold bracket.  We rarely put RBF tags on anything and the only reason I know of it's existence is because we had to plug it whenever there was a monsoon.  That meant climbing up the spine, generally in pouring wetness with the occasional lightning bolt striking nearby.

 

Was it HC 2's he worked on or summat else?   The thing I'm talking about can be seen just along from the beetleback in this photo here  It's the little circular thingy in the middle of the stencils.  Nice shot of the BIM's in that photo.

 

Or it could be something else entirely!

Edited by hendie
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I think that vent must have done serious damage to that poor guy's psyche

 

Horrible picture alert, I found this on the net a few years back and I suspect the odd blemish on the fuselage behind the beetleback is the culprit

SDC10687.jpg

 

I have a LOT of Wessex pictures, this seems to be the only vent or hole in the vicinty of the inquiry

 

Some other Wessex pictures confirm the blue you used to be as near as possible (within the visible light spectrum) to the real thing

 

The reason you dislike it may be because it is too well covered

There is hardly any paint left on these HC2 ones

SDC10585.jpg

 

I guess the rest of us are well impressed H

 

(There are a stack more cockpit internals in this series if you need 'em)

Edited by perdu
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6 hours ago, hendie said:

 

ah... if it is what I think it is - and it may well not be.  It's a vent or hole just aft of the beetleback and before the pin for the wing fold bracket.  We rarely put RBF tags on anything and the only reason I know of it's existence is because we had to plug it whenever there was a monsoon.  That meant climbing up the spine, generally in pouring wetness with the occasional lightning bolt striking nearby.

 

Was it HC 2's he worked on or summat else?   The thing I'm talking about can be seen just along from the beetleback in this photo here  It's the little circular thingy in the middle of the stencils.  Nice shot of the BIM's in that photo.

 

Or it could be something else entirely!

Oh well done, that's got to be it. He was on 72 at Aldergrove in 73. I bet you and Perdu found this in minutes, it was quiet and I was the one one in my work so "dedicated some Google time":hypnotised:  (my eyes on sticks!) and couldn't find a thing. Right off to get the drill.........

 

Steve

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17 hours ago, perdu said:

Some other Wessex pictures confirm the blue you used to be as near as possible (within the visible light spectrum) to the real thing

 

 

 

Thanks Bill - I think you are right.  I just need to add some scratches avec some light grey.

 

Had a bit of a palpitation last night as I was cutting the second  cyclic handle off the resin block (you know what's coming...)   I positioned the resin block what I thought was a safe distance from the edge of my workbench and proceeded to very gently razor saw the cyclic handle from the resin.  Time froze as I watched the tiny little grey thing topple from the resin block, bounce on the workbench, bounce onto my shirt, then proceed to bounce off my leg and disappear downwards.   Palpitations ensued immediately.    A little grey thing on a grey concrete floor, covered with grey dust, scraps of plastic, wire and general detritus.

I then spent the next twenty minutes on my knees and elbows, magnifier lenses on, scouring the concrete - nothing!   As a last resort, I checked the shelf under my workbench before finding the offending part snuggling in between a bunch of aerosol cans.   Lucky or what!

I only had a few minutes work time so I got the first coat of paint on the collectives and they are looking rather tasty.

 

 

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That was one of the reasons I fitted some repurposed wood effect planking ( rescued from a water damaged kitchen floor) so that finding lost bits becomes easier

 

I'm glad you found it, could have been awful trying to copy the first one 

 

😕

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2 hours ago, hendie said:

A little grey thing on a grey concrete floor, covered with grey dust, scraps of plastic, wire and general detritus.

For goodness sake man, tidy up! :nono:

That said, I can't talk much... having dropped a tiny sticky-out Gnat bit yesterday I picked at least six bits of little grey (scrap) plastic out of the carpet before I got the right one.

I must get the vacuum cleaner out between builds - Mrs B is banned from cleaning the man cave, obviously.

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2 hours ago, CedB said:

For goodness sake man, tidy up! :nono:

 

I do!   Immediately after every build is complete.

 

 

That makes a clean up every 10 to 36 months on average

 

 

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On 06/03/2018 at 11:42 PM, hendie said:

 

ah... if it is what I think it is - and it may well not be.  It's a vent or hole just aft of the beetleback and before the pin for the wing fold bracket.  We rarely put RBF tags on anything and the only reason I know of it's existence is because we had to plug it whenever there was a monsoon.  That meant climbing up the spine, generally in pouring wetness with the occasional lightning bolt striking nearby.

 

Was it HC 2's he worked on or summat else?   The thing I'm talking about can be seen just along from the beetleback in this photo here  It's the little circular thingy in the middle of the stencils.  Nice shot of the BIM's in that photo.

 

Or it could be something else entirely!

That’ll be the static vent then, part of the pitot static system for altitude indications in the cockpit. Always blanked onboard ship and in the field on the Jungles Squadrons. Two ways to put it on, climb up the tail from the tail break and shimmy up the spin or, get a mate to give you a lift right by the vent ( mind the HF antenna wires though, you don’t want to tell the Chief Pinky you bust his antennas)

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At the weekend I was re-purposing various bits of kits 

for my latest Sci fi scratch build. I raided the old car parts box.

I soon found out that the best bits to drop are chrome plated.

Much easier to find!

 

I have a sheet of red vinyl on the floor under the chair and desk.

Everything collects on there and stuff is generally easy to find.

(Except red stuff)

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On 3/7/2018 at 1:36 PM, perdu said:

I'm glad you found it, could have been awful trying to copy the first one 

 

Maybe not too bad - they got that wrong too!.   (I noticed after I painted it up today :doh:  )   The remedy is quite easy though... hack a bit orf and be done with it.

I've been hacking a lot of bits orf here and there recently, like the intermediate gearbox mesh...  It didn't sit quite close enough to the skin on one corner, so it came off and I had another go at it.  Hopefully some glue, some tape and some clamping will hold it close enough this time around.   With that done I am now contemplating ripping off the two PE parts on top of the tail as I'm not entirely happy with them either.  Maybe tomorrow....

 

P3100001.jpg

 

The collectives got finished off.  I loved the look of them when I had painted them a/c interior black, but they looked far too pristine so I had to throw some grimy flat black on them to give them that more lived in look.

 

P3100002.jpg

 

Apologies if this is a bit of a hodgepodge of an update but the mojo seems to have taken a small vacation and I'm getting a bit frustrated with this kit fighting me all the time.  I even took a small detour today to re-prime the side frames of the train (I stripped them back to the brass again for the third time last weekend).  Maybe I'm just not cut out for this modeling malarkey and should take up extreme ironing or something therapeutic like polishing dirt balls

 

Regardless, on to more mundane things such as flying machines.  The tale of the tail.  And remedial work thereof.   You mayhap recall that some time ago I commented on the brass etch for the tail being the wrong size.  Well, it's still the wrong size so I chopped some brass off.  Previously, I had added a strip of plastic to the opening to narrow it up slightly - now I had to chop the kit mesh up to narrow that down too.  The job itself wasn't too difficult, and was helped by the fact that the new dimension worked out to be exactly 5mm.  The more challenging part was removing the edging strip from the off-cut to stick back on the bottom edge.

 

P3100020.jpg

 

In best Blue Peter tradition - here's one I made earlier, with an unbutchered piece of kit brass nestling in beside my handiwork to show the difference.  The kit part was never going to work without being modified... at least not in my build

 

P3100006.jpg

 

Then, while trying to figure out what to attack next I laid my eyes upon the SACRU's that arrived several weeks ago.  I had started painting them but put them aside (as you do) to attend to other more pressing but now long forgotten matters.

1:48 on the left followed by 2 x 1:32 offerings.  I'm a bit perplexed as on one side of the SACRU the finish is perfect, yet on the reverse face, it's all a bit rough.  This is shown more clearly when you look at the hook/latching lever under the SACRU.   I can't complain too much though as these are way better than anything I could produce by hand at this scale.

The metallic finish was achieved by hand painting Alclad chrome on the necessary parts, then a coat of Alclad titanium gold again hand painted on. (more of a wash than paint)

 

P3100011.jpg

 

Back to matters at hand.  The collectives were glued in place after mucho faffing about to try and get the correct angle relative to all the other components in the cockpit

 

P3100012.jpg

 

The big question at this point is... Does everything still fit?    Well... just - but that's all that's needed. (isn't it?)

 

P3100015.jpg

 

A shot from the side shows that my earlier concerns around the framework I added to the seats being too out of scale or too obtrusive were unfounded.  Once the base coat is on, it all blends in nicely

 

P3100018.jpg

 

and I'll throw this last shot in purely because I took it and for no other reason.

 

P3100019.jpg

 

Still a long way to go before this can all be buttoned up but I can sleep at nights knowing that it at least looks like a Wessex.  I really must get back to that train though - it's been far too long a break

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, hendie said:

Maybe I'm just not cut out for this modeling malarkey 

P-

Please don't say/such things hendie, even in jest.

 

As the Sinatra of the Bench you're not allowed shocking speculations about a Farewell Tour, on pain of being turned into a bad waxwork - surely you've not forgotten what happened to Sir Cliffchard when he merely hinted at downing tools on his 1/32 Avro Auchtermuchty?

cliff-richard-waxwork.jpg?itok=ha2GXtX7

 

Mesh: mesmerising. Check.

SACRU: Standard defining. Check.

Collective: Convincing. Check.

Looks like you are cleared to continue with the wizardry.:clap:

 

7 hours ago, hendie said:

metallic finish was achieved by hand painting Alclad chrome on the necessary parts

IMO an underused technique and capable of much subtlety. I also find that lightly misting a metallic coat over a very dark grey with the airbrush gives a more convincing sense of metallic 'depth' at smaller scales like 1/72 than an opaque lacqeur layer alone can produce.

 

I know what you mean about being able to:

8 hours ago, hendie said:

sleep at nights knowing that it at least looks like a Wessex. 

After remedial work yesterday, last night was the first time of feeling easy in my mind about moving on from the fuselage interior of the Boxcar....

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What he say

We do too

 

(But we will NOT be wax working you, Messrs Williams and Price took that skill with them. Me hopes)

 

The collectives look great, the grills also

Engine throttles still need toning down if I may be permitted an interfere, but not by much. That cockpit is beginning to look live.

Can't wait til you hook up 24v and she wakes up

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11 hours ago, TheBaron said:

surely you've not forgotten what happened to Sir Cliffchard when he merely hinted at downing tools on his 1/32 Avro Auchtermuchty?

 

sheesh!   I had no idea a case of the Olivia N Johns could be so devastating

 

 

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It's been a bad week so far.  Apparently I've had a bad rash followed by a severe case of the Olivia Newton Johns.  How much can a man stand before capitulating?

 

Serious stuff beckoned - the sort of serious stuff that takes a few nights work for very little show and tell, though I'll show and tell anyway.  That's just the way I roll.  Between this and a few other threads, there seems to have been an abundance of brass this last week or so, and who am I to buck the trend?

Brass!  Let's have some brass.   Okay, not a whole lot of brass but the intent is there.  Just need to join those three bits into one.

 

P3110001.jpg

 

Then, once soldered I can chop most of the brass away leaving me with a small thingy which ended up being inserted into a small piece of styrene rod - once I eventually drilled a hole that was reasonably central that is.  Yup, you know what's coming.

 

P3110002.jpg

 

It's the fire extinguisher for the cockpit.  I knew you knew that.  Looking at my reference photo's I spotted that the extinguisher is mounted on a bracket on the cockpit bulkhead. Now I need to make a bracket.  Easy... I chopped some rod of the same diameter and tested those against some 'C' channel I had lying about to see what looked appropriate.

 

P3110003.jpg

 

The base of the extinguisher was rounded off and I decided to mount the entire gizmo using a rod through the bulkhead just to make sure it didn't go walkabout later in the build.

 

P3110004.jpg

 

Extinguisher all painted up and mounted.  The green label is a scrap of decal which I had lying about, and the restraint around the extinguisher is two lengths of flattened lead wire.  The nozzle up top was painted silver, then followed up by a wash of alclad titanium gold (again).  The restraint is actually sitting a bit low on the bracket but the pinning rod was in the way so I couldn't get it centered.  Go on, shoot me!

1:1 digit included for size reference.

 

P3130006.jpg

 

Dry fitted just to check it isn't going to interfere with anything (so far!).  Not a lot of room for that seat but I think I can get away with it.

 

P3130007.jpg

 

And that endeth the extinguisher saga for this episode.   A couple of nights work all done but worth it in the end I hope.

Which brings me to the next remedial task - the brass work on the tail.  I wasn't happy with how the two meshes were sitting on top of the tail so they came off and I used a micro chisel to cut a small recess for the brass to sit in, and hopefully not stand so proud of the plastic on my next attempt.  There will be some remedial work to the remedial work no doubt.  More to come on that in next weeks exciting episode.

 

P3130008.jpg

 

Lastly for this evenings Hendie's Helicopter Hullabaloo I have a question for those knowledgeable folks out there.  The bum seat cushion.  When I think back (far faaarrrrrrrr back) I do not remember a cushion for bums.  I remember a big hard yellow survival pack with just a thin scrap of sheepskin on top.

I checked @bootneck's really handy post on the Wessex seat

 

He does state that this seat was from a civvie version,  and I think that seat has had a cushion put in place just to make it look like a seat.  Am I out to lunch on that?  I really don't remember a cushion for buttock comfort.

 

P3130009.jpg

 

All input gratefully received.

Of course, if I am right and that 'cushion' should be painted yellow then I've just given myself the task of somehow recreating a 1:32 bit of dead sheep on the seat.

 

 

 

 

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As far as I know there should only be the inhuman looking plastic box to sit on with the aforesaid sheepskin rag to stop slideyaround bottomends.

 

I do believe the the driver of the Queen's Wessex got a somewhat more Royal seat cushion as both PhildaG and ChuckI'mnext used to drive them on occasion.

 

Nice stingusher brass

 

:)

Edited by perdu
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12 hours ago, hendie said:

 

P3130007.jpg

You know when you quickly scroll down the computor screen and you think that you've seen an image of the real thing - well that just happened to me!

On longer viewing the fingers give it away!

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Never flew the Wessie (& certainly not a Mk.2), but don’t see any reason why the seat arrangememts would be different to every other type in service at the time.  Rock hard yellow seat pack, plus “sheepskin” pad (whose purpose was to contain more survival aids, rather than protect our delicate posteriors).  Even Royal aircrew had the same arrangement - though no doubt the Royal Flight ones were more in touch with their inner Interior Designer.

 

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