WESTLAND WHIRLWINDS (Revell H-19's)

[mackem01]

While I love your choice of schemes, I'm so jealous. Been looking for one of these for ages then wallop!! you come along with not one but two beauties.

[matti64]

13 hours ago, mackem01 said:

While I love your choice of schemes, I'm so jealous. Been looking for one of these for ages then wallop!! you come along with not one but two beauties.

We've been hoarding them for years, Everything from built up  olive drab H-19's to Silver rescue H-19's  and the revell Germany issue S-55  Sabena and Netherlands Navy issue. The one I'd like is the orange plastic Arctic  HO4S. Recently Revell in the US have done a retro issue.  Parabellum in the UK have imported them and you can get them on eBay from time to time. This is the boxart for the most recent incarnation

Edited August 22, 2018 by matti64
additional text

[matti64]

22 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

Nice job there. I have 3 of these in the pile, and they have just been re-issued. I'm planning on 22 sqn, RN plane guard in yellow over sky, and HMS Protector - S&M are producing a decal sheet for that. Won't be this year though.

Didn't know that Mel was doing the decals  for the HMS protector one. I had quite a job matching in the penguin.  The penguin badge changes over the years. In some iterations you see it "naked" in some it wears a duffel coat. I chose to do the 7 as it has the most differences from the HAS22 and basic H-19 that you can have other than  the  Gnome nose. I wanted to be sure I'd got the hang of the drooped tailboom and larger fin  as well as getting to  grips with some sort of representation of the Leonides cowling, aside from the basic  accuracy and detail issues  common to any S-55 (Undercarriage and cockpit). I think that the  Gnome engined nose is fairly straightforward to make. If you can find any pictures of ones with the cowling panels opened up, you'll see that it is only  really the  nose cap and the very lowermost section that has any compound curvature. The rest is single curvature panels.

[bentwaters81tfw]

1 minute ago, matti64 said:

Didn't know that Mel was doing the decals  for the HMS protector one. I had quite a job matching in the penguin.  The penguin badge changes over the years. In some iterations you see it "naked" in some it wears a duffel coat. I chose to do the 7 as it has the most differences from the HAS22 and basic H-19 that you can have other than  the  Gnome nose. I wanted to be sure I'd got the hang of the drooped tailboom and larger fin  as well as getting to  grips with some sort of representation of the Leonides cowling, aside from the basic  accuracy and detail issues  common to any S-55 (Undercarriage and cockpit). I think that the  Gnome engined nose is fairly straightforward to make. If you can find any pictures of ones with the cowling panels opened up, you'll see that it is only  really the  nose cap and the very lowermost section that has any compound curvature. The rest is single curvature panels.

Just to clarify, Mel should have the decals for Telford this year. I meant I would not be building Whirlwinds this year.

[Glen]

They’re both fantastic. I’d be really interested to hear what improvements you made to get that result. 

 

I’ve got a couple of the reissues that I picked up in the States. I had been trying to a decide whether to sand the rivets or not - having had a close look at the H-19 on the USS Intrepid in NY the other day I think I will take them off as it looked pretty smooth to me. Makes the masking easier too by the sounds of it!

 

Out of interest, Lone Star Models in the US does a cranked tail boom and wheels set and have been developing an engine and cargo bay set too although I haven’t seen it online yet.

 

http://www.lonestarmodels.com/store/cvh/lsm-480671-h-19-2-cranked-tail-boom-

 

Having recently been stung by customs and the post office for a resin set that suddenly became incredibly expensive I’m a bit reticent to order anything at the moment though!,

 

Cheers

Glen

[matti64]

28 minutes ago, Glen said:

They’re both fantastic. I’d be really interested to hear what improvements you made to get that result. 

 

I’ve got a couple of the reissues that I picked up in the States. I had been trying to a decide whether to sand the rivets or not - having had a close look at the H-19 on the USS Intrepid in NY the other day I think I will take them off as it looked pretty smooth to me. Makes the masking easier too by the sounds of it!

 

Out of interest, Lone Star Models in the US does a cranked tail boom and wheels set and have been developing an engine and cargo bay set too although I haven’t seen it online yet.

 

http://www.lonestarmodels.com/store/cvh/lsm-480671-h-19-2-cranked-tail-boom-

 

Having recently been stung by customs and the post office for a resin set that suddenly became incredibly expensive I’m a bit reticent to order anything at the moment though!,

 

Cheers

Glen

I'd agree with you about being cautious of ordering anything from the US. We used to have a friend  in N.C. who  used to  take care of shipping and handling for us as an MBA until his passing a few years ago. Since then I've been particularly stung  by both the  large rise in  postage  and  VAT and handling fees for items. Lone star do so many good items which   on their own are competitively priced, but  I found that when I bought a Martin B-10  a few years back, by the time  I actually received it, after a trip to  the postal sorting office, the cost was about double.  The modifications to the tail boom are pretty straightforward and are pretty easy to accomplish. The interior  is half scratchbuilt and half modified from recasts from an Italeri Wessex. The instrument panel  was scratchbuilt from which I've made a mould .  Main wheels are recasts from  a Monogram Su-25 and the nose wheels are F-4 Phantom. None of it strictly accurate but  fairly convincing, I think.

The hardest part was letting in the clear roof panels and the attendant sanding and polishing.

 The flight deck glazing is  formed over Milliput patterns formed in situ.  I've used CD crystal case  plastic for all of the  glazing as it is so clear and  rigid  and easy to work if it is firmly fixed in place, not easy for the roof panels where there is little material adjacent to hold them.  With helicopters it's all of the small details, I find , which are the  make or break. The undercarriage legs were all kit supplied , but  adding  a bit of extra detail seems to have been  enough. Handles, steps anything like that , all adds to  the overall effect. Over the years I've tried to   accumulate as many  reference photos as I could of  all  Whirlwinds, HO4s's and H-19's and It's thanks to all of the museums which have  conserved and put on display and other peoples photography  that I've been able to make a  confident start on modelling Whirlwinds.