Westland Wessex, Rugrats 1/72 resin

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

The Westland Wessex trimotor passenger carrier of 1930 is such an attractive machine that caught my attention very early on my modeling endeavors. I started to gather material to do the usual scratchbuild and had managed to fill a pretty portly folder, when I saw that Rugrats released it as a resin kit with accessories.

I understand that Rugrats released several batches, and this to me seems to be an early one, since the decal sheet carrier had aged possibly beyond redemption, as you can see in the accompanying images (no, I don't like to put the decal sheet against the window to fix it, it doesn't, really and after you apply it eventually yellows again).

The kit portrays one of the variants the Wessex transport spawned, so bear that in mind when you look at your references.

 

It is a great joy that a manufacturer will release these wonderful jewels of the Golden Age, and the effort should be saluted and applauded.

They also offer a DH 66 Hercules, a DH 83 Fox Moth, a DH 84 Dragon, DH 90 Dragonfly, DH 86 Express and a DH 91 Albatross. I am familiar with all these planes, but with none of these kits, nevertheless I am happy that someone will make them available to us.

Congratulations on that.

 

 

The contents of the box, with reference material:

 

 Many parts are provided, but among the most practical for me: the spare for the transparencies and the inclusion of the resin master to vac more if anything bad happens:

 

 White metal parts, decent, but of slightly less quality than Aeroclub items:

 

More white metal parts, some of them with a not so smooth surface:

 

The engine pods and wheels, subtle wing detail:

 

The ill decals. Wonder if the manufacturer may provide good ones:

 

 Of great printing quality, though, but as an all-encompassing carrier you have to individually trim.
This may not be ideal for the window frames, for example:

 

 

The fuselage is free of those silly resin bricks  that some manufacturers attach to them, necessitating a jackhammer to separate the part from them:

 

The seemingly unavoidable pinholes (very little of them, fortunately) -some of these are not pinholes, but the strut locations:

 

 

 

 

One exhaust survived the de-molding, the other did not:

 

 

 

More pinholes:

 

 

 

 

 

[AMB]

I have one of these kits in my stash, as one of my pet themes is Royal Flight aircraft and one was used by The Prince of Wales for his tour of France in 1931, registered G-ABEG. I have been contemplating the colour scheme, only to find that this kit has recently been reissued with decals for that aircraft!  

 

I shall be following this build with keen interest.  

Edited February 15, 2019 by AMB

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

The parts are separated from their pouring blocks. The resin is very, very hard, and you won't need to go to the gym the day you do this:

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

A little bubble opened up as I was sanding the elevator trailing edge -which was too thick-, so I had to remove a tiny section and superglue a little piece of styrene to restore integrity:

 

 A more careful inspection revealed a high number of the nemesis of low tech resin kits: pinholes:

 

So out again with the filler, one side at a time:

[Pete in Lincs]

And here I thought you'd converted to heliochopters!

A Wessex of a different flavour eh? Makes a nice change.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

9 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

And here I thought you'd converted to heliochopters!

A Wessex of a different flavour eh? Makes a nice change.

Pete, it seems that you have missed the other ten or so models posted after the helicopters/autogyros.

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Ah, I saw a few. I'll just go sit on the naughty step then, eh?

[Martian]

Some of those parts seem to have more pin holes in them than @general melchett 's bottom!

 

Martian 👽

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

As per instructions and pattern provided, the front bulkhead is scratched:

 

The fit seems good:

 

The transparency has good clarity, and fits quite well (dry-run):

 

Speaking of instructions: you get a very long step-by-step description of what you are supposed to do. More than other kits will provide, and surely well meant, but some times the description is confusing and ambiguous. The absence of graphics or any exploded view or images makes the whole business a little bit tricky.

The photos of the real plane in the instructions are of very bad quality, almost useless, so you better go online, use your search engine, and look at good ones, fortunately there are plenty.

The engineering of this kit is unusual and sometimes seems awkward, but I won't pass judgement or criticize it until I am immersed in the build.

[Head in the clouds.]

1 hour ago, Moa said:

but some times the description is confusing and ambiguous. The absence of graphics or any exploded view or images makes the whole business a little bit tricky.

I often wonder Moa why manufacturers do this. if it is of poor quality or confusing find another way or improve it. 

 

I am with Pete,on this. I  was expecting whirly things going on.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

14 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

And here I thought you'd converted to heliochopters!

A Wessex of a different flavour eh? Makes a nice change.

 

26 minutes ago, Head in the clouds. said:

I often wonder Moa why manufacturers do this. if it is of poor quality or confusing find another way or improve it. 

 

I am with Pete,on this. I  was expecting whirly things going on.

 

Okay, entirely you fault:

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

I just discovered three things:

-That my kit as suspected was an old edition, since the new one has the hitherto "do it yourself" bulkhead already provided as a white metal part, and

-There are instructions provided freely online as a PDF that in this case show a simple exploded view:

http://www.aim72.co.uk/Wessex-inst-A5.pdf

-The engineering of the kit will effectively prevent me from doing my usual opening of the door (and sometimes cargo door) trick to display the interior. Pity.

 

Now with all the parts deployed on my board, resin and metal, it becomes clear that this will be a shelf-sagging model, given its ponderous overall weight.

I have seen new resin kits of relatively large planes solving this problem with, for example, a massive (but partially hollowed) cast of a wing, that has a "lid" in the form of the lower skin of the wing, thus saving weight, material, shipping costs, etc.

I must clarify that my experience in casting is very limited, thus my views are those of an outsider, but I do have experience building resin kits and getting all too familiar with the issues presented by most (but no all) of them.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

For reasons that remain obscure to me, while some pinhole issues can be, in some kits, simply treated with any filler, others reject most of it, and the pores remain open. For those cases the only remedy seems to be superglue, which I am never happy to apply in that guise because it creates bumps that are difficult to level with the rest of the surface. But one shall do as one must:

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

A blob of resin is removed from the cockpit:

 

 

 Construction of the interior starts. I opted not to use the white metal seats provided, but scratched some of the interior instead as an add-on sub-assembly to facilitate detailing and painting. The tailwheel had a very feeble locating pin, so it was removed and replaced by a discarded drill bit shaft to make for a secure anchoring (given the massive weight of the resin components).

The facing seats correspond to drawings (no photos I could find) from NACA and other sources depicting the Wessex. The seat that is located closer to the cockpit door is portrayed as a foldable one:

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

The transparency is trimmed, little by little, very carefully. If you are patient and do a good job, the fit is good:

[Head in the clouds.]

Oh the challenges of limited run kits, to quote; modelling " is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get" bless old Forrest.

 

I agree on the superglue solution, very hard to level with the softer surrounding material, I did see somewhere that talcum powder is added but not sure whether that is to aid visibility of glue or aid sanding.

 

Gary

[John_W]

Very interesting. A pre war trimotor not made of corrugated aluminium.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

8 hours ago, Head in the clouds. said:

modelling " is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get" bless old Forrest.

Bless indeed!

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

4 hours ago, John_W said:

Very interesting. A pre war trimotor not made of corrugated aluminium.

 

Come now, John, there were very many. I could name a dozen without effort (and posted here at BM at one point or another a couple).

 

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Regarding the yellowed decal sheet I just got a reply from the manufacturer stating that they haven't been producing this set for years, so there are no replacements available.

Will have to do with trimming the carrier very close on the bigger subjects, and find another solution for the smaller images.

 

[John_W]

A common suggestion for yellowed decals is to leave them in a sunny window and allow the sun to bleach them.

Never tried it so cannot vouch for it myself.

[Nikolay Polyakov]

13 hours ago, Moa said:

The transparency is trimmed, little by little, very carefully.

Great work with a canopy, Moa! 👍 It’s a very interesting build, as always.

 

Cheers! 😎

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

37 minutes ago, John_W said:

A common suggestion for yellowed decals is to leave them in a sunny window and allow the sun to bleach them.

Never tried it so cannot vouch for it myself.

Thanks John

A phrase in post #1 of this thread deals with this:

"(no, I don't like to put the decal sheet against the window to fix it, it doesn't, really and after you apply it eventually yellows again)."

But I do appreciate the advice and good intention.

Cheers

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Some interior elements are painted, and the rest of the parts is given a coat of primer to better see what needs refinement.

The flying surfaces in general are almost free of pinholes, fortunately, but there is some graininess to them, so to get a good finish a few passes with a soft, fine grit sanding sponge will help:

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

The white metal parts showed with the primer prominent mold seams that had to be sanded, carefully, as not to bend the parts (the metal is quite soft). 

Once that was done I decided to glue the resin engine pods (two parts, front and back) to the corresponding metal array. The fit is not bad, but it is not perfect. In the real plane there is no "ring" (here part of the white metal to greatly facilitate things), and that will be very difficult to hide.

The engineering of all this, again -I believe- aims to help the modelers, but creates other issues too. The strut array is so complex and has in the real plane so many members that to envision a different modeling solution (other than the kit's) for this area is indeed challenging: