We Three Kings...

[Head in the clouds.]

The weekend arrive-th so an update of this weeks toils seems appropriate.

 

Returning to the U/C sponsons of XV371 more tiny detail was added to the u/c, namely the tapered box under the tow point and the torque links from the Airwaves Revell set, although they look a little lost and small to me but still better than the solid plastic affair as was. If I can find something better without splashing out on a complete PE set then I shall replace them at a later stage;

 

A while back early in the build I decided to cut out the plastic where a mesh was to be fitted in front of and under the main rotor assembly, the fuselage was not yet glued together and the thin plastic broke off. Now that the fuselage is together I thought it was time to revisit this area so the little broken piece was set back in place, left to set and cleaned up;

 

Mesh fitted and tided up;

 

Next up was the oil cooler mesh which in hindsight would probably have been easier to fit before I fixed the scratch built oval housing to the fuselage,but my old man always said of me that I will always choose the difficult path.....nothing has changed then in all these years.😒

I started off by making a template from the remaining F4 underwing tank from which I drew around onto a thin piece of Evergreen plastic card which was then cut out slightly over size so I could fine tune the fit. A hole drilled in the cut out shape was my method to insert the mesh housing for fettling to size using a wooden cocktail stick;

 

The hole disappeared once the opening for the mesh was cut out and fixed in place;

 

Once dry it was given a gentle curve and fitted in place;

 

Well that well me thinks, it can't last can it?

While that was setting I looked at the engine housing, this presented me with a gap wide enough to, you know, London buses and all. This is the worst fitting item I have come across on this build thus far so I am not going to babble on and have a hissy fit, it was expected at some point and can be easily sorted. Fixed in place now;

 

Leaving XV371 for a while I looked at the cabin floor of ZB506, using Dads203 build as a template and looking at reference pics the floor was masked and painted as was the cockpit area, like a numpty though the cockpit area of ZB506 is not black which I only realised after taking the pic below, it should be Grey!

 

This will be rectified in my next post.

TTFN.

 

[Dads203]

Really starting to take shape, some good modelling on the old Airfix kit indeed. I’d shim up the engine housing with some thin plastic card, you’ll never know it had a big gap 

[Head in the clouds.]

50 minutes ago, Dads203 said:

I’d shim up the engine housing with some thin plastic card

Cheers sounds good to me Dan.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

No need to be too precise, though; those engine bay doors were not exactly an air-right fit!

[Head in the clouds.]

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

those engine bay doors were not exactly an air-right fit!

That is less work for me then, that is what I call priceless info👍 Cheers.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I’d say the current gap is too big, but you certainly don’t need to get down to the filling and sanding phase

[Head in the clouds.]

So busy lately, trying to get into a decent run of bench time is proving a little hard, the wedding is getting closer so the meetings, shopping and small details all need confirming so I feel discretion is the better part of valour, hence little time at modelling. Throw work in and life in general and my head is spinning.

 

But, we are here to talk all things plastic and whirlybird so onwards and upwards.

 

On 7/6/2019 at 2:01 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’d say the current gap is too big

My thoughts too but in-between posts on the subject I started filling so created the work that you suggested I need not do but nothing is lost and that fact is duly logged in the grey matter.👍. A nice heavy score line should restore the non " air-air tight" look we are aiming for.

 

Also noted in post #51/pic2 was the recessed detail which represents the hand holds and foot steps alike on the side of the fuselage, after looking at many photographs several of them seemed to be the imagination of Airfix and the remaining ones are either in the wrong place or not there at all, so I set to sorting this out, they are a prominent detail and really need sorting.

Starboard

The one above the sponson,  is not there/apparent

The one above the window is in the wrong place( too far to the left)

 

Post #19/pic4

Port,

The one below and in front of the sponson is not there/apparent

The one above the sponson is not there/apparent.

 

The remaining detail will be chiselled out to create a recess  into which a thin section of wire will be inserted into those that require it. Some have been started but ended up a little large, I will check them all once done and rectify with a little card if required, as has been done already on a couple.

 

While in this area I pulled the sliding door out of the box and had a look at what was there detail wise, nothing was the short answer🤔

Missing detail included the door handle and recess, the detail above said handle, the bulge on the right for I assume is the inside handle mechanism and the small detail along the top. The bulge was made from scrap plastic, the door handle recess chiselled out and handle from wire fitted and detail added to top of door of which I know not of it's purpose.

 

Better me thinks.

 

I have decided to model XV371 in this form simply because it is a little different and offers more detail;

copyright FAST Museum.

 

To this end to start is was simply a case of leaving the underside hull section off that houses the two lamps. Next, I need to fill the hole and construct a new section of hull from two pieces of card simply scored and glued into place;

Now fixed the excess was removed and the gaps filled;

Next up is to fit a small fillet into the top corner to give the round edge seen in the photograph above and a clean up, then I can look for what detail sits in this area.

 

This a build of three Sea Kings so I suppose I should do some work on the other two.

XV651; Not much has been done to this kit so I thought that should be put right....a bit anyway! As with ZB506 I set about  looking for pics of the floor in the cabin of HAS1 Sea Kings which are like hens teeth so I had to use the pics I have which are of XV371, correct or not it is all I have so it shall be.

The deck was masked and the relevant non slip areas painted Tamiya Rubber Black. Moving forward I started on the cables/pipework behind the pilots seat, not much done but a start.

Later it will get a dusting of talcum powder to give a sense of light wear.

 

ZB506 has not been forgotten, again, work on the cockpit bulkhead with its associated cable and pipework, again the best photo I have shows white cables but not much more so some may be a little generic. Nothing more than white wire was used to represent cable although I could not source any white in 0.1mm dia, every other colour but white is available so 0.2 dia was used.

 

Not the best pic, sorry!

 

That's about it, a bit of a hotch potch of posts and you may notice the pics are not in the order of build, I often forget to take pics as I march on.

 

Off down south for work so not much for a few days.

 

Thanks for looking.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

1 hour ago, andyf117 said:

Never noticed it before

Me neither, and I have looked for a previous build...interesting, it is identical, why would that be?

With regards to the badges that is most kind Andy, I will take you up on your kind offer, certainly makes life easier than making one out of decals as I did before. I shall PM you.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

On 7/14/2019 at 4:38 PM, andyf117 said:

don't know when those pics of 371

Without looking it up Andy I believe this was the earliest  test colour scheme worn by 371, wearing it until about 1970/71 at the latest so well within the operational time of 202Sq on Whirlwinds. I will try and find out what the story is on this.

[Head in the clouds.]

A quick update. The ladies have gone on the Hen do so while the cats away Gary will play.

 

I have have spent this afternoon tackling the fiddly PE grills that adorn the Sea King around the engine area. A lot of of the Airways etch is way to big so it was put on a diet and split in two ready for later;

 

Before moving on to the tricky shape above I just chiselled out the foot/hand holds on the Port side, you can see how oversize the etch is;

 

I now cut down the etch and after chiselling out it's seat we had this;

 

 

Now we are back on scale and looking all the better for it, I did loose the 1st piece of PE though so that is the Mk2.

 

Back to the first pic and it is time to set the grille that sits around and under the engine inlet, with my smallest chisel and a careful half an hour we are here;

 

Which by natural progression takes us to this point;

Now that went much better than I dared hope, you will also see the little one next and to the bottom, compare that to the first pic and it is apparent how much larger and out of scale the Airwaves set are.

That pretty much covers this afternoons bench time, next up is the little triangular grille on the starboard side when I next sit at the bench.

 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend folks

Gary

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

22 hours ago, andyf117 said:

If I may I suggest

Indeed you may, I have just looked and compared to the more recent mouldings as you suggest and they are too tall, almost Gothic I would say. Thanks for the pointer Andy.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

Hello one and all.

I am glad to report that the 3 Kings are alive and well and not been assigned to history like many of their forebears, I, their loyal servant, have had a busy period organising and getting married and then getting back into the routine of life after the honeymoon. It was all done as a 40's wedding, although the price of the ale was very much up to date...you can't win them all!

 

I have now had a chance to spend some time at the bench so this is very much a catch up of those few days I have managed to snatch. With all that was going on I still had to think and look again at some of the work I have done thus far on XV371, with that in mind I decided to revisit some items and make some adjustments.  The first was the shape of the Oil Cooler Air Outlet last seen in post #50, the actual item has straight sides but mine is too rounded and just looked wrong, so after doing all that work it seemed illogical to leave it.

The first job to do was remove the offending sides so they where carefully removed and measurements taken for the new items to be made and inserted.

 

 

For some reason no photo exists of the card inserts I made but I do have one after they were inserted and set in place. Better, although I am aware it is a little oversize but I think I am going to have to live with it

 

 

 

While in the ' revision'  frame of mind I looked again at the grilles on the starboard side and realised I had not made any provision for the small grille next to and just forward of the uppermost hand hold so this was duly corrected. I have spent much time chiselling out the plastic to allow the PE grilles to sit flush with the airframe, not sure if it was time well spent especially after following Dads203 superb Sea King build...time will tell!

 

It all looks a bit messy at the moment, a clean up is in the pipeline, promise! Now I have posted this pic something else jumped out at me and hit me in the face with that wet fish feeling, that darn pesky Oil Cooler outlet is too upright, it needs to be more reclined, luckily, I should be able to file it out, if it all fails this will be one King that may follow the history books and be done away with......

 

Also noticeable in the above pic is that the pilots now have some protection from the elements and any dopey Gulls that may wander into the flightpath, the glazing now being fitted. As noted in many previous builds we all know the glazings on this kit are horrible and this rendition is no better, various fillers have/are being used to fill the gaps( seen around the cockpit) but what I failed to do was try to clean them up with Micro cloth. If I remember( it was a while ago I started this build) some of the imperfctions looked deep and I dare not try to rectify them for fear of total ruination of said items. That's my excuse and I shall have to live with it as the fuselage is now stitched together.

 

Talking of glazings, I painted up the canopy flat black, which is what my pics suggest it should be and tried a mixture of Tamiya Green/Blue for the top sections. Here is a pic which should be before the one above. Sprayed on the inside only.

 

 

Leaving the Centenarian kit for a while I moved onto the newer offerings, ZB506 and XV651. 

ZB506 was another kit that will also be changed by some of my revisionist thinking from earlier, I said in one of my first posts that I was going to have 506 with internal cabin detail but the only pics I have are from XV371 from a decade or more earlier and I was not comfortable using this material as the basis for my internal build, I do not even know the seating arrangement for 506 as I cannot  find a pic of this let alone equipment layout so, reluctantly, I am leaving the detail as is unless something turns up before closing of the fuselage. The photo's I have will not be wasted as there is an earlier version of Hele Tel which was mounted on XV371 so a future build is not out of the question.

 

What I can do however is fit some of the Eduard external PE set to ZB506 and XV651. The only work here was removing the rather clunky hand grips from Airfix before fitting the PE.

 

 

To this;

 

 

 

Much better, don't you agree? Also added were the filler caps, this work was repeated on both airframes as well as fitting some of the glazing. This needed a little fettling but generally went in OK and are a vast improvement on the older Airfix offering, which is I suppose to be expected after half a century of progress.

 

Some work was also done on XV651, adding detail to the bulkhead behind the co pilot ( is that right? I seem to remember reading the pilot/co pilot positions are reversed on the Sea King, please correct me if I am wrong). This was done with various grades of wire just to busy it up a little. While building this area I ran out of PE seat belts from the earlier Airwaes set so purchased this;

 

The sharp eyed amongst you will notice these are WWII RAF seat belts with additional item such as dampers of which more later. While these belts are not strictly correct once inside and covered up they should pass muster to all but the sharpest of modellers. I could not find any PE sets for the period and I could not find any Airwaves Sea King sets anywhere, they do sell rather quickly. Following Andyf117 and his earlier build I painted the seats Green, some detail is left to be painted on the belts. Any, needs must and after some tinkering we have this;

 

While on the cockpits I finished off 506, adding the control panel. Not having any PE for this area I reluctantly used the decals so to try and soften that disco look I sprayed them with  diluted Tamiya Smoke, could not think of anything else to do.

 

With that done I moved on to the U/C sponsons, not much to report other than the the mounting points for the flotation drums are too long, my research material showing these to be shorter so they were cut down in size, a simple job.....for a change!

 

 

Moving on to the front of 506 there needs to be some alteration to the top nose cover, in particular, the hole for the placement of the sensors and removal of the box top right. ZB506 did not have or need these items when built for the RAE so they are omitted.

 

Placing the nose to one side side we run all the wy to the rear, adding the PE grilles to the tail unit, although Airfix kindly provide a recess for said items thus saving me much time and effort, they are too small so had to be enlarged with a small chisel but once done fitted nice and snug with only a little filler. All the PE for this area was fitted although not seen in pic.

 

Continuing with Sea King musical chairs we now move to the middle section to fit the grilles above the rotor head, nothing much to report other than similar to above;

 

 

For now that is it, all up to speed and ticka tee boo.

Thanks for looking.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

4 minutes ago, andyf117 said:

Helo pilots occupy the right seat, co-pilots the left - opposite way around to fixed-wing..

50/50 chance and I get it wrong, now I know why I do not gamble, cheers Andy.

[Rickoshea52]

4 hours ago, andyf117 said:

Helo pilots occupy the right seat, co-pilots the left - opposite way around to fixed-wing...

....ex-FAAWAFU explained the reasoning in a post somewhere - I believe it was mainly to do with flying the landing approaches to ships...

....and also because the main cabin door is usually located on the starboard side, so it means the pilot can look at what's going on there...

No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong. It’s so the jockey can easily use his lance to poke the enemy with. A WAFU told me that and I believe him because they never tell fibs. 🤥

[Head in the clouds.]

A quick update, nothing much has happened other than me procrastinating over something I want to do but feel I may not need to do.

Remember this;

 

Those Torsion Links looked too small and just wrong so I used those that came with my latest PE Seatbelt set and w now have this;

 

 

Bigger, better, but still not floating my boat and I think I have figured it out, the Torsion Link is doing nothing, for it to work the top part is fixed to the u/c leg and the lower to the axle assembly, as weight is relieved from the u/c the link extends. As it is it does nothing and looks wrong but it will not be that visible.

My builds are slow enough as is, at this rate it will drop to one a year😒

 

So, what to do.

Chop off the current axle housing, drill hole in u/c leg and insert brass rod. Then drill recieving hole in the small axle attached to wheel and fix to rod and finally Torsion link to u/c leg and axle as seen in the real world........

 

I need more sleep.

 

One thing I have done is to nail the two fuselage halves together on ZB506, uneventful and no dramas.

 

Thanks for dropping by.

[Head in the clouds.]

Procrastinating over, the jury have returned their verdict and they have ruled; off with it's head, so to speak.

So I did;

 

After this plastic butchery a hole was drilled in each u/c leg;

 

Ditto the wheel axle;

 

And a length of brass rod for the telescopic leg glued in place and awaiting cutting to length;

 

 

It took no more than half an hour to do this so why I did not do it in the instance is beyond me. A good result and looking much better already than the kit offering.

 

The only other work done on this Friday night was to fix the control column, collective and control console to the cockpit of XV651;

 

And a little etch on ZB506 on the engine cowl;

 

That's it for now, until next time.

[Head in the clouds.]

Bit of a beefy update today, I have been doing bits and bobs and before you know it there is a pile in front of you, just like the ironing but far more pleasurable.

 

 

I am starting to pick up work on XV651 so before I could progress any further a new rear bulkhead had to be made from plasticard, the cabin and cockpit floor could then be glued to the inside of one half of the airframe and the new bulkhead fitted, as will be known early Sea Kings had the bulkhead just after the left hand side of the side slide  door, this being moved back on later versions;

It can be seen to good effect here;

 

After looking at the pic above I have just noticed that I have missed the two angled bars in the top corners of the cargo door on both XV651 and ZB506. Note to self....wakey wakey Woty! No drama as this is an easy fix for later but if I am having the doors shut it will make no difference if they are not there anyway.

 

All glazing was fitted to the other fuselage half but one of the window panes had a manufacturing fault the was inside the clear plastic so I had to make a new pane from food packaging;

 

The nose of XV651, like the rest of the airframe was clean so I set to removing anything that was not relevant;

 

 

As with the front of the airframe the rear was also much cleaner, the vane that runs the length of the fuselage and the strengthening strip were fitted to later marks. I beleive the vane was fitted to reduce stress on the tail boom due to the increasing weight and power of the Sea King and the strengthening plate for similar reasons, did this have anything to do with going from 5 to 6 bladed tail rotor?

The other item to come off is the moulded on tie down point, however,this will be replaced with a PE item.

 

 

After much blade work and sanding we have this.

As can be seen, smooth as a babies bot bot;

 

Another item that needs attention is the u/c, as is usual everything is moulded in one piece but this makes everything look clunky and soft but in fairness to Airfix they are 100% better than it's 50 year old brethren. As I have a PE set much of this will be removed;

 

Some of the PE has been fitted, the torque links are yet to be removed and tie downs fitted. This Airfix plastic is nice and soft and while not to everyone's taste it does allow removal of material from delicate items such as these without too many terrors.

 

Leaving the glue to set I moved on to the hull. Again, the HAS1 had a clean hull compared to later versions as can be seen here, all items needing removal are marked in red, and there are many;

 

I did remove this lot but failed to take a pic.

 

The last job on XV651 was the simple task of fitting the cover under the rotor head and filling the holes for the grilles as they are too deep;

 

Moving on to ZB506 the nose panel was fitted and no dramas here, a little blending of parts will be needed but nothing major;

 

Next item to be fitted was the engine section, again, nothing much to report here, just posting pic for completeness.

 

Did anyone spot the error?

 

No?

 

We will move on then.

 

Now things are getting to this stage with the front end coming together it was time to think about the cockpit glazing. When I opened the bag containing the clear parts I was a bit baffled why this section came in 3 parts, surely this will open it up to mere chance of misfit or errors, time will tell.

First off was to paint the overhead console black and fix to the underside of the canopy and then fix the decal. A pleasant half hour was spent masking when that wet fish once again slapped me in the face....I forgot to spray the overhead glazing in the blue/green mix so now it will be a bit more awkward to do. Bugger!

 

 

Next up, but not today is this item under the nose of XV371, I am not sure if it is a mounting for Hele Tele, a sensor or something other, either way it has to be made so that is my next job.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Ta taa.

[Dads203]

Moving along very nicely mate, all looking great 

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117