1/48 Westland Wasp HAS1 Op Corporate *** FINISHED ***

[hendie]

liking this.  It's making me want to bring mine out of the box again. 

[Chewbacca]

You should do it - it'd be good to see another of these on the go

[moaning dolphin]

Nice to see this build, I started mine a good few years ago, A sting in the tail, (I need to go back and revisit the thread as I don't know if the pics are still there) but stalled during the cockpit build up. I keep looking at it but there are many challenges that I don't feel up to yet and the fact that if I leave it long enough someone out there will do all the hard work for me with respect to the engine, gearbox and canopy oh yes and the flot bags and undercarriage and I could go on  Be good if Airfix answered the call in 1:48!

Liking your progress so far, definately improved the tail area, and certainly looking forward to that masking coming off!

Bob

Edited May 6, 2020 by moaning dolphin

[Terry1954]

37 minutes ago, moaning dolphin said:

Be good if Airfix answered the call in 1:48!

Hannants are showing this, along with some others in differing markings due this year. I understand these will also be available in 1/72, as well as Scouts in 1/72 and 1/35. They have been a long time coming though!

 

The thing is these will probably only be released when Ralph has just finished his!

 

Great work on this old girl Ralph!

 

Terry

[perdu]

I personally gave up waiting for the Freightdog Wasp and made my own

 

To be honest I think there will be a long wait for these too, I have got used to being kept waiting

 

I was able to see (and handle) some of the Freightdog castings and mould bucks, they were a delight so if these come along I am sure they will be worth having

 

 

 

if...

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, perdu said:

I was able to see (and handle) some of the Freightdog castings and mould bucks, they were a delight so if these come along I am sure they will be worth having

I had that privilege also Bill, at Telford, about 3 or even 4 years back I reckon. The S&M version is a completely different venture to the Freightdog one. As I recall Freightdog was to be a resin cast model with brass etch etc, but the S&M Wasps will be injection moulded I am led to believe. I still think we could be in for a long wait! Whatever happens, I am sure to acquire several, probably in both scales. Wasps just do that to me!

 

Terry

[Chewbacca]

  

17 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

The thing is these will probably only be released when Ralph has just finished his!

 

Yup, too right.  That'll be the first law of Mr S*d or the second Law of Mr Murphy.

 

18 hours ago, moaning dolphin said:

the flot bags

So with progress on the engine and transmission stalled while I await Handling Squadron to come up trumps with the illustrations from the aircrew manual, I thought I needed a little light entertainment and started the flot bags.  After considering a number of options including Milliput (that despite so many people saying great things about i have never managed to get to grips with), I opted for a suitable strip of 60 thou plasticard, rounded off the ends, chamfered it all around, marked out the framing and started adding that from 20 thou Evergreen rod.  Now I know that the framing should be square profile, not round, but the smallest square profile Evergreen I had was 30 thou which looked too large (it would have been the equivalent of about 37 mm and from scrutiny of the photos it looks no more than 25mm which broadly equated to 20 thou), but the plan when it is all dry is to lightly sand the framing to square it up on top.

 

Stage 1.  Cut the plasticard, mark up the ends:

 

I quickly realised after taking this photo that they (there is a twin) were too small by about 2 mm in both directions and cut from 40 thou plasticard so remade in the correct size

 

Stage 2.  Both have the ends rounded off, I've started to chamfer the edges to the correct profile on one of them

 

Stage 3.  Drew up the framing:

 

Stage 4.  Started adding the Evergreen.  At this point I left them both overnight for that to fully set before I continue.

[Martian]

18 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Hannants are showing this, along with some others in differing markings due this year. I understand these will also be available in 1/72, as well as Scouts in 1/72 and 1/35. They have been a long time coming though!

 

The thing is these will probably only be released when Ralph has just finished his!

 

 

Not that there is the slightest hint of self interest here Ralph but could you get a shake on so the new kit comes out sooner rather than later.

37 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

  

 

 

I quickly realised after taking this photo that they (there is a twin) were too small by about 2 mm in both directions and cut from 40 thou plasticard so remade in the correct size

 

Stage 2.  Both have the ends rounded off, I've started to chamfer the edges to the correct profile on one of them

 

Stage 3.  Drew up the framing:

 

Stage 4.  Started adding the Evergreen.  At this point I left them both overnight for that to fully set before I continue.

You can't beat the sight of plastic card getting carved early in the morning!

 

Martian 👽

[perdu]

I wasnt brave enough to make two identical flot units so I made a single face and plasticene moulded a few sides from it and stuck the halves together

 

After a good filing session obvs

 

After all that faffing about I might just as well have made the pair separately, all good fun isn't it

 

I love this build, suddenly we are all over waspie round here

 

(Fnaaar Ced)

[Chewbacca]

Clamshells almost complete.  They're probably a little flat in the profile if I'm brutally honest but we have a saying at work known as the 80 : 20 rule.  20% of the effort needed to get to 80% of the effect then another 80% effort to get the final 20% effect.  And until I looked at Perdu's resin versions above, I was going to say that they pass muster for 80% .  But looking at Perdu's made me spot the single central longitudinal support at the ends which for some bizarre reason I had neglected.  So maybe only 75%.  Watch this space!

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Chewbacca
Revised photo

[Chewbacca]

No progress I'm afraid as I've been waiting you will recall on the extracts of the Wasp Aircrew Manual to show what is happening on and around that transmission deck.

 

Well fellow BMers, I am pleased to report that it arrived yesterday from my good friends at my former squadron.  4 images (the only images in fact in the whole of the Aircrew Mmanual and Pilot;s Notes as everything else are simply schematic block diagrams).  2 are already available on the internet (side and plan views of the aircraft in rotors spread and folded configuration) and 2 annotated photos of the cockpit with all of the switches labelled!  Even one of my former colleagues at the squadron who used to fly the Wasp operationally for nearly 10 years commented that he'd forgotten what little information was available in the aircrew documentation set in those days compared to the volumes of data that we provide them today.

 

He was able to confirm that there was a shallow well under the engine about 18 inches wide and 4 inches or so deep whose primary purpose he said was to catch the leaking fluids that came off the Nimbus engine and channel it towards the various drains (1960s British built aero engine - you'd worry when it didn't leak because that was indicative of there being no oil in it anymore).  It also provided suitable clearance for the drive shaft underneath the engine.

 

So assuming I get some time at the bench this weekend in amongst a 1 : 1 scale sportscar rebuild, the plan is to get the Dremmel onto that dome in the middle of the deck and replace it with the well.

[AMB]

On 5/6/2020 at 6:19 PM, Terry1954 said:

I had that privilege also Bill, at Telford, about 3 or even 4 years back I reckon. The S&M version is a completely different venture to the Freightdog one. As I recall Freightdog was to be a resin cast model with brass etch etc, but the S&M Wasps will be injection moulded I am led to believe. I still think we could be in for a long wait! Whatever happens, I am sure to acquire several, probably in both scales. Wasps just do that to me!

 

Terry

Colin advised me somed time ago that the Freightdog Wasp has been abandoned. Air Graphics make a Wasp conversion for the Airfix 1/72 Scout kit .

I have a couple of Fujimi 1/48th Wasp kits in my stash, so will be watching this. Not sure if I should build them or wait for the S&M kit, but that will probably cost an arm and a leg! 

Edited May 21, 2020 by AMB

[Chewbacca]

I wouldn't ordinarily start cutting components off a model at this atage in its construction but needs must as they say, and so the "hump" on the transmission deck was chained drilled ( I forgot to take the photo before I started joining the holes):

 

 

And then because I couldn't readily access the underside, after squaring up the resultant hole I lined it with some 30 thou (I think) plasticard 2mm deep:

 

 

Left that to dry overnight and levelled the edges up with the edge of the deck.  Then cut a slightly larger rectangle of 30 thou with the plane to drop it through the hole and pull it back up and secure it to the lining.  Of course that might be a tadge difficult and so looking at the photos of the engine bay found what look to be quite large Aeroquip hoses coming out of the well, one stbd side forward and one port side middle.  I created these from 15A fuse wire, drilled the holes, passed it through, bent through 90 deg and secured on the underside with CA.  Once they were secure, I could drop the base through the hole and use those hoses to pull it back up under the line and hold it there while the Tamiya extra thin liquid poly did its stuff.  Then it was just a case of dry fitting the engine to get the actual height of these right, cutting them to length and then, with a micro drill, drilling a tin hole in the end of each to take the smaller diameter rubber hose that goes from each of these to the engine.

 

 

The observant will notice that the forward engine frame has also been cut.  It sits right in the way of the driveshaft into the MRGB plus as far as I can tell, the engine isn't support there anyway.  I've left the 2 sides in for now while I use them for dry fitting the engine to get everything else to line up but ultimately that's going to be removed completely and a more accurate front engine mount created.  Not sure quite how yet as I haven't yet worked out exactly what supports the engine at the front!  

 

The stub of the driveshaft has also been cut from the MRGB.  I was thinning down the flexible coupling the with Dremmel and was a little too enthusiastic.  It's now somewhere in the land inhabited by carpet monsters.  But in fairness, it did me a favour because that driveshaft is much thicker.  On the real aircraft (you can just see it here:

its closer to 80mm or thereabouts so a scale thickness of 1.67mm or 65 thou.  I've made a new full length driveshaft from 60 thou Evergreen rod, cut slightly too long so that I can fit it into the engine gearbox later on.  It's got some very thin wire wrapped around it just near to the MRGB end to represent the flexible coupling.

 

I had originally contemplated using the engine gearbox from the kit but the more I looked at it in relation to the photos of the real thing such as this (and yes I know this is a Scout):

the more I realised it bore little resemblance.  So I have started to scratch build one of those too.  Its interesting that as far as I can see, that gearbox mounts the hydraulic pump on the stbd side and the alternator (or generator? - not sure of the Wasp had an AC system or DC) on the port.  So what are those other 2 stubs coming off the MRGB used for?  I had assumed they were alternators - but that's perhaps because I had assumed that the Wasp had a set up like the Lynx where all auxiliaries came off the MRGB.

 

Oh, and I've finished off the missing parts of the flot gear clamshells but forgot to take any photos.

[Terry1954]

Good decision on the work on the transmission deck, and nice progress on that. I did an ebay search as I was curious to see if any of these old Wasps were still knocking around. I found one going for £89 buy it now. I do like to see optimistic sellers!

 

Terry

[Chewbacca]

😮  That;s about £8 per part of the bits that are actually usable!

 

Think I paid £5 for mine

[The Spadgent]

Excellent work. I really wish I hadn’t sold the one I had in the stash now. 🤨

never mind I’ll enjoy this one coming together. That’s Two I’m watching now. Heavens.  
 

take care.

 

Johnny. 

[Martian]

14 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Good decision on the work on the transmission deck, and nice progress on that. I did an ebay search as I was curious to see if any of these old Wasps were still knocking around. I found one going for £89 buy it now. I do like to see optimistic sellers!

 

Terry

They know where they can stick their kit: sideways! 

 

Martian 👽

[Bell209]

On 5/25/2020 at 7:14 AM, Chewbacca said:

The observant will notice that the forward engine frame has also been cut. 

Yeah, it's a dumb design. I cut mine, too almost exactly the same as yours.

[Bell209]

15 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

I did an ebay search as I was curious to see if any of these old Wasps were still knocking around. I found one going for £89 buy it now.

Wait for the new kit - it can only be much better than the Fujimi offering!

[Chewbacca]

6 hours ago, Bell209 said:

Wait for the new kit - it can only be much better than the Fujimi offering!

I'd second that.  And almost certainly bound to be cheaper than that Ebay offering

[Chewbacca]

I was reading @Gisbod's astonishing build over in maritime where he presented an amazing 1/700 Flyhawk PRINCE OF WALES in what seemed like a week start to finish.  And I thought to myself, what am I doing wrong?  Okay, I know that I have a lot of other things going on (reasonably high pressure job that hasn't really let up despite working from home, Vice Chairman of a highly successful international car club and heavily involved in my local Sea Cadet unit, Royal Naval Association and church, plus a nut and bolt restoration of a 40 year old sportscar), but I do manage to find around 10 -15 hours or so a week at the modelling bench.  Yet in 4 days (and about 7 hours work), all I seem to have achieved is this:

 

 

 

And that's only half way through the engine reduction gearbox.

 

In fairness, those photos were taken about 3 hours ago.  Since then I've started to fashion the rotor brake disc calipers with one partly on and the other ready to go in once the liquid poly is set, I've got the basis of  a hydraulic pump ready for shaping and the first parts of the device that sits directly above the gearbox in between the jet exhausts (you can see it clearly in the bottom photo in #38 above) is on and ready to be fettled though the more I look at it, the more I think I may need to remake it.  I'd like to say that its the fuel metering unit but happy to be corrected if there are any Nimbus experts out there.

 

Note to self: One of these days I will make a model OOB.  One of these days i will make a model OOB.  One of these days i will...

[Bell209]

1 hour ago, Chewbacca said:

Note to self: One of these days I will make a model OOB.  One of these days i will make a model OOB.  One of these days i will...

LOL! I keep making the same promise. 🤣

[hendie]

1 hour ago, Chewbacca said:

all I seem to have achieved is this:

 

and a fine piece of scratching  it  is sir.  Very nice.

I like the sunken area on the transdeck  -  I may steal that idea since I haven't got around to sticking mine down yet.

[Gisbod]

Looks great to me! 
 

re speed, it’s not a race. I seem to be quick, but I don’t feel I’m rushing, I just get on a roll because I’m enjoying it. 
 

Are you ex Lynx crew Chewbacca? I was a (Army) Lynx Pilot back in the day before swopping for airliners.

 

Guy

 

[perdu]

7 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

in 4 days (and about 7 hours work), all I seem to have achieved is this:

 

You are doing very well here and in decent time considering you have so many time wasting projects to manage too 

 

May I suggest you look at how long mine took.

Sep 17 2016 to Nov 22 2017  

 

You really are doing very well considering all those parasite projects that creep up on us unexpectedly

 

I like the tail rotor gearbox, blooming super

 

You may want to set it a little closer to the tail fairing, there isn't a generous amount of space for it back there

 

Anyway, looking good