28 Sqn Whirlwind: A highly detailed, shake and bake kit

[Space Ranger]

On 6/10/2021 at 3:18 PM, Paul J said:

Am enjoying following this work. However, I hope you don't mind but I would like to post some pics of a derelict piston engine verson that used to be a cafe attraction doen the A29 just south of my home. Its now gone most likely scrapped, but hopefully these pics will be of some help. (MODS: if you need, these pics can be moved to walkround section if more appropriate)

 

Is this a Pratt & Whitney Wasp-powered Whirlwind or an Alvis Leonides-powered Whirlwind?

[Brandy]

More impressive craftsmanship on view here Hendie. I couldn't see your thought process for the tail fairing to start with but it became obvious where you were going with it as the post progressed. Just one small thought threw itself at me - looking at this photo of Paul's,

 

it appears to me that the fairing wasn't a flat surface but slightly concave, with the lower edges being thinner for about half the total area then flaring out to meet the tail and fuselage. (Look at the faintly visible rivet lines, they appear curved to me, and the shadows).

 I know you want it right, and I may be wrong, but thought it best to mention just in case!

 

Ian

[Paul J]

Just read through all this on waking up at 7 this morning. Some delightful reading I have to say.  Regarding the under boom fairing, Italeri got it right with the curvy shape in their 1 /72 kit.  But you know what's going to happen.....some manufacturer is going to announce an all singing, all dancing 48th kit of this subject just as you are about to finish it....

Glad to see my photos are of help to you. Shame I wasn't brave enough to climb in to the cockpit at the time..it looked a bit risky. 

 

 

 

[heloman1]

Alan, another point to look at are the black items above the strengthening /bracing strip. These are the fuel tank vents I mentioned above. I think you have preserved them.

 

Colin

[SafetyDad]

Excellent work - I really feel like I'm in the room with you watching you work!

 

Nobody seems yet to have mentioned that you could use the old 60s Airfix Magazine fix for your nose of filling the woodgrain? They would have used a talcum powder & dope mix, but might a painted coat of Cyano work instead? (I've never tried this, just wondering...)

 

SD

[RichieW]

Another epic update, plan, plan again, modify plan B while contemplating plan C. This is very much what I am experiencing in my foray into scratch building. 

 

Have you ever tried Hycote primer/filler? I had a little play with it and found it possible to get an excellent finish even on deep grained and battle scarred balsa. Cheap as chips too, might be worth a try if you want to avoid 3d printing.

 

Richie

[hendie]

On 6/11/2021 at 3:53 PM, Terry1954 said:

Wow, I've waited for this bit for a while, the nose! At first I was quite excited. After all, how many 1/48 Whirlwind HAR 10's have I seen, let alone how many with a wooden nose made from some leftovers from a Pullman car!

But it looks like needs must has had to revert to balsa - probably wise, but wait, more challenges. If it were me, I'd maybe go with plastic card formers for plan and profile, a bit like you've done, but inner filling with scrap wood, outer filling with Milliput, smoothed when wet then sanded to fine shape when dry.  But it's not me and I'm nowhere near as good as you are at this stuff!

Stonking progress though Alan, regardless of your current dilemma.

Terry

 

Good, no great ideas Terry. Sadly I'm not great at milliputing (milliputting?)  and I seem to be (or at least was) making decent headway with the wooden version

 

On 6/11/2021 at 4:04 PM, Martian said:

Nice work Hendie and look on the bright side, you could be making the Navy HAR 9 version and having to scratch build the lower fuselage as well!

Sympathetic of Mars 👽

 

Serves you right for doing a non crab version! 

 

On 6/11/2021 at 5:01 PM, giemme said:

Wow, another massive, impressive update!  

 

As for the nose: I'd be very tempted to go for vacforming. And I'll tell you more, I'd try it in one piece. Of course, since you'd need to slightly reduce the size of the buck, you could first use it to produce a mould, just in case....  

 

Ciao 

 

Oh you just had to get your oar in Giorgio didn't you?   Of course, it did make me think...

 

On 6/11/2021 at 7:09 PM, AMB said:

I can't watch this thread any longer...I'm starting to suffer froim MIC.....Modeller's Inferiority Complex!!!🤢  This is soooo good!  You could win trophies Hendie! 

 

Thanks AMB.  It's all smoke and mirrors really.  I just steal photos from other websites and pretend they're my own work

 

On 6/11/2021 at 7:18 PM, Lewis95 said:

Well if you hand design the parts to build the nose from 3D printing that's still scratching it in my book! Either way, loving the build. Just finished reading your CA Vampire build! 

 

Sound reasoning there my lad, and an approach which may not be discarded later in this build

 

On 6/11/2021 at 10:18 PM, Space Ranger said:

Is this a Pratt & Whitney Wasp-powered Whirlwind or an Alvis Leonides-powered Whirlwind?

 

Bespoke makers of extra large rubber bands I presume?

 

On 6/12/2021 at 1:37 AM, Brandy said:

More impressive craftsmanship on view here Hendie. I couldn't see your thought process for the tail fairing to start with but it became obvious where you were going with it as the post progressed. Just one small thought threw itself at me - looking at this photo of Paul's,

 

<snip>

 

it appears to me that the fairing wasn't a flat surface but slightly concave, with the lower edges being thinner for about half the total area then flaring out to meet the tail and fuselage. (Look at the faintly visible rivet lines, they appear curved to me, and the shadows).

 I know you want it right, and I may be wrong, but thought it best to mention just in case!

 

Ian

 

Good catch Ian, and something which did not go unnoticed (sort of) as I was making the fin fairing.  The way Revell had molded the fin was as two flat surfaces, so when I removed the offending fin I  was left with three straight edges on each of the fuselage halves. I think their fin was already slightly oversized so I didn't want to remove any more material (and make it harder for myself) . That meant of course when it came to fitting the new fin, I had to fit a triangular piece of styrene onto 3 straight edges, which made it very difficult to induce any degree of curve.  I did try bending the sheet before I glued it in pace but it just reverted back to the shape it felt happiest in. i.e. Flat.  I guess I could have printed one now that I have the dimensions, but I'm trying very hard to stick to the old school of modeling with this one.

Thanks for making me feel bad though 

 

On 6/12/2021 at 2:27 AM, Paul J said:

Just read through all this on waking up at 7 this morning. Some delightful reading I have to say.  Regarding the under boom fairing, Italeri got it right with the curvy shape in their 1 /72 kit.  But you know what's going to happen.....some manufacturer is going to announce an all singing, all dancing 48th kit of this subject just as you are about to finish it....

Glad to see my photos are of help to you. Shame I wasn't brave enough to climb in to the cockpit at the time..it looked a bit risky. 

 

Sadly, these type of flying objects get very little attention from the mainstream makers.  Some are brave enough to tackle some of the newer choppers but I doubt very much if there's a market for some of these older types, regardless of how important they were.

 

On 6/12/2021 at 3:15 AM, heloman1 said:

Alan, another point to look at are the black items above the strengthening /bracing strip. These are the fuel tank vents I mentioned above. I think you have preserved them.

Colin

 

Nope!  Some got sanded off in the earlier window carnage.  They will be reinstated later at greeblie time.  Sad really, despite its shortcomings this kit did have some really nice molded detail, particularly given it's age.

 

On 6/12/2021 at 3:40 AM, SafetyDad said:

Excellent work - I really feel like I'm in the room with you watching you work!

 

Nobody seems yet to have mentioned that you could use the old 60s Airfix Magazine fix for your nose of filling the woodgrain? They would have used a talcum powder & dope mix, but might a painted coat of Cyano work instead? (I've never tried this, just wondering...)

 

SD

 

Ah, so that was the freaky feeling I encountered in the last session or two.  You could have least have swept up after me y'know. 

 

On 6/12/2021 at 11:44 AM, RichieW said:

Another epic update, plan, plan again, modify plan B while contemplating plan C. This is very much what I am experiencing in my foray into scratch building. 

 

Have you ever tried Hycote primer/filler? I had a little play with it and found it possible to get an excellent finish even on deep grained and battle scarred balsa. Cheap as chips too, might be worth a try if you want to avoid 3d printing.

 

Richie

 

I've hit the nose with some filler primer this afternoon Richie so we'll see how that goes.

 

 

You will all be relieved to hear that this update is nowhere near as tortuous as the last few posts. I've been trying to tackle what I currently see as the largest issues. i.e. the nose and the tail, and the mojo started to wane a little bit. However, I ploughed through and I think the mojo is still around somewhere, hiding in the basement. I'm sure I'll stumble across it in the next few days.

 

As I finished up the other day I hit the nose with some Alclad black filler primer.  Seemed a good way to get rid of this primer as it's no good for anything else I try it on.

As you can see here, the nose is very much like a badgers back end

 

 

 

That was given another few rounds of filling and sanding, finishing off with some automotive filler primer.

Giorgio's goading got me wondering about the vacuforming.  As I constructed the nose I used two styrene sheets back to back on the centerline with the plan that I could split the nose later and vacuform each half independently.  Would it be possible to vacuform as a one-piece though?

I had my doubts. To do this as a one piece would mean that it would be a long draw - with the possibility that it would either split, or the walls could end up really thin.

With my first attempt I only got half a nose - I hadn't let the plastic warm sufficiently.  With the second attempt we got a full nose. (Using .5mm sheet)

 

 

On closer inspection, things aren't as good as they initially appeared.

 

 

Promising though. Just needs a bit more work.  

However, when I came to remove the buck, it was impossible and I had to cut the styrene to remove the vacuformed piece.   As suspected, the long draw is maybe not such a good idea. - I measured the thickness of the styrene at various points and it was below 0.1mm in most places, and in those areas which would be used to attach it to the fuselage it was down to 0.08mm.

I'm not sure if this would scale linearly, for this long draw, I appear to end up with only 20% of the original wall thickness. Therefore, even going up to a 1.5mm thick sheet would likely give me a wall thickness of 0.3mm once vacuformed.  It would be possible, but I don't think I am going to go down that route.  If I split the nose, the draw is roughly half of what it is now and I think that would give me a much more manageable piece when formed.

I also found that some of the automotive filler primer had bubbled underneath the  styrene so I've polished it all back and given it another spray.  This time I'll leave it to fully cure before I make another attempt.  

I guess if I can get a decent enough finish on the buck, I could still do the long draw, and just not even bother to remove the buck. Once that nose is on, the inside will never be seen so it doesn't really matter if there's a big chunk of wood in there or not.

In the interim, I have ordered some more silicone and resin to have a go at resin casting the nose.  The jury is still out on which method I shall end up using, but I think either method would be feasible.

 

Okay, now on to the tale of the tail.

This ended up being a lot more difficult that I first imagined.  I began y examining the kit part to see if any of it was usable. Nope - too short, too narrow, and too thin.  Then I had this crazy idea

 

 

The Wessex tail by itself was going to be too narrow so I cut another plasticard template to use as a center datum and provide some thickness at the same time. 

 

 

However, as I got further and further into the modification, it became apparent that this was maybe not the best approach.  I carried on though, trimming the Wessex tail to fit, and filled all the missing areas with milliput.

 

 

Waste of time it was.  It all fell apart as soon as I tried shaping it.

I came across some unanticipated issues as I messed about with the Wessex tailfail though. 

The HAR10 has a shorter tail boom than the H19.  Since the tail boom is tapered along its length, shortening the boom effectively increases the diameter at the end.  Now I have no idea if Westland simply shortened the boom and used what they ended up with, or did they shorten the boom and also increase the taper to keep the original diameter at the back end?  All I could determine from photos was that the transition from tail boom to tail fin was remarkable smooth and seamless.  Definitely no angled edges anywhere to be seen. That meant that the bottom end of the tail fin had to end up being the same width as the tail boom.

I pondered that for a while and chose to take the easy route (enjoyable build, remember?).  There was now way I was going to redo the taper along the entire length of the tail boom, although it did seem a bit wide at the back end.  Instead, I reduced the width of the last inch or so, but only slightly, so that it wasn't immediately noticeable when looking along the length of the boom from front to rear.

In desperation, I kept the plasticard center section and just troweled some more milliput on to that.  This morning I spent the best part of an hour with the SIHRSC and various other sanding implements to arrive at this shape.  Sorry, no photos - I was too engrossed in the sanding - you know how I love that!

Getting rid of some more alclad back, I ended up with this shape.

 

 

Then from the front...

There's definitely some more refining to be done, but I think this is workable.

 

 

I'm holding off from fixing the tail pylon in position until I figure out exactly what I'm going to do.  I may use this milliblob as the pylon, or I may cast it in resin, or I may even be daft enough to vacuform it.  Overall though, I think we have the semblance of a HAR10 starting to take shape.

 

 

With all that taking place over the last few days it appeared to have placed a major drain on the mojo supply - I needed a change.

It was about time to begin thinking about the undercarriage.  Hhmnnn.  While Revell had managed some impressive molding on the fuselage, it appears that the guy that machined the mold for the undercarriage was not of the same work ethos, and the standard fell a bit short here.

I present as irrefutable proof... the undercarriage!   

It's like the thing was designed on an Etch-A-Sketch.  Those two things are supposed to be the wheels for heavens sake.  Then the undercarriage legs, well, how did they get that so wrong?  That thin bit in the middle of one leg is actually supposed to be fatter than the rest of the leg.  I think I can make some improvements here.

 

 

Lets begin by drilling right through the fuselage. Always a fine way to start the process.  The holes were then opened up to allow a 3mm tube to be inserted 

 

 

On examining my reference photos, it appears that the radius arm disappears into a sleeve on the fuselage.  After hunting around in the scrap box I found some potential candidates for undercarriaging.  Namely, some brass rod, and two brass tubes, all of which (unbelievably!) telescope into one another.

I used the rod for the radius arm as it had to be bent at the point it enters the fuselage - I always end up with kinks when I try and bend tube

 

 

The thought process here is that I can fix the radius arm to the smaller tube, then slide it inside the larger tube.  This provides the effect of a sleeve, yet still holds the radius arm concentric to the sleeve, and allows it to pivot if needed.

 

 

And that is as far I got.  A diversion certainly but it helped top up the mojo a bit.  Now I need to figure out how to make the rest of the undercarriage and how to join it all together.  The main oleo connection to the fuselage is interesting and I may have a go at trying to replicate that though even in 1/48 it's going to be tiny.

 

 

 

 

[Martian]

5 minutes ago, hendie said:

Serves you right for doing a non crab version! 

Luckily, I will be doing a piston engined Canadian Navy cab and they had the torpedo mounted on the side of the fuselage so all I will have to do is to scratch build a decent engine bay and complete interior, so in comparison my task will be easier than yours. Remind me, who was that idiot who persuaded you it was a cunning plan to get into super detailing helicopters all those years ago?

 

Forgetful of Mars 👽

[Pete in Lincs]

1 hour ago, hendie said:

so it doesn't really matter if there's a big chunk of wood in there or not.

One way to avoid a tail sitter!

 

1 hour ago, hendie said:

I think I can make some improvements here.

We know darn well that you can.

 

1 hour ago, Martian said:

who was that idiot who persuaded you it was a cunning plan to get into super detailing helicopters all those years ago?

Certainly not this idiot. However, it's very entertaining to watch.

 

When I was at Halton on the Fitters course, 12 of us out of 18 had come from the Wessex. We went off to do a blade folding exercise on an ex RN Whirlwind.

Someone asked why there was a half round section cut into the belly. I quipped that it was for a Torpedo. Only to find out that I was right!

BTW, We folded the blades too fast and had to do it again. Then went for a smoke break for the rest of the lesson.

[CedB]

Well, that was an interesting catch up!

What an engineering feast - I mean, look, using TWO T-squares and everything! Great stuff.

 

Not sure what you mean about me needing to be looked after hendie? I'm a good boy I am…

 

Well done for getting to grips with your wood, sorting out the shape of your bottom and reforming your tail parts. Kudos!

 

What?

Oh alright then, I don't want to disappoint.

Fnaar, snurf, yuurk yuurk!

[giemme]

5 hours ago, CedB said:

Well done for getting to grips with your wood, sorting out the shape of your bottom and reforming your tail parts. Kudos!

Same thoughts here. Also, same:

5 hours ago, CedB said:

Fnaar, snurf, yuurk yuurk!

 

 

 

More excellent craftsmanship on display here, Alan!   And the "vacforming with a soul" (albeit a very solid and heavy one) sounds like a great idea   

 

Ciao

[RichieW]

Good going Hendie, very resourceful solutions to the little puzzles this presents you with.

 

Is that one of those dental vac formers? I have one and have yet to successfully form a part. Entirely my fault I'm sure.Was wondering if using the heater and then just pulling the frame down without using the vacuum to plunge mold parts might help avoid overly thin parts.

 

Richie

 

 

[CedB]

2 hours ago, RichieW said:

Is that one of those dental vac formers? I have one and have yet to successfully form a part.

Richie I have the same machine and our own The Baron suggested only raising the frame half way as the heater is fierce!

it’s working for me..

Heater on, frame raised half way, wait for ripples and then, when the sheet droops, bang it down and turn on the vacuum.  
 

What were your experiences?

[RichieW]

3 minutes ago, CedB said:

What were your experiences?

Thanks Ced, I find that parts come out way too thin and fragile to use. I suspect I have overheated the styrene and the vacuum is too powerful for such soft material. Will play some more with the frame half way up as suggested.

 

Apologies Hendie, for side tracking your magnificent project!

 

Richie

[heloman1]

Alan, another point to look at are the black items above the strengthening /bracing strip. These are the fuel tank vents I mentioned above. I think you have preserved them.

 

Colin

[The Spadgent]

Well that was a hum dinger! The nose will look great whichever method I’m sure. So many choices. 😯 The UC  work looks like it’s going to be another master class in brass bending and solid soldering. Bravo that man. 🙌

[Fritag]

9 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

The UC  work looks like it’s going to be another master class in brass bending and solid soldering

 

I was thinking just the same thing.  More hendie metal-mastery.  And always done so apparently nonchalantly…

 

Sound-sounding plan to both resin cast and also vac-form the nose.  I’m all for putting off crunch decisions.

 

I may be over thinking this -  but won’t the resin casts be fractionally undersize if you use the wooden buck as the master?   Ah! but not if the master is the wooden buck inside one of the pre-production vacforms .  It’s ok - I’ve caught up now - it’s still early here 

 

Terrific update Alan. 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Fritag

[Terry1954]

Another great update, and when looking at picture no. 9 in that sequence above, she is certainly starting to look very like an HAR10.

 

Looking forward to the U/C metalicalism magic!

 

Terry

[Head in the clouds.]

I can smell brass a mile away...😉

I can only say what everyone else is saying, great work Hendie.

Love that 'left of centre' thinking on the tail, it may just work you know and is looking great as is.

 

[phildagreek]

My word, you don't do it by halves do you?

[Biggles87]

Did someone say something about dental vac-forms? I lost half a crown ( not old money ) a while ago and can’t get an appointment with a dentist before December, I’m getting desperate!

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I’m sure Alan will knock you up a set of soldered brass gnashers if you ask him

[Martian]

3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’m sure Alan will knock you up a set of soldered brass gnashers if you ask him

I didn't know he was related to McAdder.

 

Martian 👽

[hendie]

Harumphhh!   I spent an hour yesterday typing up responses and an update to this post - got to the very last sentence and the world collapsed, losing everything.  It's not the first time this has happened but this time the editor did not remember my ramblings.  In short, sorry guys, no responses to all those erudite and morale lifting posts above - just the bare bones of an update.

 

It's summertime and an old man's thoughts turn to thinking of ways of making seats.  As comfy as the Parker knolls included in the kit are, they have no place in a stealthy and sublime flying machine such as the Whirlwind so an alternative was sought.

I have an abundance of 5 thou brass sheet lying around and it seemed like a good candidate.  No fancy tools needed here, just the usual 6 inch ruler, a sharp blade, a micro drill, and something to help with the folding - in this case a plastic razor blade.

 

 

As the kit cockpit interior was MIA, I had no real references to determine dimensions from and everything had to be done by eye. Of course, that led to me trying out 3 different configurations before I was happy. Now I could just as easily have made these from styrene sheet but it would probably have taken longer having to wait for the glue to dry - with brass, just cut and fold. Easy.

The brass sheet was marked out with fold lines and cut lines.  For the fold lines,  the knife was drawn along the line 4 or 5 times, using only a little pressure. For the cut lines, again 4 or 5 swipes, but after the first 2 swipes (to cut a guide groove) I used a heavier pressure.  As the blade cuts deeper into the brass, the free side (i.e. not pressed down with the ruler) will start to angle upwards. At this point you can stop cutting, and gently bend the brass back and forth to break off at the cut line.  It's really quite simple once you've done it a few times.

In this shot you can see the evolution of the seat pan.  At the back is the original brass strip where you can see two fold lines along the length.  From that I added two more fold lines and a single cut line, which provides the squarish looking part on the left. I then used a micro drill to drill 4 holes, one at the intersection of each of the fold lines, then cut off the small squares at each corner.  Holding the part in place with the steel rule, I used the plastic razor blade to fold up each edge in turn. The holes prevent the material buckling against itself as you fold the edges.

2nd from left you can see a "box lid" style seat pan. I wasn't happy with that and instead of removing the small square at each corner, I left two in place (3rd from left) and folded up the seat pan leaving two small tabs at the rear

 

 

Those tabs came in very useful to provide something to solder the backrest on to.  The backrest was simple enough, just 3 pieces of brass rod held in place by a dod of blue-tac and soldered.  Then the long legs were soldered to the seat pan using the tabs as locating brackets. While the iron was hot, I also ran a dab of solder on each corner of the seat pan just to seal things up.  Excess flux was washed off by rinsing the seats in a small jar of acetone that I keep for the purpose.  I probably spent more time trying to get the angles of the seat back right than I did with the entire soldering process.

 

 

Mr Metal Primer followed by some interior green (after fitting some fillets from styrene triangles).  Or should it be black?  The only reference shots I have show the seat frame in interior green so I'm going with that. The cushions will be black so they can provide the visual interesty bit.

 

 

I assume that even though this was in the dark ages of helicoptery that the standard 5 point harness was being used?

I then spent a while trying to make up some collective levers, but wasn't happy with my prototypes so far.  It has given me some ideas on how to proceed though.  For the time being they have been placed in the todo box.  I'm a bit reluctant to start adding things to the cockpit at this stage as there is still so much sanding and fettling to do, and so much open space on the WW.  The cabin is already full of dust and will need to team of lineys in there to clean it up before roll out.

Talking of dust.... the resin and silicone arrived during the week, but as I was examining the nose in preparation for casting, I noticed a flat spot on the port side. VIsually it was very difficult to see, but tactile-wise, it could clearly be felt as you ran your fingers over the nose.

I tried to ignore it but it annoyed me to the extent that I had to do something about it it - so... milliput time

 

 

Followed by some very careful sanding 

 

 

Followed by more primer. The outcome was that I was very happy with the port side profile now. However, I now spotted a flaw on the starboard side.  Look at that sloping starboard edge and you can see it's almost a straight line. In reality it should be a gentle curve from windscreen to the end of the nose.  Guess what?  More milliput was applied and I have more sanding to look forward to this week.

 

 

Something which has also been gnawing away at me was the bulge on the underside.  Revell molded this pretty much as a rectangle with rounded corners, whereas the 1:1 clearly has more tapered ends.  Ignore the fact that I'm holding the drawing upside down as the taper is the same at both ends. The kit also has some very visible sinks in this region, and the bulge is also slightly out of position lengthwise on the fuselage.

First attempts at rectification involved the use of the SIHRSC for about 10 minutes during which I made very little impact. More drastic measures were needed.

 

 

Out came the dremel-clone and a diamond burr which made short work of removing most of the offending carbuncle.  I only removed material from inside of the bulge leaving the tapered edges to be removed with another application of the SIHRSC.  This was all straightforward, but with the kit part being rectangular, and the 1:1 being tapered, it did mean that there would be some gaping holes towards the rear. More milliput action was needed.

The bulge itself was made from some laminated stock to achieve the required thickness, then I tapered the outer edges to suit.  Much happier with this part now.

 

 

Applying the belt and braces school of modeling, the bulge was affixed using a combination of plastic cement, super-glue gle, and E6000, all depending upon which surfaces were in contact with each other.  I may need to apply some Mr Dissolved Putty around the joint, but won't be sure until some primer is on there.

 

 

With the tummy tuck job done, it was time to advance rearwards again and face yet another job I've been avoiding - that or merging the tail pylon with the boom.  I have seen some incredible work done here on BM with milliput and various fillers and gazed in awe at some of the workmanship, nay, craftsmanship involved.  While for some this may be a simple whack it on and sand it off job, for me, it's the equivalent of modeling night terrors.

Eventually I persuaded myself that there was nothing for it but to slap on the milliput stuff.  

The scariest part for me was the transition point between the boom and the pylon as in the reference shots, this is seen as a very smooth and gentle curve transitioning from boom to pylon, almost imperceptible at some angles. In an effort to make my life a little bit easier later, while the milliput was still soft, I took a piece of brass tube and used that to form a curve at the transition point.

 

 

After some careful and very tedious sanding things don't appear to be too bad, but what will it look like under paint?

 

 

What the paint did show up immediately was that all the sanding has left a flat region on the side of the tail pylon. Overall though, from here it doesn't look too bad - the flat region will be easy to remedy, but what about the transition point?

 

 

Surprisingly good!  I'm very (and pleasantly) surprised it came out this well.  There's just the slightest of sanding and tidying up to be done but overall, I'm more than happy with that.  I'm less impressed with the alclad black - it's gone on like 60 grit sandpaper!  

I'm not too concerned at this stage as most of that primer will be sanded off again and the WW is fettled through various stages. (and most of it comes right off with a touch of masking tape!)

 

 

See!  I told you I'd be sanding it off again!.  

Since things were going so well with the tail I thought I would carry on and try and do something with the tail rotor gearbox, and immediately stuffed that up by starting to drill a hole that was way too large.  More milliput...

 

 

While my bodged repair work was curing I made a start on the gearbox itself.  I managed to find a 1.2mm rod that slipped inside a 2.5mm tube, which in turn slipped inside and 3.2mm tube.  So far so good. 

I cut a small sliver of the larger tube and slipped it over the smaller tube and dabbed some solder on the end to hold it all together.  After some cleanup I could then slide the 1.2mm rod (rotor shaft) inside the tubes and it was free to rotate.  Plan is working so far.

Next, was to define the outer shell of the gearbox casting - I did this by adding 2mm lengths of ss wire around the tube, followed by 3mm lengths of styrene. (Sorry for the poor photo)

 

 

Once the superglue had cured I could then file and shave the styrene down to give something that isn't accurate but at least looks like it could be a gearbox housing, as long as scale creep isn't mentioned.

 

 

Then after repairing my earlier destruction, the gearbox was dry fitted.

 

 

 

Phew... made it to the end without losing my work this time.  

 

Now if things go well this week, I plan to be casting/molding the nose by the weekend.  Best laid plans of mice and men...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fritag]

22 minutes ago, hendie said:

sublime flying machine such as the Whirlwind

(sic) 

…

Now I’ve got that straight  of my chest I’ll go on and read what will doubtless be another sublime (definitely not (sic))  hendie update.