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

[perdu]

Some people, looking at my Whirlwind (H-19) build a few months back might have wondered why I decided to make a complete canopy and mask off the windows in the transparent piece

 

 

 

All other options are as bad as this one.

 

A lovely search through desperate materials handling options, and Alan has a better selection of raw materials to choose from than me.

 

 

[giemme]

14 hours ago, hendie said:

The issue was that I could not get the bubbles imbibed my the mixing process out of the resin.  Fail 1

You need a vacuum machine. Guaranteed bubble free resin. Just saying...  And, it's gonna be purposeful in vacforming new windows. Again, just saying....   

 

Lovely scratch building work, anyway  

 

Ciao

[hendie]

21 hours ago, RichieW said:

Modelling use be so simple back in the slap it together and paint it before bedtime days of everybody's childhood! Hope you get another update by the weekend, I'm intrigued by the puzzle of the windows. It looks Vampire like in its challenges!

 

Richie

 

nah, this is streets ahead of the Vampire.  I've managed to make some progress during lunchtimes the past couple of days so should be able to post an update before I leave

 

11 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

I’m sure you said words like “nice”, “relaxing” and “fun” when you got this little beauty out of her cardboard coffin. Certainly looks like you’re having fun though. 😀 wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t fettling and sanding eh. 🤔 Those greebles look great on that rear bulk head and the windows seem to be getting to where you need em. Wonderful to watch.  🤗

 

Johnny

 

thanks Johnny.  Nice relaxing fun.  Ah yes, I did say that didn't I?   I think there's a difference when you're fettling and sanding because you want to versus fettling and sanding because you have to due to very poor quality kit.  There's also a certain degree of accomplishment by taking something like this (very old) H-19 and turning it into a Whirlwind.  I knew what I was getting into before I opened the box and was perfectly aware of the challenges laying ahead of me.  I did not expect those same, or rather, greater challenges with a much more recent kit. The Vampire is just generally poor research, poor design, taking shortcuts, and bad production all rolled into one abomination of a kit.

I'm sure there'll be a few cuss words before I'm finished this build, but the end result will be worth it. The Vampire?  I just want the damn thing finished - there's no sense of accomplishment or enjoyment in it all now.

 

10 hours ago, CedB said:

It does! Except there isn't any mention of saus… oh no, wait… yep, just like it  

 

Ha! I bet you say that to all the girls  

 

 

Great work on the windows hendie - I know you'll get them sorted but what a pane pain!

Have you tried the 'clear' 3D printing resin? Might be worth a try?

 

What about 'vacforming' some thickish plastic into the holes and then sanding it? Would that work? Maybe?

 

Rubber seals? I've tried adding some paint to PVA and (thanks to you) running it thinned into purposely left gaps.

Some success, but not total. Maybe you could scribe a gap?

 

Full of ideas this morning, most of them, probably, useless…

 

Choose your sausages wisely Ced - you never know who's watching.  Square is the way to go.

I did consider the clear printing resin but not for printing - There's no way I could accurately measure those windows in three dimensional space. I considered laying a backing sheet behind the window opening, then painting a layer of clear resin and using a UV pen to cure it, repeat and keep building up the layers until I got what I needed.

The fuselage is too large to fit on my vacformer, and I'd be worried about damaging the fuselage during the process (happened once before).

Scribing a gap is a good idea, but my scribing skills are rudimentary at best. I can just never achieve that Fritagesque finesse on scribed lines. Mine always look like what they are... uneven scratches!

Still lots of time to figure it out before it's going to be a critical path item. (famous last words)

 

9 hours ago, perdu said:

Some people, looking at my Whirlwind (H-19) build a few months back might have wondered why I decided to make a complete canopy and mask off the windows in the transparent piece

<snip>

All other options are as bad as this one.

 

A lovely search through desperate materials handling options, and Alan has a better selection of raw materials to choose from than me.

 

 

That is exactly what I should have done Bill... hindsight and all that.  I may yet return to those little roof windows, who knows.

 

7 hours ago, giemme said:

You need a vacuum machine. Guaranteed bubble free resin. Just saying...  And, it's gonna be purposeful in vacforming new windows. Again, just saying....   

 

Lovely scratch building work, anyway  

 

Ciao

 

Thanks Giorgio.  I actually do have a vacformer, but I really don't enjoy trying to vacform transparencies.  I have no problem with standard plastics but I've never had any luck with transparencies.  Plus, I would have to have constructed a buck to vacform each of the 4 windows.  

Shouldn't you be building that Classic Airframes Biplane by now?

 

 

 

[HKGBravo1]

Hi,

 

I am really enjoying this thread for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I was so amazed by your work on the 28 Sqn Wessex and secondly because I have a particular interest in 28 Squadron aircraft. When I arrived in Hong Kong in 1971 to start my nearly 30 years there, one of the earliest things I did was to join the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers), which was a Hong Kong Government TA light reconnaissance cavalry unit. My first introduction to 28 Squadron was when my troop and I were airlifted in several of their Whirlwind HC-10’s from HMS Tamar to join an exercise in the New Territories. My indelible memory of this event was that when we arrived at the LZ the crew chief advised me that it was a Rice Paddy Field and that they couldn’t land! “But don’t worry sir, we will hover and you can all deplane by jumping.” I looked dubiously out of the door at the surface of the Paddy Field, which of course was full of water. It looked very wet. Anyway, I led by example on cue and jumped. A la Vicar of Dibley I disappeared completely into a large wet muddy hole. To add insult to injury, when I surfaced the pilot moved the aircraft sideways a couple of hundred yards and my entire Troop deplaned without getting their feet wet! Yes, I have had my suspicions too!!

 

We used the Whirlwinds several more times before they departed Hong Kong and they were very nimble and the pilots were very experienced at low level flying amongst all the hills in Hong Kong. As far as I recall, the Wessex replacements started arriving in early 1972 and the last of the Whirlwinds departed that summer, by which time they were showing their age. The Wessex was an altogether different aircraft, and we made a lot of use of them over the years. I am not sure how popular we were with them though since almost all of our soldiering was done at the weekends!

 

In December 1980 I got an invite through a friend to visit 28 Squadron at Sek Kong to spend the afternoon taking photos of their Wessex’s for a Frog Wessex project. I took several hundred photographs that day, including lots of the aircraft in the hangar, which was in bits, going through what I imagine was an RAF equivalent of a D Check. I have put a couple of the apron photos on my website, if anyone is interested, and will, hopefully add more in due course. I never took any photos of the Whirlwinds though. This is the link

 

https://www.asianaviationphotography.com/acatalog/Military.html

 

Of course, 28 Squadron and their Wessex’s remained in Hong Kong right up until just before the handover in 1997, although the Royal Navy brought in a couple of Westland Sea Kings (XT678 an HC.2 & ZE428 an HC.4) to cover during the days before the actual handover. 

 

My last involvement with 28 Squadron was when I was invited to photograph the Squadron disbandment flypast rehearsals on 2 June 1997. The actual disbandment took place the following day on 3 June 1997, when I was on top of a building shooting the flypast as it proceeded down the harbour. By that time, I had done some photographic assignments for the Civil Aviation Department and they had reintroduced me to 28 Sqn. (My part time soldiering ended in the mid-1980’s). The aircraft had been repainted without the black & white recognition markings, in preparation I presumed for their handover to Uruguay. 28 Squadron were training a group of Uruguay Air Force pilots and they participated in the flypast. Then the aircraft were packed up and shipped and the two Sea kings took over their duties.

 

Sorry a long winded way of saying I am really looking forward to seeing this particular project progress. I seem to remember making this kit with floats in the early 1960’s. I was an even worse modeller then and even I thought the kit was rubbish! But I know that you will work your magic on it.

 

David

[giemme]

1 hour ago, hendie said:

Shouldn't you be building that Classic Airframes Biplane by now?

It's FLY, remember?   But no, thanks - with two Phantoms going on and an impending Mustang for the Museum, I think I'm gonna be busy enough

 

Ciao  

[perdu]

11 hours ago, giemme said:

with two Phantoms going on and an impending Mustang for the Museum, I think I'm gonna be busy enough

Avoiding tactics, an excellent plan but with drawbacks.

 

Obvious drawbacks.

 

I'll say no more.

 

I love @HKGBravo1's Wessie pictures, thanks for them and your recollections which are the stuff of which BM is made.

 

Priceless memories to be shared.

[hendie]

On 5/14/2021 at 3:29 PM, HKGBravo1 said:

I am really enjoying this thread for a couple of reasons.

 

David - thanks you so much for sharing that story.  I loved it!

I don't think this build will be to the same standard as that Wessex, but it should be better than out-of-the-box.  (maybe I shouldn't mention that I feel another 1/48 Wessex brewing in my head - if I could just figure out what to do with it)

 

On 5/14/2021 at 3:51 PM, giemme said:

It's FLY, remember?   But no, thanks - with two Phantoms going on and an impending Mustang for the Museum, I think I'm gonna be busy enough

 

Ciao  

 

No flies on you Giorgio eh?

 

14 hours ago, perdu said:

Avoiding tactics, an excellent plan but with drawbacks.

 

Obvious drawbacks.

 

I'll say no more.

 

I love @HKGBravo1's Wessie pictures, thanks for them and your recollections which are the stuff of which BM is made.

 

Priceless memories to be shared.

 

Bill nailed it in his last sentence

 

I said I would try and get another update before the weekend was out.  This be it.

 

Windows!  Kit ones, no!  I had to roll my own somehow.  

A frantic search around the basement happened upon some acrylic sheet that I had originally purchased for use on Pegasus. It was too thick for that job, but worked out just fine for this job.

There was enough thickness in the material for me to get all sides within the fuselage to some extent or other.

 

 

This is the unsuccessful window which was a very good fit in the stbd side, but you can see that there are gaps on the port side, confirming that the kit windows are all a bit askew.  Still, that failed window gave me a decent template to start on the new windows.

 

 

Window #1.  Once I had a good fit, I ran superglue around all the edges.  For once I wasn't bothered about the cyano fogging up the windows as I was going to be sanding the bejesus out of them anyway.

Stage on was to remove all the excess with a file

 

 

After that, it was just elbow grease and micromesh.   What appears to be crazing on the forward window there is actually just a honking great greasy fingerprint.

 

 

See!

 

 

that was the easy part - now came the scary part.

The rearmost window on the stbd side has an exhaust or vent sticking right out the side.  I masked the window to prevent any slip with the drill bit

 

 

and still slipped!  luckily without any damage, but I threw even more masking tape on just in case.

I thought drilling with the micro drill bit was scary, but opening the hole up to accept some brass tube was even scarier.  Too much force could easily crack the window, particularly as the opening is so close to the edge.

 

 

but we got there without losing any bodies along the way

 

 

Although I didn't plan it this way, adding the windows the way I did is going to help further down the build line.  The kit window openings are not correct, neither are they symmetrical.  By adding the windows and polishing everything flush, I can get the windows in their correct position, and a more accurate shape by how I mask them later.

The rubber seals?  Well, that's going to be real pain - I haven't figured out how to replicate those just yet, but I'm sure something will present itself later.

 

I have to say I am very pleased with these. Considering what I started with, I never imagined I could get this good a finish on the windows.

 

 

while the airbrush was out today, I threw some primer on the rear bulkhead - looking much better now

 

 

Now it was time to start on the soundproofing.  Some years back I managed to lay my hands on some textured tinfoil.  I have no recollection of how or where I found it but am very glad I did as it is perfect for 1/48 soundproofing.

 

 

I folded the edges and deliberately left them a little rough as the soundproofing always sagged and never fitted quite right

 

 

I think it will do the job nicely

 

 

Mr Metal Primer, then alclad primer. I used E6000 to glue the tinfoil in place as it's a thick gloop and allowed me to press some dings and divots into the foil before the glue set up

 

 

followed by my home made apple green - a mix of pale green with added white and a drop of yellow.

 

 

Once that's all dried, I can gloss coat it and muddy it up a touch.

 

so if anyone is wondering... yes this build is still fun.  It's not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew that at the outset.  

Some more modeling supplies arrived this afternoon - so that will let me get a start on the interior of the cabin area now.  

 

until next time

 

 

 

 

[The Spadgent]

45 minutes ago, hendie said:

so if anyone is wondering... yes this build is still fun. 

I wasn’t wondering that. I could tell by the progress and the tone that you were having a blast. The new windows look amazing. The soundproofing looks the business. 👏👏👏 keep on keeping on Hendie. Looking grand. 
 

Johnny

[CedB]

Very nice work on the windows hendie - clear as a bell!  

[621Andy]

Amazing work all round, but especially on those cockpit windows😍

 

I shall continue lurking in awe...

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Great windows, yes - but the real star us that soundproofing; perfect!

 

[incidentally, @HKGBravo1, are you sure about the RN Sea Kings?  Even the earliest airframes were in the XV series; XT678 was a Wessex HC2

[perdu]

Wonderful cabin windows H though you had me worried, I forgot all about the vent from the gear housing, phew.

I had to check, hope the detail bits are of some help to you.

If they get too annoying I can edit my pics away any time.

 

I wish I had had a thick chunk of acrylic to reshape like yours, the angst it would have prevented is considerable, very considerable.

 

The rubber window seals?

 

How about printing the outlines in black ink on clear decal sheet and drifting them over the holes when painting is done, a grey version of that was what we used for the job on the Norwegian Merlins.

 

 

Just a thought, I can't think of a way to accurately portray a black ridge no more than an eighth of an inch high on the fuselage in 48th or 72nd scale otherwise.

[Biggles87]

Who says you can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse? Not me, It’s a pleasure to watch you doing it.

 

John

[Brandy]

I love those windows! The soundproofing is pretty impressive too, but the windows.....

 

Ian

[Terry1954]

So I just check out your Vampire then I dip in here for a quick update on what's happening with the Whirlwind. Great to see the internal details taking shape and I love that embossed foil soundproofing.

 

Terry

[Pete in Lincs]

I'll join the choir and sing the praises of your windows and soundproofing.

Rubber seals? If you could figure a way to glue it in place, without fogging the windows, how about thinly stretched sprue?

Flatten one side before stretching & it should hold that shape. Colour is immaterial, run it under a black sharpie/marker pen.

Though, the glue may cause the ink to run. Better find some black sprue then.

 

[Martian]

A hugely informative update Hendie.

 

Martian 👽

[giemme]

Highest level of craftsmanship on display here, Alan!    I cannot decide what is more impressive, the windows  or the soundproofing    

 

Ciao

[perdu]

53 minutes ago, giemme said:

Highest level of craftsmanship on display here, Alan!    I cannot decide what is more impressive, the windows  or the soundproofing    

 

Ciao

For me?

The windows without a doubt

[phildagreek]

Oh very nice so far!

[giemme]

26 minutes ago, perdu said:

For me?

The windows without a doubt

I guess you're right, the windows are just outstanding!

 

Ciao

[Fritag]

On 5/15/2021 at 11:12 PM, hendie said:

I have to say I am very pleased with these. Considering what I started with, I never imagined I could get this good a finish on the windows.

 

Gotta join the throng and praise the praise the windows (even tho' that sounds a bit like I'm joining some weird cult) - it's the sort of upgrade that makes all the difference.  I'll join the cult praising the soundproofing too...best to hedge ones's bets I find....

 

 

On 5/15/2021 at 11:12 PM, hendie said:

The rubber seals?  Well, that's going to be real pain - I haven't figured out how to replicate those just yet, but I'm sure something will present itself later.

 

Looking forward to learning & cribbing your solution Alan.  I s'pect you'll experiment until you get the perfect solution.  Bill's decals? Pete's stretched-black-sprue idea sounds interesting and if anyone can cope with fiddly-detailing it's you.  How about just using a fine black marker pen?

 

 

 

[Brandy]

If it wasn't around a window I'd suggest scribing around it and inlaying a length of monofilament, but I have no idea how you'd do that without damaging the finish on the window. 

So pretty much a useless piece of advice then. I'll go back to my corner.

 

Ian

[Max Headroom]

I’m constantly amazed by your ingenuity in problem solving. 
 

Hat duly doffed sir!

 

Trevor

[HKGBravo1]

On 5/16/2021 at 8:23 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Great windows, yes - but the real star us that soundproofing; perfect!

 

[incidentally, @HKGBravo1, are you sure about the RN Sea Kings?  Even the earliest airframes were in the XV series; XT678 was a Wessex HC2

Oh dear! Thank you for pointing this out. I have checked my photos and one was definitely ZE428, which was an HC.4. That one was in the hangar and the only photo I took of it was of the Serial by itself. 

 

You are, of course, absolutely right about XT678. Not only was it a Wessex, but it was “Hotel”, one of the 28 Sqn Wessex's. In 1997 I had mislabelled the photographs of the other Sea King in my database. I put it down to incompetence! The aircraft was sat on the edge of the GFS apron at the far end where the Wessex's were taxiing. Because of that I wasn't allowed to get closer, so I took a couple of telephoto shots for posterity. I dug out the negatives this morning, scanned one and enlarged it. The Sea King is coded VH and is ZF119, although the serial is very faint. I verified this by finding an image online of the aircraft taken in September 1997 at a Leuchar’s airshow and it is wearing the VH code letters. 

 

I made up a print of my image of ZF119 and have put it on the site. I doubt that I will ever sell a print of it, but it has some historical significance! You can see it here if interested:

 

https://www.asianaviationphotography.com/acatalog/Military.html

 

I have updated my database accordingly. Thank you again.

 

 Regards,

 

David