Westland Wasp HAS 1: 'Ambuscade Flight: XT778'

[Brandy]

I do love the way you approach this, with a logical break down of steps and components. Very much the "eat an elephant" approach. I would also add that it's looking fabulous, but that is just getting repetitive!

 

Ian

[hendie]

8 hours ago, Brandy said:

Very much the "eat an elephant" approach.

 

But isn't Tony just eating a Wasp here?

He's gonna need a smaller spoon.

[bigbadbadge]

On 12/12/2022 at 8:42 PM, TheBaron said:

Saw in the news that you had a tad of the white stuff this morning down in that corner of the world Chris.

Hope you didn't have to go out too far afield in it?

I am afraid it missed us down on the Romney Marsh as rain came in amongstvthe snow so had no white winter wonderland here, west and some of mid Kent got quite a lot.  I was looking forward to some for some fun with the kids

 

Some lovely renderings again Tony, looks wonderful. 

Great work 

Chris

 

 

[mark.au]

What I said last time (though in fact, that makes this an oxymoron).

[Fritag]

On 12/12/2022 at 8:42 PM, TheBaron said:

this was the scene at the back of Fergus' yard:

 

Glorious photograph, Tony.  The eye of an artist 

 

On 12/12/2022 at 8:42 PM, TheBaron said:

joyless piece of pedantry

 

To the lawyer pedantry is joy 

(I feel I should claim to have a FJ pilot’s temperament rather than a lawyer’s - but FJs were more than half a lifetime ago and Mrs F is pretty adamant that I’m a pedant)

 

It is strictly speaking otiose for me to heap yet more praise on the well-deserved pile of praise for the latest post; but what the heck, I continue to be impressed beyond my powers to adequately  articulate.

 

 

 

 

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

Glorious photograph, Tony.  The eye of an artist 

 

Totes in agreement, it's a totes amazing photograph 

 I'm curious as to what you took it with?

 

And I have spent some time this morning fascinated by your coloured pipework.

 

T.

 

 

[TheBaron]

Almost the winter solstice and my favourite day of the year when you get to hang out in darkness for the maximum length of time.... 

 

By contrast, this spry trio appear on the power ine at the end of the garden evey morning at sunrise to revel in the first rays:

That fella in the middle I call Ivor, after Ivor Cutler. He constantly hunches down amongst the others as if telling a tall story out the side of his beak. I don't know how anyone can consider birds like rooks or starlings 'common'; such dark jewels in the light and so abundant in character when watched for any length of time.

 

Speaking of uncommon birds....

 

On 12/12/2022 at 23:24, hendie said:

I don't have much to add except that the usual brilliance and attention to entail is on display once again Tony.

 

The Nimbus and associated spaghetti network is worth a display model in its own right I reckon.  At 1/24 it should be big enough to hold its own.

 

 

 

Bloke down the garden centre told me this was a genuine Nimbus part but I have my doubts...

 

On 13/12/2022 at 13:12, giemme said:

Agreed - like most of the Vixen build sub-assemblies. I will add.

There's still room for plenty of  fun on those Avons with tiny lengths of wire Giorgio!

On 13/12/2022 at 14:18, Pete in Lincs said:

I've had the Lurgi (Flu) since Friday. So much for Flu and Covid jabs two weeks ago!

Ah Pete I sincerely hope the pipes have cleared now my friend. There's a nasty non-CV like flu doing the rounds here too.

On 13/12/2022 at 14:18, Pete in Lincs said:

And here we are producing fine art from thin air using something that

only Isaac Asimov and a few others had imagined.

Indeed.

That reminds me - have you been watching the reccent 'Foundation' series?  Am curerntly on Ep.3 and in all regards it has to be the best-looking SF film/series I've ever seen!

On 13/12/2022 at 14:18, Pete in Lincs said:

I saw a picture form an old Pirelli calendar last week*.

I believe this dates us both to the Caroline Munro period when it comes to timekeeping Pete....

On 13/12/2022 at 14:37, Brandy said:

I do love the way you approach this, with a logical break down of steps and components.

I'd like to pretend that this is the typical result of a highly-ordered and logical mind Ian but truth be told I have to do it like this in order that I'll be able to recollect later on how it all goes together!

On 13/12/2022 at 22:57, hendie said:

But isn't Tony just eating a Wasp here?

Mother of God but this forum sound weird when read out aloud. That sounds like a sentence Mervyn Peake would have been proud of. 

On 13/12/2022 at 23:37, bigbadbadge said:

I am afraid it missed us down on the Romney Marsh as rain came in amongstvthe snow so had no white winter wonderland here, west and some of mid Kent got quite a lot.

Romney Marsh?  Just the name makes me think of you wrapped in a cape out walking a perpetually sea-fog shrouded landscape to the blare of foghorns. That's probably not entirely accurate a view of the place is it Chris....

On 17/12/2022 at 08:01, mark.au said:

What I said last time (though in fact, that makes this an oxymoron).

I refer you to my previous reply Mark...

On 17/12/2022 at 09:21, Fritag said:

To the lawyer pedantry is joy

That's either a line from Samuel Johnson or an episode of Petrocelli, I'm not sure which Steve...

On 17/12/2022 at 10:36, Terry1954 said:

 I'm curious as to what you took it with?

Just a straightforward smartphone shot with a Xaomi Note 10 Pro, shot with manual control to expose for the highlights. Much cheaper device than an iPhone and superior image quality from its camera than Apple's in many situations. 

 

Progress has continued to be slow of late due to both tiredness and the need to spend inordinate periods of time staring at Wasp main rotor details. Prior to heading up that particular hill I noticed a component which I'd overlooked on the rear of the turbine governor,  in the form of this irregularly shaped pump-type thingy:

I think it's something to do with the fuel system and connects to the side of the torquemeter there at upper left in the image. on the forward facing side of it there's also a couple of connections to the electrical system:

Also visible in the above are the various sockets the have been modified to have pipework added to them from metal wire/tubing during assembly due their diameters falling below the ability to print reliably. Same goes for these conenctions on top of and to the rear of torquemeter:

Additionally I didn't want to embark upon building the main rotor transmission and rotor blade controls without at least a working understanding of how these respective parts are articulated in terms of interacting with each other. After poring over manual drawings cross-referenced to video footage for longer than I care to recollect (what a hobby!), I started with the conical shaft that houses the main rotor transmission:

I bulit this as a shell rather than a solid initially, for reasons that will become clear with the addition of the spider. To ensure accuracy I also made sure that Nimbus, MRGB and cabin features were turned on to help judge height and scale. You can also see above that I'd added a pretty hefty axle to the bottom of the transmission shaft at this stage so that the whole rotor blade assembly can sit securely enough inside the MRGB whilst being rotated:

You can see below why I started out with that tower shape as a basic shell - there needs to be space inside there for the spider piston and associated rods which control the pitch of the rotor blades:

The wall thicknesses there are just over 0.7mm so should prove more than adequate in terms of structural strength. If anything at this stage I'm more concerend about the combined weight of the MRGB and main rotors sitting on the support structures which bolt it all to the deck...

 

For printing purposes, the ribbed rubber mouldings for those spider openings need to be separate entities, so have a corresponding locating peg in the rear to assist with assembly later on:

These parts were by by necessity sculpted in the 'Forms' environment - rather than done up as parametric drawings - so that all the folds and sags could be added to reproduce the effects of gravity on the flexible material:

Although this is just the same part repeated four times around the central axis, I sculpted the profiles asymmetrically in order that they would look different from each viewing angle.

A slightly prettier rendered version of same:

The spiders themselves have to remain in abeyance until further details have been added first, in the form of compensator flyweights and their associated pitching-moment rods. There are two of these, one on either side of the rotor shaft, and turned out to be a rather lengthy job to finish due to the nature of the parts and ways in which they are angled and connected together as a working structure. If in doubt, start with mounting bracket and build out:

Thendownwards to make the flyweight structures:

Then adding in the mounting fixture for the control rod, with the angled bracket done up as brass PE for strength:

Lastly adding in the flexible rubber moulding for the base of the flyweight rods (same scultpting process as that used on the spider arms):

Again for strength, the flyweight rods will be made from brass tubing. I can't remember if that diameter is 0.7 or 0.6mm but either way it should help with structural integrity.

The whole kit & caboodle to finish:

 

 

 

 

I'll just keep steadily picking away at this structure over the Christmas period and avoid thinking about what to build the rotor blades out of for as long as possible...

 

Out photographing Jupiter in the frosts during the week, with the neighbour's Christmas lighting giving what can only be described as a Marge Simpson hair-colour vibe to the trees...

I have to go braise some fennel now.

Take care until next time.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

I need to figure out how this sculpting thing works, very impressive!

 

As for "out photographing Jupiter" and "Marge Simpson" in the same sentence.......only you could pull that off!

 

Ian

[Pete in Lincs]

20 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Ah Pete I sincerely hope the pipes have cleared now my friend.

'fraid not. I awoke on Friday barely able to speak and the situation hasn't changed. Despite doses of Jamesons' finest. The cough is still going strong too. Sigh

I hadn't realised that Foundation had started. I may well give it a go if and when I get time. I used to love Asimov. Still have to work all this week!

Ah old calendars. Those were the days. (Ahem).  I had the same thoughts about those tree baggers a coupe of weeks ago! 

I teased the Grand daughters that I was going to push them through there. One of them wanted a go!

Great pictures, dark birds and cartoon trees. Plus the progress report pictures which look great BTW. 

As for 'off to braise some fennel now' I'll need to drag out my copy of the Geneva Convention to see if it's still applicable.

Have a great Christmas over there. Regards, Mildly poorly of Lincs.

[Navy Bird]

On 18/12/2022 at 12:57, TheBaron said:

That fella in the middle I call Ivor, after Ivor Cutler. He constantly hunches down amongst the others as if telling a tall story out the side of his beak.

 

Those dinosaurs - they're always doing that. I think maybe this guy thinks he's Buster Bloodvessel.    

 

Nice shot of Zeus (that's his real name, not that Latin silliness) - Ares is quite prominent this time of year as well. Oh, all that CAD stuff is pretty impressive too. What did you do in a former life? Probably helped Archimedes design his water screw.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

What did you do in a former life? Probably helped Archimedes design his water screw.

 

 

I agree and also think our Tony was certainly influencial in Leonardo Da Vinci's Aerial Screw concept and later definitely became some sort of "hover whisperer" to Igor Sikorsky.

 

The only explanations!

 

Terry

[Navy Bird]

3 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

The only explanations!

 

True Fact!!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[perdu]

On 18/12/2022 at 18:30, Pete in Lincs said:

'fraid not. I awoke on Friday barely able to speak and the situation hasn't changed. Despite doses of Jamesons' finest. The cough is still going strong too. Sigh

I hadn't realised that Foundation had started. I may well give it a go if and when I get time. I used to love Asimov. Still have to work all this week!

Well now it's Tuesday I hope you are beginning to recover Pete, at least enough to get properly poorly over the Christmas period.

 

I read about Foundation being on TV, found it on my telly and got totally lost in it.

 

But sadly, although I loved the trilogy back when I was young and human now that I am old and decrepit the plot line lost me...

 

I may have to Kindle it.

 

Lovely recovery work on the Lightning PC, phew.

[bigbadbadge]

On 12/18/2022 at 5:57 PM, TheBaron said:

Romney Marsh?  Just the name makes me think of you wrapped in a cape out walking a perpetually sea-fog shrouded landscape to the blare of foghorns. That's probably not entirely accurate a view of the place is it Chris....

How did you know??? Have you been speaking to my neighbours???

 

On 12/18/2022 at 5:57 PM, TheBaron said:

ribbed rubber

I am surprised no one has picked up on this!!! 

 

Great job as usual Tony, it's all looking fantastic. 

Chris

[mark.au]

There’s a limit to the ways one can phrase wordlessness.  In English.  I’m getting close. 

[giemme]

52 minutes ago, mark.au said:

There’s a limit to the ways one can phrase wordlessness.  In English.  I’m getting close. 

You could try in Italian. I think I'm gonna do that myself,  since I ran out of words too.

 

Fantastico lavoro, Antonio!   

 

Ciao 

[TheBaron]

Local radio is dismal in this neck of the woods so I frequently surf niche radio stations on the internet whilst working. Tonight's stream is a Canadian radio station broadcasting Snowmageddon warnings in between Otis Redding tracks, religious quotations and adverts for local companies which never mention what they do/sell.  The presenter sounds like Principal Skinner and they just cut to a reporter outside for a roads report and all you could hear was the wind. It's just brilliant.

 

Typically in the week running up to Christmas, it's been a week of forgotten tasks intruding on the things you really want to do, but I have at least broken the ice now on getting started with the main rotors this evening. More on that in a minute after a word from the sponsors...

 

On 18/12/2022 at 18:21, Brandy said:

I need to figure out how this sculpting thing works, very impressive!

It's dead handy Ian and not a little fun to pay with as well! The only drawback is it not being a parametric process so you have do have to linearly undo back to the point the job went wrong rather than hop along a timeline. That said it's no great inconvenience.

On 18/12/2022 at 18:30, Pete in Lincs said:

fraid not. I awoke on Friday barely able to speak and the situation hasn't changed. Despite doses of Jamesons' finest. The cough is still going strong too. Sigh

Dammit Pete that sounds awful. Best wishes that you're recovered for the weekend festivities.

On 19/12/2022 at 18:59, Navy Bird said:

What did you do in a former life?

 Probably something ignominious involving dung-collection or quicklime knowing my luck Bill.

On 19/12/2022 at 20:12, Terry1954 said:

The only explanations!

 

 

I'm sorry I had to stop at this point helpless with laughter-  this radio station has become pure-bred Partridge. They just cut to a local sherriff to talk about road safety who promptly delivered  a stream of consciousness with no gaps between the words and there was a stunned silence from the studio before the anchor came back on with a rather forced: 'Thank-YOU for those words!'

 

On 20/12/2022 at 08:24, perdu said:

Lovely recovery work on the Lightning PC, phew.

Cheers Ron.

On 20/12/2022 at 19:34, bigbadbadge said:

How did you know??? Have you been speaking to my neighbours???

Uncanny...

On 21/12/2022 at 05:32, mark.au said:

There’s a limit to the ways one can phrase wordlessness.  In English.  I’m getting close. 

Giving Sam Beckettt a run for his money I fancy now Mark.

On 21/12/2022 at 06:26, giemme said:

Fantastico lavoro, Antonio! 

Grazie mille Giorgio.

 

Before cracking on to the main hub I finished the transmission shaft immediately below it by slicing off the topmost section in order to turn it into a separate part with a square peg to locate it into position correctly:

Why? Well simply because there's no way of clipping the brass weight rods that run between it and the spider arm mounts below into place without damaging something, so this way those arms can be added and held in place by the top plate of the transmission.

 

Ok: you'll be busy with your own holiday preparations so in brief, the main rotor hub is a quite complicated beast when viewed in detail. What from a distance looks like a relatively simple mixture of hub and rotors soon dis-integrates into a complext suite of forgings and parts leading from the central hub spider out to the flapping links and utlimately the blade extensions themselves. Add into this things like pitch change arms, dampers and snubber struts and some baroque machined insets and there's lots of fun to be had here. The one thing to avoid is pitching headfirst down the rabbit-hole of detail on a single section but instead, to block out the broad outlines of each feature first.

 

Putting this maxim into practise means building just a single arm of the spider hub and associated flapping link, before going on later to duplicate it three more times around the central axis once you've gotten everything correct. Pretty unexcitingly this means starting off with a basic box shape at one of the four stations:

After hitting it with a hammer a few times it then ended up looking like this:

Well, it didn't end up like that straight away; this was about the fourth version as each time I thought I'd gotten it correct, I'd notice something in a neighbouring image that contradicted matters. Luckily there was a detailed labelled engineering drawing of the hub region in Ciastula's original article on the P.531, so this was a godsend in terms of undertanding the range of parts involed in this region in a way that photos alone can't reveal to the uninitiated i.e., yours truly.

 

The two protrusions on the above are (if I've understood matters correctly) the larger one at bottom the droop stop, with the smaller one at top the flapping stop. 

 

With that roughed out, I then began to build up the intial parts for the hinge pin an d flapping link:

These too took a lot of puzzling out from different angles in order to understand what was going on shapewise:

Although I fully expect to have to go back several times to tweak the outlines and proprtions of the existing work here, having both those sides in place means I can get on with the job of building outwards along the drag link to the blade extension. There's a lot going on in this region in terms of details and bolts and things and then on top are those Camping Gaz-like protrusions of the damper packs. Not until I've got a single viable set of designs for all this will I start the process of duplicating these items around the centre axis to compete the cruciform design of the hub.

 

I won't be posting anything for a few days so until next time, have a great holiday, keep warm, wear the novelty socks with pride and generally over-indulge at every opportunity. I leave you with the  stunning sunset on the solstice just gone:

Take care of yourelves,

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

[mark.au]

“But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come the main rotor head -- ” 
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (mostly)

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by mark.au

[Pete in Lincs]

Sam Beckett? I was thinking Scott Bakula in Quantum leap. Just goes to show my level of education....

The voice has more or less come back. Though mid week I sounded like a character from Lock Stock & two smoking barrels*. 

Another great update with some amazing details coming out. I think you deserve a Christmas break from it too.

So many good wishes to you and yours and we'll see you on the other side. All the best, Pete.

 

*Put the beer in the cellar and pay no attention to the bloke hanging from the ceiling!

[giemme]

Fascinating as usual this 3D stuff, Tony!

 

Happy Holidays to you too!

 

[perdu]

note to self:

 

Fire up Fusion again and this time try harder

 

 

note to Tony:

 

Oops, sorry Antonio

 

note:

 

Impressed as anything I am, you all?

[Brandy]

Merry Christmas to you and yours Tony!

 

Ian

[hendie]

I look at this

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

 

and I see this

 

 

Is it any coincidence the Wasp was designed within a couple of years after the films release?  (one of my favorite films btw)

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

took a lot of puzzling out from different angles in order to understand what was going on shapewise:

 

I think you have your answer Tony

 

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

for the hinge pin an d flapping link:

 

there's no need to resort to that sort of language now is there?

 

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

wear the novelty socks

 

ah... socks then.  No wonder the wife had that look on her face.  I thought they were.... nevermind.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Crimbo to you and yours Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spookytooth]

Fascinating stuff this 3d lark, but I can see the way forward with it.

Cannot wait to see how she will turn out like.

 

All the best to you and your family.

 

Simon.

[AdrianMF]

Super sunset pic! And super modelling too. Have a smashing Christmas break.

 

Oh and @hendie, what’s the film? Asking for a friend….

 

Regards,

Adrian