Westland Wessex. Bits, Various, for the use of. Transmission Deck & Cockpit set now added for 2024

[stalal]

I remember @Hendie when you were building Italeri Wessex. I followed it and it was an inspiration. I could not detail it as much as you did, but I still followed and tried to copy your work. 

 

With these superbly detailed parts, anyone can build a super detailed Wessex in Hendie style

 

That beetleback vent looks fantastic. So do other parts.  

[HartDeco]

Hi all.

 

Quite a few jobs done today. Added the antenna wires, painted and fitted the blades. The nose was also attached to the fuselage. I used a pair of thisn brass rods under the hinges to support the weight.

Overall, the build is almost finished. Just a few small things to take care of.

 

René

 

 

[hendie]

Bloomin' fantastic.

 

You should be very pleased with that result. Great work.

[CJP]

Hi HartDeco, you have set a very high standard with your Wessex - looks fabulous!

[hendie]

The seats are finished.

 

Hendiebits vs Italeri bits in 1/48

 

 

Mocked up

 

 

 

 

and in 1/72

 

 

Fitting is straightforward. I have used a single locating peg for mounting - simply drill a hole midway between the two kit mounting points and you should be good to go. I have also used a standoff on the rear of the seat upright to keep alignment/spacing from the bulkhead. This will need a light swipe with a sanding stick to tidy up as it was also used for the printing supports.

 

Price for the seats will be $2.50 a pair for both 1/72 & 1/48.

 

 

dammit! the more I look at that center console the more tempting it is to redo that as well  

 

 

 

[CJP]

47 minutes ago, hendie said:

The seats are finished.

 

Hendiebits vs Italeri bits in 1/48

 

 

Mocked up

 

 

 

 

and in 1/72

 

 

Fitting is straightforward. I have used a single locating peg for mounting - simply drill a hole midway between the two kit mounting points and you should be good to go. I have also used a standoff on the rear of the seat upright to keep alignment/spacing from the bulkhead. This will need a light swipe with a sanding stick to tidy up as it was also used for the printing supports.

 

Price for the seats will be $2.50 a pair for both 1/72 & 1/48.

 

 

dammit! the more I look at that center console the more tempting it is to redo that as well  

 

 

 

Seats look great & console is a must to redo!

Chris

[bootneck]

1 hour ago, hendie said:

The seats are finished.

Hi Hendie,

even more good stuff from you; however, before you finalise the seat, perhaps you may want to consider squaring off the seat cutout.

 

I shall be ordering a set from you later, just wanted to share these images, showing some other little odds and ends, with you.

 

 

note the left and right frames are slightly different.

 

 

cheers,

Mike

[hendie]

13 minutes ago, bootneck said:

however, before you finalise the seat, perhaps you may want to consider squaring off the seat cutout.

 

hi Mike.  I snaffled those photos as references when you posted them a while back - many thanks, they were very useful.  However, I think those shots be of a modern "refurb" as there is no survival pack in the seat, and the blue cushion is merely imitating the shape.

 

 These two shots show the survival pack in place which is how I've modeled the seat - I've left it to the user to decide how to apply the sheepskin bum comforter 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

3 hours ago, hendie said:

I've left it to the user to decide how to apply the sheepskin bum comforter

Apparently, a used tea bag can do the job.

[hendie]

3 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Apparently, a used teas bag can do the job.

Wouldn't that make your bum soggy?

 

[perdu]

I can guarantee it does

 

Somebody soggy tea bagged my armchair last year

 

Still it does dry up eventually...

 

Let me see

 

Wessex builds in plan

 

Two on the stocks and one in the box 

 

That's a start huh?

[hendie]

just a general FYI for you Wessex aficionados out there. I am now looking at an upgrade for the center consoles. 

No promises, but I'm looking.

 

 

[bootneck]

Hi Alan,

I'll see if I can get any photos when I attend the museum on Wednesday.

cheers,
Mike

[hendie]

A small update for the weekend sir?

 

Since I've been coerced into adding some more stuff for the cockpit I thought I'd better get oni with it. 

 

The simplest panel is the rear bulkhead and since I needed the practice I opted to start this one in Fusion.  Nothing too difficult and it was knocked out in an hour or two (would have taken me 45 minutes in SolidWorks)

 

 

 

The other two panels weren't really any more difficult, they just had a lot more geometry going on, so took a while longer to construct. This time in SolidWorks as I could beaver away at this during my lunch hours.

The kit part seems to have come along for the ride from the UH-34 and bears no resemblance to a Wessex console.

Some hours later I had a panel which looked the part.  It's as accurate as I can get it though had to make some compromises to get it to work with the kit.  The two outboard levers were problematic and kept breaking off on the first coupleof test prints so I had to thicken up some areas to give them a chance of staying in place during the wash/cure/trim phase.

 

 

The roof console was a bit of a pain.  The kit part doesn't really fit at all so I had to keep doing test prints and adjusting from there to try and get a decent fit to the kit part.  Adding switches and knobs got a bit mind numbing after a while.  Yes, the rotor brake is there as you can see - without the actuating lever.  There's no way the lever would withstand all the handling and packaging so I've left a hole in the front of the rotor brake so folks can add their own lever.  I'll try and post a photo later so folks can see the shape. It won't be a difficult add and should be easily done - same with the hydraulic pipes exiting the rear of the brake unit.

 

 

 

How do they get fitted then?  Well, I thought it worth posting a few shots to show the process.  It would have been much easier if I hadn't glued the floor and the bulkhead together to show off the seats previously    Still, it wasn't hard to accomplish.

The rear bulkhead was simple.  I used my cheap imported scriber to create a small groove around the seam where the panel meets the bulkhead.  Then I used a razor saw blade to excise the panel from the kit part.  The scribed groove helped contain the blade on the right path.

 

 

The floor console was removed in a similar fashion.  On the kit part there is a small ledge about 1 mm from the top surface. Again, I scribed a light groove then used the razor saw blade.  (ignore the bit cut off the front - originally I was going to follow the kit contour before deciding there was no gain in that process and I was just making life difficult for myself).

 

 

Once the panels are moved, a simple bit of clean up leaves you with this.

 

 

As seems obligatory in my threads I shall apologize for the quality of the photos beforehand. I really must try harder.   I was in a bit of a rush to get this update posted so I'll try and take better quality photos next time around.

 

The first test prints.   The roof console was still being designed at this point so is missing the rotor brake and a bunch of switches and knobs.

 

 

I seem to have borrowed some scale creep from Bill on the roof console.  I'll need to shorten that by at least 1 mm, and the fit isn't great (still better than the kit part though)

 

 

Hendiebits in place... just resting, hence the misalignment.

 

 

This is the view you'll probably see from outside when the fuselage is all buttoned up.    

 

 

I think we're almost there.  There's definitely a few tweaks needing done here and there but nothing major.

 

 

Another bunch of test prints are underway as I type. Once I give those the once over there should be only one, two at most revising sessions to be performed on those bits and they should be ready for general consumption. THis is all 1/48 so far, so I still have to get the shrink ray gun out of the cupboard and give them a try in 1/72

 

Oh, almost forgot... I also printed off the servo valve(?) that sits on the floor just in front of the cyclic stick, but forgot to take any photos of that.  

 

 

Hopefully I'll have this all wrapped up by next weekend provided life doesn't get in the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NAVY870]

For those of us who weren't paying attention, can the peasantry obtain these wonders?

[CJP]

Great work Alan, I will be queuing up to get the cockpit set when available.

Chris

[Tiger331]

7 hours ago, NAVY870 said:

For those of us who weren't paying attention, can the peasantry obtain these wonders?

 

Steve,

 

Short answer is 'Yes'. See the notes on the first page of this thread and contact Hendie direct with a PM. I have been in communication with him for a couple of weeks now as we put together a suitable package for my own Wessex projects.

[Tiger331]

Looking forward to receiving these in due course. I am currently wrestling with the overhead panel on another Wessex project and can vouch for the amount of fettling that I have had to do to make it semi-fit.  

[Bozothenutter]

I feel another order coming your way!

Btw, why not provide fragile parts separately,  I'm sure most of us remember how to glue stuff....😉

[hendie]

8 hours ago, Bozothenutter said:

Btw, why not provide fragile parts separately,  I'm sure most of us remember how to glue stuff....😉

 

You folks!  Always looking for the easy way out 

 

Since you're forcing me into it, I'll give it a bash. No promises though.

 

A couple of minutes in SolidWorks and one of these popped up on the screen.

 

 

 

Which, if the plan comes together, should fit into the front end of the rotor brake unit like so...

 

 

At the end of the day, you should have a rotor brake in the "brake on" position.

 

 

Test prints are a printing once again.

Just an FYI: For each one of these iterations, it's time spent designing - anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours. Followed by about 10 minutes per part in the slicing software (on average).

Then we have a print run - for these parts it's about three hours.

Then we have three wash cycles. Gross clean, full clean, then extra clean rinse.

Let them dry for half an hour then trim off the supports that'll break things when the supports are cured. Then we have the cure itself, followed by final trimming.

 

Then test fit, and repeat the entire operation if I haven't got it right!

 

 

 

[hendie]

On 3/10/2024 at 5:24 AM, Bozothenutter said:

Btw, why not provide fragile parts separately,  I'm sure most of us remember how to glue stuff....😉

 

Good idea.... I can make all of those switches as individual items. They're only 0.25 diameter by 0.75mm long.

Would that work for you. 🤣

[Tiger331]

On 3/10/2024 at 8:14 PM, hendie said:

 

You folks!  Always looking for the easy way out 

 

Since you're forcing me into it, I'll give it a bash. No promises though.

 

A couple of minutes in SolidWorks and one of these popped up on the screen.

 

 

 

Which, if the plan comes together, should fit into the front end of the rotor brake unit like so...

 

 

At the end of the day, you should have a rotor brake in the "brake on" position.

 

 

Test prints are a printing once again.

Just an FYI: For each one of these iterations, it's time spent designing - anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours. Followed by about 10 minutes per part in the slicing software (on average).

Then we have a print run - for these parts it's about three hours.

Then we have three wash cycles. Gross clean, full clean, then extra clean rinse.

Let them dry for half an hour then trim off the supports that'll break things when the supports are cured. Then we have the cure itself, followed by final trimming.

 

Then test fit, and repeat the entire operation if I haven't got it right!

 

 

 

 

This is great reference for fitting a scratchbuilt rotor brake to my current project while looking forward to using your parts in my next few builds !

[hendie]

53 minutes ago, Tiger331 said:

 

This is great reference for fitting a scratchbuilt rotor brake to my current project while looking forward to using your parts in my next few builds !

 

Does this one help any better, Mark?

 

[hendie]

Greetings folks. Good news at last, WSX48 Set D (Cockpit) is complete and ready to go.

 

I spilled some primer over them and tried a white background this time instead of the normal blue background and it seems to have helped a little. Not much, but a little.   Here we have on the left, the servo valve (?) which mounts on the floor directly in front of the cyclic lever. Two will be needed but as you can see by comparison with the rule, that they may be a little fiddly to trim and fit, so I'll supply three just in case.  On the right is the rotor brake lever. The diameter of the lever is 0.4mm so I'm printing off a 0.5 & 0.6 mm diameter version to see if they still look in scale and perhaps be easier to handle.  I'll supply two of those as well.

 

 

Next up we have the meat of the cockpit set.  On the left is the center floor console. In center we have the roof mounted console with rotor brake, and on the right we have the rear bulkhead console, complete with a dinky little map light.  (I'm not sure why the rear bulkhead console appears to be out of focus when the other two look fine)

 

 

A slightly angled view which shows the map light better, and you can just make out that there's a pressure gauge attached to the rotor brake.

 

 

The full set. ***EDIT*** No, it's not - I forgot to add the two pilots seats when I took the photo

 

 

I tried my best to get as close a fit as I could with the roof console and I think I got it pretty close, however the mounting surfaces on the three consoles are also the surfaces which I had to use for supports, so a little fettling will be required to get a perfect fit.  

Introductory price for WSX48 Set D will be $12.00.  I shall update the first post in this thread to add the new set. and add photos of the two seats as soon as I get a chance

 

I'm test printing a 1/72 cockpit set as I type this so I'll see how that turns out in a few hours. I'm hopeful that the results will be acceptable, but not for the brake lever. Scaling it down to 1/72 is just not going to be feasible for printing but I'll give it a try.  Worst case in 1/72 the brake lever could be scratched from a length of 0.2 or 0.3 wire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hendie]

In case anyone missed my edit to the above post... I forgot to add the two pilot seats in the photos.  I'll add them as soon as I get a chance.