Westland Wessex HAS 3 Interior (1/48 Scale) now ready to order

[hendie]

38 minutes ago, CJP said:

so I ordered a HU5 kit & am looking at the feasibility of backdating it to a HAS3 either the early version or later with the horse collar

 

Given the rarity of the Italeri HAS kits I may investigate whether it's possible to produce a conversion set, but that won't be before Feb/March next year at the earliest.   

There seem to be plenty Revell HAS kits on the market at reasonable prices - how does the Revell kit stack up? I remember reading some poor reviews of their Queens Flight version. Is their HAS version just as bad? 

 

 

[CJP]

1 hour ago, hendie said:

 

Given the rarity of the Italeri HAS kits I may investigate whether it's possible to produce a conversion set, but that won't be before Feb/March next year at the earliest.   

There seem to be plenty Revell HAS kits on the market at reasonable prices - how does the Revell kit stack up? I remember reading some poor reviews of their Queens Flight version. Is their HAS version just as bad? 

 

 

I have looked at the Revell Wessex HAS3 articles in Britmodeller & I have some misgivings about the "feel" of it - the doghouse & main landing gear are wrong & the cockpit canopy/windscreen don't seem right to me? - it may lend itself to cross kitting but I don't think I would go to the expense of buying the kit just to rob a few parts

I do think a conversion kit from you would be a good idea.

Chris

Edited December 8, 2024 by CJP
text

[perdu]

12 hours ago, hendie said:

The only thing left to work on is the double ring thing hanging from the undersides. I have it all modelled up but am trying to figure out how to assemble it all and if that is going to require me to make any changes.

 

This bit?

 

My god you dont mess about do you?

 

I think may have a photo, off for a look now...

[perdu]

Yes I do have a (two) picture(s)

 

This is the whole thing down its hole.

 

 

These pictures may be  from the rebuild done at the Helicopter museum, if not actually at Yeovilton.

 

This second shot is nice and clear, as you have already noticed all these pictures are one side biased because no windows on the port side we could have looked(poked a camera )in through.

 

Obviously intended to control in some measure the forces that act on the sonobuoy as it dangles out of the fuselage on its up or down journey.

9 hours ago, CJP said:

I have looked at the Revell Wessex HAS3 articles in Britmodeller & I have some misgivings about the "feel" of it - the doghouse & main landing gear are wrong & the cockpit canopy/windscreen don't seem right to me? - it may lend itself to cross kitting but I don't think I would go to the expense of buying the kit just to rob a few parts

I do think a conversion kit from you would be a good idea.

 

Alan beware, the road to hell etc.

 

I would like a nicely Walterey Alan Hendie Wessex kit that actually looks really like a Wessex but it would take up the kind of overanxious time span that Tony has dedicated to the Wopse.

 

Dont go there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unless you want to obviously...

 

🤨

[hendie]

Thanks Bill - much appreciated, as always.

 

We're edging closer day by day. Most parts are completed though I still have a few test prints to  get done and then test the actual assembly to check that it all fits as intended.

I think I've settled in this motley crew for Set E HAS.3/1

 

 

Still working on final price though. Cleanup/support removal on this lot is a lot more complex, therefore a lot more time consuming than any of the previous sets. I also have to lay this all out and work out the best method of packaging. The standard box I've been using has been great so far - I can fit all 4 existing sets into it and provide good packing all around.

I think the same box will accommodate this Set E, but not together with the other sets, so I'll need to investigate the available options.

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

love it

 

those exhausts are wonders in their own right

 

Magical

[hendie]

On 12/14/2024 at 8:29 PM, perdu said:

those exhausts are wonders in their own right

 

I hope so, Bill.

 

here they are in glorious 3 dimensional resin.  I squirted some primer on 'em to try and give the camera a target to focus on, and they're just held in with blu-tac

 

 

The other type - I'll include both types in the set.

I didn't see any drawing of this exhaust type in the 4+ book so everything is guesstimated from photos

 

 

Thoughts? feedback?

 

I did take a bunch of photos of the other parts in the set but the photos turned out naffer than a naff thing at a naff convention so won't bore you with them just now. I'm going to have a try at painting them up and take some photos of the assembly in situ, though I know Xmas is going to get in the way a bit.

 

 

 

[perdu]

I dont know how anyone could actually love blinking exhaust pipes but hey, you made it happen.

 

fabul...

 

Oh you know

[CJP]

Exhausts look very nice Alan

Chris

[hendie]

Here we go... and accept my apologies in advance as this is going to be a very heavy picture post. I did my best with the camera honest, but there's still a lot of poor photography going on here. However, at least I can show you something worthwhile.

I'll start off with the easy and fairly boring stuff, some of which you may have seen before. Such as the nose insert - masquerading as a frog for some reason

 

 

The twin ring thing

 

 

Winch and winch tray

 

 

Seats

 

 

the twin can thing

 

 

I told you the photos were not great. I've taken a bunch over the last week or so, and these are really the best I can do - sorry.

The electronics rack on the starboard side, with some poor detail painting

 

 

Likewise with the port electronics rack

 

 

The two sonar stations, again with some iffy detail painting

 

 

The big dipper. Sheesh, these close up shots are gruesome.

 

 

Followed by the big dipper fitted to the pit head gear.  Believe it or not but the fins on the dipper actually slot into two grooves in the pit head gear. .. and I just noticed I forgot to paint the footswitch on the pit head gear. Oh well.

 

 

Some more detail of the pit head gear, bear in mind this whole assembly is less than 30mm tall. Close ups can be so unforgiving.

 

 

Then the twin ring slips into the underside.

 

 

Right, that's most of the boring stuff over with. Now we can get to something a bit more meaningful - assembly and do all these bits actually fit together?

 

Well, yes and no. Sort of. In a Way. Maybe.

I'll be honest here - this is very much a warts and all preview and I'm no good at sleight of hand, so what you see here is how todays first trials of assembling the set went.

Electronics rack on the right - no problem. Electronics rack on the left, and twin cans need a bit of adjustment, as can be seen by the bend in the bottom of the upright on the electronics rack.

 

 

I definitely made this a lot harder for myself than it should have been as I had previously glued the cabin ceiling in place so I could get the build envelope I had to work within accurately dimensioned.  The good news is that it can all be fitted even with the cabin ceiling in place but I would seriously advise against it if you wish to keep your sanity intact.

 

It appears I forgot to take any shots of the pit head gear in place before I started hanging decorations from it (I got a bit involved there).

 

 

Ceiling mounted consoles fitted in place.  I got my measurements wrong here and that panel is sitting a bit too much to starboard. It needs to move about 3mm, maybe 4mm to port. For anyone considering this madness - don't worry, I will also supply dimensions of where to drill and cut... once I get it all figured out.

 

 

Although I didn't take any photos, I did confirm that the fuselage closes up without any problems.

I also didn't bother fitting the seats at this point though I may do that in another session. 

 

But what does it look like from the outside then?  

Surprisingly, a good amount of detail can be seen. I took this shot mainly to show the twin ring fitted underneath - I could easily slot that into place after the fuselage was closed up.

 

 

I would recommend to anyone building this to remove all the detail from the Italeri floor. It's not very convincing, it's wrong, and it prevents the printed parts from seating nicely on the floor itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also forgot to fit the hydraulic hoses and take a shot of that, but I did confirm that they fit.

 

I'm sure those of you out there that are better painters than myself, and I'm sure there are many, will make a much better job of the detail painting than my ham fisted attempts.  At least I have assured myself that it all fits - after a fashion. There are still a few tweaks to be made, another run of test prints, then I'll try another test assembly as confirmation before I release this lot into the wild.

 

All comments welcomed

 

 

 

 

[CJP]

Wow that's a big tick from me Alan - looks fantastic & is a credit to you making it all work👍

Chris

Edited December 28, 2024 by CJP

[Terry1954]

Absolutely fantastic work there Alan, top job, especially your very impressive dunker!!

 

 

Terry

 

 

[perdu]

Just      

 

 

WOW!

[heloman1]

Excellent work Alan. Those parts look very realistic!!!

 

Colin

[Rui Silva]

Hi Alan and fellow Wessex admirers,

I'm a modeller from Portugal and I'm currently working on the Airfix 1/48 Sea Vixen kit, this led to the wish to have a SAR Wessex to go with the Sea Vixen, so one month ago I bought one Italeri HAS.1 kit from Germany.

 

This was not all and then I started looking for an ASW HAS.3 kit as it looks very nice in Blue/Grey and Yellow with the distinctive radome. I was lucky to find in Scalemates one HAS.3 kit for sale and it's now on its way from Greece to me. 

 

I began researching the HAS.3 and soon found that the Italeri kit lacked all the interior detail for this version and the weaponry it could use, so it was a very pleasant surprise to find your thread with all the 3D printed goodies for this version plus the "general" Wessex goodies thread, you can expect a PM ordering quite a few sets!

 

The HAS.3 could be armed with torpedos, depth charges, etc but the Italeri kit lacks both the weapons pylons and the weapons, do you intend to model these in the future?

Thanks for your work and dedication. 

 

[hendie]

2 hours ago, Rui Silva said:

The HAS.3 could be armed with torpedos, depth charges, etc but the Italeri kit lacks both the weapons pylons and the weapons, do you intend to model these in the future?

 

Rui, look out for a new post on that topic in this forum over the next few weeks. I began working on the weapons last week and will be posting an update on that soon.

It is my intent to provide a full Weapons package for the Wessex including the SS11, AS12, depth charge etc. along with the weapons platform. I may even include the door mounted GPMG and other hardware. 

 

 

 

 

[Stick]

Big grin, very impressive results. 👍
Stick

[hendie]

It's been a long time coming, but we're finally here.  The Wessex HAS upgrade (Set E) is finally ready for public consumption.

 

 

... or it will be as soon as I reprint another batch of the pit head gear - I ran a batch two days ago, cleaned 'em up and cured them and only as I was getting everything ready did I notice that I'd missed placing a support and the wheel hadn't printed properly. Damn. After a bit of cursing I added the print support and am now running another batch.

 

As a reminder, here's what you get in the package.

 

 

Price for Set E HAS.3/1 Sonar Upgrade will be a special introductory $25.00 until March 31st so place your orders now.

I already have a few orders for these in the queue as well as a bunch of the other sets. I'll do my best to get these out as soon as I can.

As always, I do not ask for payment until your order is complete and ready to ship. Once it's in the post I'll provide a tracking number which should be able to let you track it to your door.

 

Now, I can get back to the Wessex weapons package.

 

 

 

 

[heloman1]

Alan, you have been busy! The range of parts look exquisite. Congratulations.

 

Colin

[grubber]

Hi,

May I order the Wessx set E please

[hendie]

22 hours ago, grubber said:

Hi,

May I order the Wessx set E please

 

You most certainly can Pete - PM replied to.

 

For everyone who's ordered the HAS Set E, the instructions can be found at this link over on Scalemates:   WESSEX Set E Instructions

[CJP]

Instructions look great!

Chris

[perdu]

Those instructions are outstanding Alan, very nice mate.

[Terry1954]

18 hours ago, perdu said:

Those instructions are outstanding Alan, very nice mate.

 

Echo that. A reference source in their own right!

 

T.