Freightdog (RotorCraft) 1/72 Westland Wasp

[JamesP]

So, this kit has had a very long digestion?? Its development was stop/started several times due the rumours of other kits coming out. It was finally going to happen after the SMW 2023 show where the masters were on display and I had a chat with Colin 'Freightdog' and Jon Davies 'RotorCraft' , but then LF brought out their Wasp/Scout kit it looked like that this kit would never get released. Colin then decided if he could get enough pre-orders he'd do a limited (one off?) run of the kit. So I picked mine up from Freightdog at the SMW 2024 show for a very reasonable £33 including decals.

So this is more limited than usual, short-run resin kit. The masters have been created by hand, not CAD, and the parts have witness marks from their creation. The instructions are in written form and require thorough reading and identification of parts, there are still a couple of greebles I've to identify. 

 

 

Moulded in soft grey resin with harder black resin for undercarriage legs and rotor hub. The cabin sides are clear resin with one set of vacform parts for the nose and roof. There are no weapons or flotation gear. If you build the LF kit as a Scout, you can probably use the flotation gear from that. Weapons are available from LF and others as aftermarket parts.

All of this I'm absolutely fine with, unfortunately, my resin kit jinx seems to have struck again. The main fuselage part is rather badly moulded with surface undulations around the rear sponsons. Also, it looks like the originally separate parts for the front legs were hastily attached to mould in one piece with the fuselage.

 

 

 

 

Like the CMR Buccaneer, it looks like I've got quite a bit of pre-prep to do.

I'm well on the way to fixing those initial issues. I added a 7mm circle of card as a template to restore the rear fuselage. The undercarriage box got reshaped with Milliput and the rest was filled with Humbrol Grey filler. I started trying to fix the cabin floor before deciding the simplest was to remove the detail and start again.  The upper-front legs are not quite aligned and so were also removed and will be replaced with wire, as will the upper-rear legs. After I was ok with the fuselage, the rear sponsons were added and blended in.

One thing to note is that the model is noticeably bigger than the Airfix Scout. It appears to match the 1/48 plans in the Warpaint when scaled to 1/72. The Air-graphics kit is largely a remould of the Airfix kit with their conversion parts. I can't speak to the size of the LF kit.

 

 

 

After a shot of Halford's Grey and fixing what I find, I can move on to more interesting work.

Edited April 29 by JamesP

[Gondor44]

I will follow this as I have one in my stash that I picked up from Colin at Telford in November.

 

Gondor

[JamesP]

The seats are a bit wonky-donkey, the seat pan is at an odd angle and the legs are "trim to fit".

 

 

I found my Airwaves Scout/Wasp PE, which has new seats, but I felt it would be easier to adapt the resin parts. I also made a bench seat for the rear and modelled it folded  (saves me painting a whole bunch of belts).

 

 

I added a new cabin floor which allowed me to extend it into the nose. To aid in detailing the cockpit we are lucky that @The Baron has undertaken over the last couple of years to create an extremely detailed CAD model of the WASP for printing in 1/32 and 1/24 scale.

I'm in no way going to try to recreate that detail in 1/72, instead just suggest that it's there. The CAD and reference pictures are most helpful in accurately locating things. The PE came in handy for the IP and centre console as they are devoid of detail.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 22 by JamesP

[bigbadbadge]

Nice job on those seats, and IP.

Looking good, I wasn't aware Freightdog released on, I have the Art Graphics resin kit and the LF kit, I was going to to sell the resin one but thought I would build them both instead.

Chris

[JamesP]

Ok time to play guess the parts. Maybe @Colin @ Freightdog Models can shed some light. 
 

The two thin rods in black resin one appears to have some dials on. I think the thick part in the middle is a pouring stub. Finally, the doohickey marked by the blue dot. Looks hydraulic-y. 
 

 

Edited April 23 by JamesP

[JamesP]

In the grand tradition of posting questions on a public forum the answers become suddenly apparent shortly afterwards. The thin parts are braces for the rotor mast. The other thingamy sits atop the engine on near the front. 

[JamesP]

The cabin sides are supplied in clear resin. The window are a bit cloudy and need a polish. A small felt wheel on a motor-tool with some plastic polish did a reasonably good job.

 

 

 

The engine needs to be painted separately from the airframe, so I got that done. The shallow exhausts were drilled and then reamed out. Every engine appears different from burnt-out to brand-new looking exhausts, so take your pick. The body of the engine is painted DSG intake, LG centre. Tubes and wires are black and metals. One of the unidentified doohickeys is an electronics box on top of the engine with black cables. I also added an exhaust tube to the other side. Other than that, there is more than enough detail at this scale to make it look right. If you want to go further, I'm sure the LF 3D printed accessory would satisfy anyone, though very steep at £18. 

 

 

Edited April 24 by JamesP

[John_W]

Nice engine. I built the Fujimi 1/48 kit and it came with a plastic cylinder with a tree trunk texture...

[Shake]

A bit late to the party, but my PC had persistent troubles. In the end I bought a new one, which of course took some time to configure it to my liking.

At the start of the build of my LF Wasp I was complaining about the quality of the kit, but seeing your build I think the Freightdog kit also has it's challenges. On the positive side are the nice detailed seats (after you did some adjustments) and the detail on the underside which is completely absent on the LF kit. For the rest I think the detail is a bit rough, about on par with the LF kit. The absence of the flotation gear is hard to replicate without a LF donor and I suppose the winch is also absent. The parts break down of the clear parts make it also a bit difficult to have the doors removed, a condition often seen on the photo's.

 

After all this bickering, you are doing a great job and I will follow your progress with great interest.

 

Sjaak (who should get his finger out and get on with his own Wasp)

[JamesP]

Here's the cockpit all finished. I think the interior is meant to be Dark Admiralty Grey, which is a neutral medium grey. I just used the closest thing to hand. Army Painter dark tone wash, a few bits of detail painting and a quick drybrush. Though a lot of glazing the roof is tinted dark blue and the curved side windows obscure stuff so no need to go to town.

 

 

 

[heloman1]

Looking very good...

 

Colin

[JamesP]

Cheers guys.

The next major hurdle is the cockpit glazing. Two resin sides and vacformed roof and nose. The sides (and fuselage) were settled to get the best fit and I made a small spacer to keep them the required distance apart. With them in place the roof could be trimmed to fit as best as possible. The nose had already been cut out to determine the length of the floor extension I'd added earlier.

 

 

The vacuum parts were tacked in place with CA before flooding the joins once I got the best fit I could achieve. Unfortunately, the best fit was not great. The rear had to be bent inward and the nose is not deep enough to meet the windscreen. A "spare" set of vacform parts would have really been a great help here, as you learn a lot from the mistakes you make on the first.

 

 

 

The gaps were initially sealed with my rather gloppy Mr Sufacer 500, which stopped anything from getting into the cockpit. I could then use actual filler to level things out. The bottom of the windscreen was now too deep, so some more filler was used to try and build up the nose.

 

 

 

The rear of the canopy though is the worst part, being far too bulbous. I considered replacing it, even getting out the Airfix kit. The canopy is that kit's weakest feature and would've needed a scratchbuilt rear bulkhead to match the width of this one. 

I've added the small chin to the underside of the nose, which was missing from the kit altogether.

 

 

[perdu]

Blimey.

 

Its fighting you all the way isn't it, I had high hopes for this little baby from Freightdog, being one of the thronging hordes that were constantly besieging Freightdog's door during its gestation period.

 

I think I will be staying loyal to Airfix, although the work involved was interesting...

 

For all that it is fighting you it is obvious that you are beating it, well done James.

[JamesP]

It's been a long week...

Firstly, time to get the rest of the airframe together, but that required untwisting the tail boom. It's hard to see, but the stiffeners are not at the right positions either, but it looks better than before.

 

 

 

The other parts that are going to be painted blue/grey got stuck on as well.

 

 

Now the (un)fun part of building the undercarriage. 

 

The legs themselves were far too chunky and were sanded to a more slender shape. The wheels, being too wide, were sawn in half and rejoined, then completely sawn off and repositioned with the bracket angled.

 

 

 

I had already discarded the upper V sections with the intention of replacing them with plastic rod. I was keeping the lower parts as they were moulding hard resin and would rely on them for strength. So I needed to make new parts to match. I started by drawing out a plan, where it quickly became apparent that the front legs weren't in the correct position. The log pencil marks show the kit's locations, and the short marks are where I think they should be. The incorrect position was fixed by the location of the underside surface detail, so this had to come off and be repositioned further forward. Note the geometry of the back and front legs should be similar. The kit's front V struts are narrower than the rear, but I went along with this.

 

 

I then made some new upper struts...

 

 

What happened to get to here is too traumatic to recount. Suffice it to say things were redone many, many times. Despite plans, the combination of many small errors quickly compound into something that needs each part to be individually tailored.  Even though the kit has its errors, one quickly learns to respect anyone trying to scratchbuild something as complicated as the Wasp, at this scale, by hand. 

 

 

 

 

There was a moment before this when all the legs were on, though the front legs weren't glued to the fuselage to aid in applying the paint scheme I want to do. However fate decided that it would be better if I pinged the parts across my modelling room.

 

 

 

Edited May 9 by JamesP

[Planebuilder62]

Sorry to see your Wasp is putting up such a fight James. I thought the Air Graphics conversion set was difficult but it had none of the wrong dimensions of the undecarriage that you are facing.

 

Here was my attempt 

 

 

 

Regards Toby

[milktrip]

Glad to see a WIP for this as I was very keen to see how it was. Certainly seems to be challenging and I admire your tenacity. Looking great so far!

[AlxBNE]

I am late to this party but will now follow along.

Very impressed with your battle, and step wise victory, with this kit so far.

Keep up the good work.

[Shake]

This Wasp seems to put up quite a struggle. I had my doubt about the LF Wasp, but I think that one of the advantages is that it is styrene. That makes it in my opinion a bit easier to position the self made parts, as it gives you some time to adjust. Using cyanoacrylate, in my experience, often results in the parts sticking in places where you didn't want them to.

Hope the rest of the build will be a bit less challenging.

 

Sjaak

[JamesP]

It has been a bit of a protracted start to painting as I kept finding minor issues and jobs that needed attention. Thankfully, once I was ready things have gone very smoothly. I used Xtracolour Blue-Grey which though very thin in the tin and probably rubbish for brush painting, sprayed beautifully. 
The Orange Crop antenna was added at this stage. For the dayglo, I based coated these areas in yellow, then made a 2:1 mix of Xtracolor Roundel Red and Hu 209 Fire Orange. I'm very happy with the result.

 

 

 

[cmatthewbacon]

Blimey, James… well done on battling through this far! I now understand why Airfix did a Scout with a couple of skids rather than a Wasp…

best,

M.

[heloman1]

The kit is giving you a fight! However, I think you have got on top f it.

I have always wanted a Wasp in my collection but having just built two 1/72 Bell UH-!B's which are slightly larger bu5t finding it a struggle!, I've come to the conclusion that this scale is now almost beyond me! Luckily, I have an old Fujimi 1/48th Wasp kit in the stash!

 

Colin

[Shake]

Nice progress, looking good!

On 20/05/2025 at 14:18, JamesP said:

It has been a bit of a protracted start to painting as I kept finding minor issues and jobs that needed attention.

Sounds like my own way of working, always forgetting or overseeing things with as result very slow progress.

 

On 20/05/2025 at 14:18, JamesP said:

I used Xtracolour Blue-Grey which though very thin in the tin and probably rubbish for brush painting, sprayed beautifully.

 

That's also my experience with Xtracolor, lovely paint to spray and extremely glossy, perfect for decals. On the downside it takes ages to cure and is unfortunately a bit more difficult to purchase in the Netherlands now. I have to admit that MRP is a good alternative.

 

Sjaak

[JamesP]

I got this completed just before I went away for a week, and then had to wait for some sunshine (which promptly disappeared behind a cloud). Finally, here it is.