Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Military or civil, triplanes, biplanes or monoplanes, props, jets or helicopters...models in here.
Post Reply
vacant
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 3830
Joined: August 5th, 2012, 9:58 pm

Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by vacant »

In my job lot pile of recently bought kits, there was a battered looking box for a FROG Wessex Mk 1. It was the original 1963 boxing and it looked like it. I have previously built a FROG Wessex as well as two Matchbox versions and since I quite like building helicopters, I thought I would give it a go.

When I opened the box, I saw that all was not as I had expected. Inside, there were four fuselage halves, i.e. enough to build two models. There were also rotor blades for two models. There was even one flight deck floor and one bulkhead. There were a few cut out decals,. That, however, was it. Yes, I had done it again. That left a bit of scratch building and spares hunting to be done. Time to reach for my favourite building material, i.e. some low grade O ’n N (or to translate, some Odds and Ends).

I carved a flight deck canopy in balsa wood and moulded two new canopies. They are not perfect, especially at the sides, but it was the best I could do. I made the nose clear areas in the same way. I used clear plastic card for the windows. The rest of the flight deck, i.e. seats, control sticks, instrument panels etc. came from plastic card,, as did the missing bulkhead.

The undercarriage was made from more O ‘n N, in this case, hypodermic needles, plastic tube etc.. The wheels came from the spares box, sanded and modified to look like something reasonable. The tail undercarriage gear was also scratch built, twice.

Although I had the main and tail rotor blades, there was no rotor head gear. So that too had to be scratch built. Let’s be charitable and say that the results are functional with limited attention paid to the number of rivets.

The exhausts were made from tubes of something. They are the parts with which I am least satisfied.

I added some semblance of a rescue crane and hook to one model. Grab handles were made from wire and windscreen wipers from stretched sprue.

I decided to paint them in completely different colour schemes. The dark blue is not quite right as it should probably have more of a greyish tinge – or perhaps the greyish tinge came as a result of weathering. The ‘brown’ model was painted using a sand colour.

Decals came mostly from odd bits. They are, to use my favourite copout word, ‘illustrative’, though hopefully not too inaccurate. There does seem to have been quite a variety of markings applied to the many versions of the Wessex.

I folded back one set of rotors but left the others extended, partly for the variety and of course, also to save on storage space.

The end results were pleasing enough. The total cost of each model worked out at about 50p which seemed like money well spent. Goodness knows what is in any of the other boxes in this job lot pile.


Image

Image

Image

Image
User avatar
iggie
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 23360
Joined: July 31st, 2013, 11:04 am
Location: North Somercotes, Lincolnshire
Contact:

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by iggie »

Another couple of amazing rescues....top work!
Best wishes

Jim
If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing
"Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow"
User avatar
JamesPerrin
Looks like his avatar
Posts: 13619
Joined: April 5th, 2011, 8:09 pm
Location: W. Yorkshire
Contact:

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by JamesPerrin »

Great work, one of my favourite helos.
Classic British Kits SIG Leader Better to fettle than to fill
(2024 A:B 5:1) (2023 13:8:7) (2022 21:11) (2021 15:8) (2020 8:4:4)
ShaunW
NOT the sheep
Posts: 26118
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 6:11 pm
Location: Pontefract West Yorkshire

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by ShaunW »

Excellent work as always, Vacant, two great builds of this old FROG classic involving some excellent scratch building and canopy moulding.
Doing - Tamiya 1/35th Universal Carrier.

Work is the curse of the modelling classes!
IPMS#12300
shangos70
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 4418
Joined: May 1st, 2011, 11:14 am
Location: Doncaster, Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire.

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by shangos70 »

This be witchcraft!! The things you can achieve with odds and ends astounds me. Well done.
Lone Modeller
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 5249
Joined: April 1st, 2013, 6:45 pm

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by Lone Modeller »

Another pair of miracles. These models look better than the original Frog offerings from the box. Those rotor heads look very realistic. Definitely an improvement in addition to rescue.
User avatar
gnomemeansgnome
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 5269
Joined: July 16th, 2013, 4:03 pm
Location: No Fun City

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by gnomemeansgnome »

Nice!
Ego no habeo consilium.

ICBM = Insatiable Collector and Builder of Models
User avatar
skypirate
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 7241
Joined: May 1st, 2011, 6:13 am
Location: Port Macquarie, Australia

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by skypirate »

Given the starting materials, those are Works of Art!

Cheers,

David
User avatar
Purplethistle
Delusional Miniature Killer
Posts: 4680
Joined: July 10th, 2014, 1:03 am
Location: Glasgow

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by Purplethistle »

You CAN make Princes from Frogs! ....well, Vacant can. :-D
"Spits, SLUFS and Rock 'n' Roll"
User avatar
jamesaw
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 1117
Joined: October 16th, 2011, 1:30 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by jamesaw »

I don't know how you do it (even though you do tell us). Beautiful work as usual.
User avatar
PTB11
Modelling Gent and Scholar
Posts: 2462
Joined: April 30th, 2015, 12:50 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Westland Wessex; FROG 1/72

Post by PTB11 »

Amazing work. One of my favourite helicopters as well.
Regards, Paddy.

On The Bench
Fujimi 1/72 A-7E Corsair II
Post Reply

Return to “Aviation Modelling”