1/72 Maly Westland Whirlwind

[rockpaperscissor]

Even though there is a nice model of the Westland Whirlwind already available in 1/72 scale, I thought I'd really challenge myself and attempt a 1/72 build of the 1993 Bodhan Wasiak designed Maly Modelarz version instead. As an added bonus, I'll get to try to form a clear bubble canopy for the first time.

The kit suffers from many of the usual older Maly deficiencies: substandard paper, print registry problems, inaccurate markings, etc. Still, there's an undefinable something about Maly Modelarz kits that keeps us coming back. The printing on this particular kit wasn't too bad, actually. After scanning, I used photoshop to clean it up a bit, and added squadron markings and registration numbers to the fuselage sides since the stock model only had roundels. I used the Wings Pallette site to find accurate markings for P6969, the Whirlwind credited with the fighter type's first enemy kill. The 45 foot wingspan works out to 7.5 inches in 1/72 scale, so I took measurements and reduced the files accordingly. I rotated a couple of the pages 90 degrees before printing to align the wings, engine nacelle parts, etc, with the paper grain to make rolling and curving easier, and to avoid leading edge "crinkles".

I'm not going to do a full build thread. Instead, I'll summarize my build experience as I progress, and photo document each completed module, starting with the fuselage.

Installment 1: The fuselage

Well, the fuselage is done. I'm reasonably happy with it, but it wasn't easy. First, I made loops of skins #2-6, using internal joining strips instead of glue tabs.

Skin #1 is the nose - an oblong petalled piece which actually came out pretty good. The problem is, it's diameter was way too big to mate properly with skin #2. To make it smaller I had to slice it apart down the bottom center, and "guesstimate" how much material to remove from the sides of the 2 exposed petals, glue them back together, and dry fit again. I had to do this twice.

Skin #2's front former was a little loose, so I wrapped a single layer of regular bond paper around it. The rear former fit fine.

Wonder of wonders, skin #3 and it's formers fit perfectly!

I moved to the tail skin #6 next. No problems there either. Things are looking up.

Skin #5 was too big. The formers were loose as a goose, and it's diameter was too big to mate with Skin #6. I cut it apart down the center, made a guess on how much paper to remove, and rejoined the piece for another try. Not bad. I was pretty happy with how my photoshopped lettering mated up too.

Next came the cockpit interior. It was way off - much too wide at the floor. I cut the walls free, and glued them individually to former 4A. Then I narrowed the floor, and reunited it with the walls.

Fuselage skin #4 encloses the cockpit. It was too large to mate up with skins 3 and 5, so I had to cut it apart and resize it. I slid fuselage skin #4 over the cockpit and then glued the assembly to the growing fuselage. I glued in the instrument panel from the open front of skin #4. After cutting away the cockpit opening, I glued in the stick, but decided to hold off on the seat and gunsight until later in the build. Finally, I butt joined the front assembly to the rear one to complete the fuselage tube.

At this point I glued on the vertical stab and fillet, and installed the first wing former. The fuselage is 4 7/8 inches long.

[kenlwest]

Don,

That looks really good!

Ken

[bob martin]

Hey Don, Looks really great so far.:D keep us posted;)

[B-Manic]

The build looks great. But, a MM Bodhan Wasiak, reduced to 1/72? There must be some law of physics being broken here - it looks too good.

[rockpaperscissor]

The build looks great. But, a MM Bodhan Wasiak, reduced to 1/72? There must be some law of physics being broken here - it looks too good.

Many thanks for your kind words Ken and Bob. B-Manic, I'm working on proving Einstein's unifying theory of quantam card modeling here: "The impact of deficient design on the modeler is inversely proportional to the scale of the model." :D

Obviously Professor Einstein wasn't a card modeler.

[bob martin]

I think that means, What goes around, Comes around??:confused::confused::D

[Wyvern]

Looking good so far!

Wyvern

[rockpaperscissor]

Installment 2: The tail

The vertical stab was installed earlier as part of the fuselage build. The two horizonatal stabs were next. I cut off the tabs and just cemented the trailing edges together with a thin bead of glue. Rather than use internal supports for the H-stabs, I took 0.5mm card and shaped inserts to close off the open end of the wings. These inserts provided a gluing surface to attach the wings directly to the V-stab.

The Whirlwind tail features some kind of fore and aft thingamajig at the horizontal and vertical stab intersection. Beyond looking cool, I have no clue what its purpose is. If you know, please enlighten me. It blends into the tail with fairings, and has a rounded front, and a cone shaped rear. It is made up of 5 pieces in the kit, but I couldn't find the piece that forms the rounded front end. The piece is pictured in the instructions, but it isn't numbered. It was nowhere to be found on the parts pages, so I improvised by making a dome of epoxy paste, which hardened in about 10 minutes. Then I painted it in matching (sorta), green acrylic paint.

I don't know if you can tell from the overhead shot, but the vertical stab isn't perfectly aligned with the fuselage - it's off in a clockwise direction by a couple of degrees. I think that the thingamajig makes the misalignment more apparent.

[cjwalas]

I've always thought these earlier MM kits might work better scaled down a bit (to hide the shortcomings?). Hearing your experience on the fuselage gives me cause to rethink! But your work is excellent regardless of any scale and that much more so for being 1/72! Great stuff!
Chris

[gomidefilho]

Nice model Don! But i'm prefer new Modelart kits in 1/72 hehehehe! Cheers my friend!!!

[ieya]

The Whirlwind tail features some kind of fore and aft thingamajig at the horizontal and vertical stab intersection. Beyond looking cool, I have no clue what its purpose is. If you know, please enlighten me.
Registered just to answer this!

During flights with prototypes, it became apparent that there were handling problems with high speed dives, which were found to be due to high Mach number compressibility at the junction of tailplane and fin.

The acorn-shaped fairing that was added to production models resolved the problem, to the point that the Whirlwind could out-dive the Spitfire to a maximum speed of 410mph.

Details courtesy of the book 'Whirlwind' by Victor Bingham.

[Gixergs]

thought this might be of interest World War II: Westland Whirlwind (http://anonymous-generaltopics.blogspot.com/2008/06/westland-whirlwind.html)

[Don Boose]

This is an amazing (if masochistic) project, Don. You are doing a spectacularly super job on this model.

The other Don

[Janx]

The fairing bullet on the tail is purely an aerodynamic structure, to improve the airflow at the joins, we brits seemed to have a love for it, it shows up on aircraft like the seahawk, scimitar, Hunter and a few others.

beautiful build so far, thanks :D

[rockpaperscissor]

Installment 3: The Wings

For those of you who might have been following this build, I didn't abandon it, I just got temporarily bored with it and moved on to other models. I felt like working on it again recently, so here we go:

The basic wing assembly consists of a center section and wing tips. I removed all the glue tabs first, and formed the individual wing pieces, adhering the trailing edges with a thin bead of glue. I cut a strip of card to act as a joining strip and glued it inside the wingtip with half its width exposed. Then I glued the tips to the center section. The joining strip ensures a smooth, flat joint. Nicer looking than overlapping the paper, I think. I've found that the extra strength provided by wing formers and spars really aren't necessary on models that I've reduced to 1/72 scale, so they were left out. The spar that is visible in the earlier fuselage photographs protrudes about 3/4 of an inch into each wing and provides plenty of support. I was pleased (and surprised) to find that the wings fit so snugly to the sides of the fuselage, that I could almost have gotten away without the fairings.

Overall, the fit of the engine nacelles wasn't too bad either. I think that there might be labelling issues here, though. I'm not really sure. This whole part of the build was confusing to me, and I wound up mixing and matching the Ls and Ps. I expected big fit troubles as a result, but except for some trimming on a couple of the skins, they assembled pretty smoothly laying nice and tight to each other and the wing. The outer port side nacelle camouflage doesn't line up at all - somehow I wound up using some of the same side nacelle parts on both wings. The final product doesn't look too bad I suppose, considering how badly I messed up this part of the build.

[kenlwest]

Very clean build! I especially like the wing root fillet.

Ken

[Don Boose]

I'm glad to see that you are continuing this challenging build, Don. Sure looks great. I think that mismatched camo pattern thing is a speciality of Bohdan Wasiak Małys. I had the same problem with my Horrible Hampden a couple of years ago.
The other Don

[Fishcarver]

Lovely work, especially in the small scale! I'll follow this for sure!

Any chance that some of us might interest you in doing a tutorial on how to clean kits up using Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro?

Jim

[rockpaperscissor]

Thanks for the nice comments fellows. It IS coming out pretty nicely all things considered. Don, I really have to fall on the sword for messing up the engine nacelles. I think there's some mislabeling issues, but I definitely used the large starboard side nacelle piece (the section enclosing the landing gear) on both wings. Bhodan may have contributed a little, but I own a good 90%+ of the mistake.

Jim, I am such a rank Photoshop amateur that it would be a very short tutorial. I'd be willing to do something in the future as a learn more, though. My minimal cleanups of 1/33rd scale models look ok at 1/72 scale, but I doubt they'd hold up if printed at full size. I was lucky to get a pretty good copy of this particular model, so after scanning, there really wasn't a lot that needed to be done. At my current level of Photoshop "expertise" most older Maly's would be way beyond my abilities.

[Fishcarver]

Jim, I am such a rank Photoshop amateur that it would be a very short tutorial. I'd be willing to do something in the future as a learn more, though. My minimal cleanups of 1/33rd scale models look ok at 1/72 scale, but I doubt they'd hold up if printed at full size. I was lucky to get a pretty good copy of this particular model, so after scanning, there really wasn't a lot that needed to be done. At my current level of Photoshop "expertise" most older Maly's would be way beyond my abilities.

Don: I am a complete Photoshop know-nothing. (And, I bet that I am not alone!) Anything that you can pass on would be gratefully received!

Keep up the fine work!

Jim

[Alcides]

I enjoy a lot your "shrinking" threads Don. The Whirlwind is looking good. I'm waiting you step in the clean canopy, I'm thinking to do my first clean canopy too, so I hope to learn from your experience ;)

[rockpaperscissor]

Installment 4: Clear Bubble Canopy

The Whirlwind was one of the first airplanes to feature a bubble canopy. I've never tried to make one of these before, but I know how it's supposed to be done thanks to this forum. I don't have a vacuform machine, so I'll be using the "heat and pull method". The fixed front part of the canopy can be glazed with flat panes of plastic, so I only made a mold for the sliding part. This way, I have the flexibility of displaying the model with the canopy slid back if I choose to.

Step 1: Build the canopy with tabs outside (no tabs in this case, but I reinforced all seams with paper strips)

Step 2: Fill the canopy hollow with Sculpy, etc and bake per instructions. After baking, soak in water to aid paper removal . Sand canopy blank lightly. Note: before baking, I imbedded a screw. My intention is to screw the blank to a chunk of 2x4.

Step 3: Heat clear plastic sheet until soft and quickly pull down over canopy blank. I used a cut down plastic to-go container, and a kerosene lamp. Repeat until you get a good one. Took me only 2 tries. Beginners luck for sure.

Step 4: Cut away excess plastic

Step 5. Glue on canopy framework. I used Liquitex Acrylic medium because it dries clear, stays flexible, and sticks well to the plastic.

Step 6: Pat yourself on the back, and celebrate with a cold one. :D

I was dreading this part of the build, but it turned out to be easier than I expected. The photos below show the progression of the canopy fabrication. In the last shot the almost finished canopy is just perched on the airframe, as I still have to complete the cockpit.

[Alcides]

Wonderful job Don. The canopy looks great, thanks for remember the necessary steps.

[bob martin]

Outstanding Don.:cool: Congratulations on the canopy.:D Really looks great.:) Can't wait to see the finished model.;)

[Don Boose]

Outstanding canopy, Don. Your Whirlwind is really beautiful. You have totally captured the unique appearance of this great airplane!

Don

[shrike]

Step 6: Pat yourself on the back, and celebrate with a cold one. :D

I was dreading this part of the build, but it turned out to be easier than I expected.

Funny, I always find that patting myself on the back and and celebrating is one of the easier aspects of modelling.




The canopy looks great tho' I think heat and pull would be the right call for this scale an shape even if you had avac forming set-up.

[cMags]

Nice work on the plane and canopy. Basically the same exact method I used on my Mustang canopy (same scale). I like the idea of using a screw for holding it - I used a pen with an unscrewable metal tip to embed in the sculpey, but I don't have nearly as many of those as I do screws in the parts bin downstairs. Took me a few tries to get the plastic to pull clean and even around all sides, and stay a consistent thickness throughout the canopy, but it was cheap and easy.

I see that you baked the blank with the paper still on - I was worried about firehazard with that - the paper didn't singe I presume?

[rockpaperscissor]

Thanks fellas, I was pretty proud of myself (and surprised) when the second try yielded a good one. I'm sure the small scale of the model had a lot to do with my success. I can't imaging trying pull a large canopy by hand. The kerosene lamp worked well because all the heat was concentrated to an opening that was less that 2" in diameter - I still have hair on my fingers. The ignition point of paper is 451 degrees, cmags (hence the title of the book Farenheit 451) and Sculpy bakes at just 275, so there's really no danger. The celebratory cold one is hands down, my favorite part of the build shrike :)

[DesignR]

Thank you for that canopy tutorial with pics,... VERY helpful.