Monday 3 October 2011

Westland Scout - per ardua ad ardua

I had this model as a kid and had hours of fun with it; in fact I bought two - the second to replace the first after it made hard contact with the floor....and a year ago I picked up No.3. I glued it up last night. Good Grief! How did I manage to construct two of the little sods as a teenager? The title of this post reveals my feelings......

However, I persevered. So, here is a series of pics showing progress. I didn't take any of the early stages as I was too wound up with Airfix glue fuelled frustration...





Note the gaps and generally poor gluing work; I began to remember the same problems as a kid...I then realised, this one was GREY. The ones I'd made as a kid were GREEN. And I'd already glued the pilots in. Also, the skids were threatening to collapse and the rotors didn't fit in my storage. Time for PLAN B.



Plan B:
1 Paint green, EVERYWHERE! - I will pick out the perspex out in silver. No decals - it can be any Scout, anytime, any place, anywhere.

2 Lose the rotor spindle and balance them on when using (or blutack them) or if its a crash, just prop them at an angle.

3 A pair of plastic washers glued to the hull base provide "lift" to about 2mm off the ground, still low enough to look as if its landed and take weight off the skids.

It's not finished but not much too do. Hopefully it will appear in an AAR in the near future but probably not airborne......

"This is Whisky Sierra Three....we are going in hard....
Mayday.....Mayday...."

Cheers
Maff


 

3 comments:

  1. looks good there, pal. I really am also surprised at how easy these things seemed to be to build when I was a kid. I had countless 1/72 and HO scale tank models and can barely sit to assemble one now.

    -Eli

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  2. Good work so far! Just be glad that it is not a Russian model. Those things are horrible and gaps that make the Grand Canyon look small.

    Joe

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  3. Good progress there. I have heard that this kit is a pig to build and I now see that it is true.

    Well done on the recovery.

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