Right. For those sceptics out there. It’s off. After about a 3 year break, it’s official. I’ve restarted.
So. Where to start. Rivets. Farsands of em.
The Wokka has scribed panel lines which are OK. I did look at the accuracy of them many years ago but can’t really be bothered to re check. If I was going to rescribe them, it should have been done years ago.
What Trumpeter do and many other manufacturers is have small holes in the casting to represent rivets, which is wrong as we all know rivets are either flat or protrude. In the case of Wokkas, they protrude. I have basically got to fill them all in. Every last one of em........ my level of insanity knows no depth.......
what I am using is this stuff. It’s fab.
As the name suggests, it’s waterfill putty. You clean off the excess with alcohol when it’s dry.
When applied it looks like this.
and a completed panel looks like this
I’m only intending to do one panel tonight before cleaning it off. I’ll have to nip to the chemists tomorrow to pick up a bottle of alcohol. What should be left when I clean it off is a very neat set of white circles where the filled rivets are. Once I’ve confirmed it works OK, there is probably about a weeks work to fill it and clean off the excess.
right. Next job.
The only remaining rotors. The mrs’ fuckwit son kicked a ball at the Wokka when it was residing on her piano and smashed a set. He then tried to hide them. He is a w@nker of the first order who would now be dead if he’d smashed my heli.
Now these rotors would be fine if this Wokka was 40 years old, but it’s not. Carbon now aren’t they, which means they do not sag. That means these rotors need straightening.
Now this is a second Wokka. It was going to be a Mert in Afghan, but now it’s a donor kit for my Wokka as I need to nick the rotors.
What I plan to do is experiment with straightening the set I constructed. How I aim to do that is to steep it in very hot tap water to soften it then put a 5kg weight on top of it while it cools overnight. If I’m lucky, it will straighten out. I can then debate the construction of two new sets of rotors for it. I will explain why later.
Excited? Wait til it’s finished in about May.
next job in ten after I’ve heated a blade.