Westland WhirlWill

Wow Peter you’ve made quick work of that! Can’t wait to watch more of your model-making magic with this one! I see you’re incorporating some 3D stuff into there, interested to see how much of the build will be 3D versus the old-school techniques for making small parts…

Well, I guess I know what my next LSP build is going to be! This stuff looks great (as always) Peter. Look forward to the G-6 set too when you get around to it…

Wow Bo, this stuff looks beautiful! The working seat and throttle quadrant is just crazy! Just wondering if you have any plans to scale down your 1/24th mk I cockpit and accessories to 1/32 and adapt them to the kotare kit. I see you’ve already done a 1:32 seat and rad but seems a shame to not have a full cockpit in 1/32 given that you seem to have done most of the design work already in 1/24. Although the kotare kit is nice, I do think some of the detail in the cockpit is a bit blocky due to their decision to try and keep the parts count down. The compressed air bottles moulded as a part of the cockpit wall in particular really p!$$es me off!! let me know if you do end up doing it as I (and I’m sure many others) would certainly be interested!

Looking very nice Quang! Looks like a nice kit this too. Will

This is some next level of modelling wizardry!! Looks like you could start it up and fly it away once you’re done! Look forward to the next update…

Thanks Maxim and Matt, appreciate the comments! No problem Denis! I’m sure you will love it when you get your hands on one! Thanks Woody, that’s very kind of you and high praise indeed. Not sure it really stands up compared to the work of some of the masters on this forum but thank you nonetheless! Not too much progress since my last update but I did spend the best part of a day assembling one of Peter’s (of Airscale fame) intricate Sutton harness sets. It comes as a laser cut paper sheet and two tiny photoetch frets - one in nickel-silver for most of the buckles and fittings and one in brass for the strap ends and (miniscule) brass eyelets! It is definitely very fiddly to put together but the end result looks soooo much better than the kit photoetch belts or any other aftermarket product. My only criticism is the lack of printed stitching on the belts themselves, I think that would really take them to the next level, if it is possible given the materials used. There is a toothed corner to one of the included frets to use to emboss stitches but that was a bit beyond me when I tried it. I may yet try to paint some on though, we’ll see… Anyway, here’s what they look like put together: Highly recommended! That’s all for now folks, but hopefully more to come very soon! Cheers, Will

The rivet work and cockpit looks beautiful John but you’ve got your work cut out with the wings still to do if Andy’s picture is anything to go by! Good luck, you have more patience than me!

Thanks John, yes Roy’s stuff really is great and adds a lot of detail to what is already a nice kit! Cheers Mike! Thanks Denis! I would certainly go for the tamiya kit over the revell, budget allowing of course. I have a revell kit at home too and the surface textures and detail of the Tamiya are significantly nicer. Revell also made a few accuracy errors on their Mk IX which tamiya avoided. You also get a beautiful engine with the tamiya kit which you don’t with the revell, if that’s something you want to show off on your model. With regards to the cockpit detail I have added you are correct in that most of it is to correct the internal differences between a Mk VIII and Mk IX. Tamiya seem to have made the relevant outward changes to the airframe for this kit but kept the cockpit the same as the previous Mk IX release. If you’re looking to model a Mk IX there’s certainly no need to add anything in the cockpit if your don’t want to as it will be more or less accurate. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always more detail you can add even to the best of kits but that’s just because I’m a masochist and I like adding it even though I know that almost none of it will be visible once the fuselage halves are together! Long story short, I’d get the tamiya spit if it’s going to be a IX (or an VIII really, there isn’t a better option) as they are miles ahead of the revell in terms of textures, detail, accuracy and build experience.

Ladies and Gents, Hello again! I know it’s been a very long while since I last posted an update on this one but I’m back working on it again and slowly progressing… The cockpit is nearly done. It’s been glossed and I’ve added all the small Barracuda decals that come with the cockpit sets and a couple of extra Anyz decals, all of which went down very well. I then dirtied everything up a bit with an oil wash and it’s just waiting for everything to be completely dry before I spray it all with a coat of matt. Here the starboard side and cockpit floor are all just dry-fitted together to see what it’s going to look like. I ended up purchasing one of Barracuda’s new 3D-printed spitfire control columns as I wasn’t completely happy with how my original one had come out. I can say that it is well worth the cost and much nicer than the old cast piece or the kit parts with far more detail and all the hoses in place. You also get three in the set, so I’m good for two more spits yet! The only thing I did add was a brake wire down the back of the column made from thin copper wire. Old cast Barracuda part on left, new 3D print on right. Painted up and weathered the armour plates and compressed air bottles. Just need to add paint chips and scratches to the rest of the cockpit too now… Away from the cockpit, I also put together the engine and ancillaries, which was very enjoyable as it’s a beautiful little gem in and of its own. I am planning on detailing the engine too so this is just the beginning. I’ve got a set of Anyz 1/32 spark plugs ready to be fitted and plenty of copper and lead wiring to be getting on with. As you can see below, I forgot to add the magnets when assembling the oil tank below the engine, so had to perform some very indelicate drilling to allow me to put those in after the fact so that my cowlings would still attach to the completed engine. Luckily, my butchery should be completely hidden once installed properly. Finally I have taken it upon myself to make the wheel bays more accurate as I didn’t like the stubs that the gear legs attach to but which were clearly not present on the real thing. I ground out the cylindrical stubs, rebuilt the bay with plasticard and added the stiffeners and some of the linkages for the landing gear. I made sure to glue the legs to the small hole parts that insert in to the gear bay walls before doing all this and whilst the stubs were still present to make sure they were fitted at the right angle once the surgery is finished. So there you have it! Sorry it’s been a while, but I’m cracking on again and hope to have another update for you guys soon. cheers, Will

Very cool and very different from what we usually see here! Love it! Cheers, Will

Wow Pete, what a start, can’t wait to follow this one!

It was indeed, I’ve got it painted up as a separate part to add later when I’m putting it all together, as with the landing gear controls and a couple of other bits and bobs like the air tanks and O2. Cheers Will

Thanks for the kind comments guys, it’s good to be back working on this one again! Cheers, you’re right though, I’m sure most of it will never be seen once it’s all sealed up… Oh well! certainly question my own sanity too sometimes… Growing up I just built 72nd scale stuff - your standard airfix planes, jeeps, landing craft etc, all whipped together and finished in less than a day. Since coming back to the hobby as an adult I’ve completed one 48th scale Eduard Bf109 and started a couple of other 48th scale planes but that’s it. Decided I wanted to make something bigger so just jumped in at the deep end with this one! I’ve managed to get a bit more paint on the fuselage halves, picking out the cabling and other non-green stuff. Still needs a wash/weathering and the decals but it’s coming along…

Well hello everyone, I’m back and I’m dragging this build back from the dead with an update after many (many) months away. I’ve realised gradually that maybe trying to make an accurate rendition of a Mk VIII spit cockpit is a tougher task than I’d anticipated as I’ve found good solid images and diagrams of wartime Mk VIII cockpits very hard to find. There also seems to be plenty of great resources on restored Mk Is, IXs and Va but very few surviving Mk VIIIs in comparison… And perhaps because I’m a little crazy, once I start down a path, I feel I have to do it completely right or not at all, which has led me adding all manner of details to the cockpit that will almost certainly never be seen. But hey, as we modellers so often tell ourselves, at least I’ll know (and you guys too I suppose) it’s in there, and it has been fun to research and scratchbuild the stuff. So anyway, here’s what I’ve done. I’ve finally finished off building the cockpit details and have started laying down some paint. I already showed the port side of the cockpit but I finished off the additional wiring on the starboard side too. I added the missing stringers and sidewall detail for the next two frames behind the cockpit and scratch build some radio racks from plasticard. Of course, I also made some radios to go in them! The radios are probably not that accurate but to be honest they won’t really be anything more than the edge of a black box when seen through the rear of the canopy if they are even visible at all! I added the cross-shaped bit of metal behind the rearmost cockpit frame where the harness attaches and the antenna mast is mounted to. This was also just made from plasticard sheet. I added quite a bit of detail to the frame just behind the seat, including the landing gear warning horn (I think), as well as the elevator controls and various hydraulics. I also replaced the blocky moulded-on bits on the cockpit floor frame with more accurate representations of the sheet metal, waffle-patterned pressings that were actually there. Everything again made from plasticard sheet or rods. I spent a good amount of time detailing the compressed air bottles, which lacked the characteristic weld lines of the actual items, any sort of mounting clamps or the mess of pneumatic regulators and such that adorned the bottom of the bottles. The weld lines were stretched sprue, the rest plasticard and copper wire. Finally, I ended up purchasing the Eduard cockpit detail set as well, but only intend to use a few pieces from it as much of the set is grossly out of shape compared to the real thing. The cockpit provided by eduard is made to fit into the tamiya parts as a whole unit so the cockpit frames are too wide and too shallow, the seat armour is completely the wrong shape and other parts such as the air bottles and O2 bottle seem too small and lack any additional detail over the kit parts. I have opted to use the seat, as you can see above as my original barracuda seat wasn’t the best-cast example and I ended up snapping off every attachment point as I fiddled around with it until it looked a bit of a mess with them all glued back on or replaced with plastic are when I inevitably lost some of them. The eduard seat is nice, but out of the box the leather back pad is way too even and looks more like pressed metal than worn leather. A scalpel blade and some sandpaper took care of that… I also added the stiffening plates around the edges of the seat with stretched sprue and mr surfacer and added the armour plate underneath. I think I’ll also use the eduard compass and gunsight when I get round to adding those in but that’s about it. I’ve just started spraying the cockpit parts so here’s a quick preview pic of the cockpit sides under some interior green and aluminium… I will have a bit of time over the next few days so will definitely get another update post out very soon so see you all then! (I’ll also try and take some better pics next time as looking over these as I’m adding them in, they’re pretty terrible - sorry!) Will

Just found this project, awesome work on that engine and cockpit Craig!