Kotare Spitfire Ia

[Archimedes]

Very nice Sepp!
 

kind regards,

Paul

[rsanz]

Very nice progress and great detailing.

 

Note that for a Mk.I operating before late 1941, the oxygen hose was attached to the pilot's mask and plugged into a round fitting with a triangle base high up on the front starboard side of the cockpit (on part B13). But what you're doing would almost certainly correct for very late production Mk.I AR213 later in its life.

[Sepp]

8 hours ago, rsanz said:

Very nice progress and great detailing.

 

Note that for a Mk.I operating before late 1941, the oxygen hose was attached to the pilot's mask and plugged into a round fitting with a triangle base high up on the front starboard side of the cockpit (on part B13). But what you're doing would almost certainly correct for very late production Mk.I AR213 later in its life.

 

I did say there would be anomalies  

 

The oxygen system, as provided on the model, is a bit of a mystery.  The bayonet fitting and associated single low-pressure line is, as you say, provided (red circle).  This system only had a stop cock on the bottle itself - however, the kit also depicts the later additional stop cock (source for both: Air Min. pub AP1565A) (cyan circle) and economiser with the low pressure feed to the mask (yellow circle). 

 

Supermarine dwg 30063/3 shows the later system (note lack of bayonet fitting and different high/low pressure feed lines at the fwd end of the system):

 

Given the somewhat hybrid provision of the details, I went with just adding the "missing" front end of the flexible hose - simply as an exercise in making one.  If I'd modified the system to properly depict one or other of the systems, I just know that I'd've wound up removing all the moulded-in detail and scratching everything, which is not where I wanted to be with this build.  (Having said that, I may yet go back and add the loop in the high pressure line, which is currently omitted).  I've mounted the end of the flex hose similarly to a pic I have of a mk V; as this will likely end up as a non-existent Spit in a non-existent Sqn, flown by a non-existent pilot, I'm putting it down to an "experimental modification"

 

Cheers, and your interest is much appreciated!

 

Sepp

Edited August 28 by Sepp

[dennismcc]

Really nice highly detailed work going on here, most impressive.

Just for info this is what the late Edgar Brooks wrote about the oxygen hose business.

There was no oxygen hose, since the pipework went round to the upper left of the instrument panel (no. 25,) then back behind the panel, appearing through the right "leg" of the bulkhead, and climbing up to  just under the gunsight spare bulbs, finishing in a bayonet fitting beside the remote contactor. The pilot's hose was attached to his mask, and plugged into the bayonet fitting, often with a clip on the cockpit wall to keep clear his vision of the panel. This caused several casualties, due to pilots baling out in a hurry, and forgetting to disconnect the hose; at best, this kept him attached, at worst, it broke his neck. This is why later Marks had a wall-mounted hose, which plugged into the mask, and just pulled free.

 

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

[Biggles87]

For someone who knows less than an amoeba about Spitfires you’re doing a tremendous job with the cockpit. I can’t remember seeing the wiring to the voltage regulator behind frame 11 added before now.

John

[Sepp]

1 minute ago, Biggles87 said:

For someone who knows less than an amoeba about Spitfires you’re doing a tremendous job with the cockpit. I can’t remember seeing the wiring to the voltage regulator behind frame 11 added before now.

John

 

I assure you, I'm very much in "monkey see, monkey do" territory

[Sepp]

Ahoy!

 

Well, it's been a while (as usual) - but there has been progress.  I was going to post some pix showing how good the fit is - but, er, I uploaded them to my PC, went to make a coffee and then deleted them before posting them to Imageshack  ... besides, I have nothing to add that hasn't been said by everyone else who has built one of these.  One pic remains, so you might as well see it!

No filler is needed on the wheels, the seams just had a quick polish. Superb.

 

After much umming and aahing, I've decided that I'll finish it as Canfield's bird, but in late April/early May, when he was still a Flt. Lt.  The serial number is from a black-out block from a Spit order, as I didn't want to use the Defiant serial used in the film.  It should wind up something like this:

 

I wanted to paint the major markings, so first thing was to find mixes for the red and blue that came close to the kit decals.  After several trials, I wound up with these (there are two blues on the chip, I went with the left one):

 

Not exact, but close enough for me.  Red is 3:2 Vallejo 71.085 Ferrari Red and 71.080 Rust.  Blue is 10:1 71.091 Signal Blue and 71.275 USAF Medium Grey. Yellow and white are out-of-the-bottle Golden Yellow and Insignia White (the latter is a horrible paint to spray).

 

Masks made up for markings and intermediate "blanks":

 

Ah - on the subject of masks... @LSP_Kevin  You asked about markings a while ago.  I've made progress on several variants:

Square 24-inch, 8x5 with 3-inch stroke,

 

Rounded, ditto, and

 

 

Rounded 24-inch, 2x1 with 3-inch stroke.  There's still some work to do (I found a better way do do some of them), and I want to add more variants - then I'll convert them to Silhouette masks and upload them to the masks site.  They can also be used as 8-inch tall with 1-inch stroke or 48-inch tall with 6-inch stroke, by scaling.

 

I managed to correct the throttle quadrant - the plunger came away no problem.  The pitch control is clunky, but my mk 1, thinner, lever just would not stay stuck.

 

Finally - paint time.

 

Underside:

The data plates in the wheel wells are Airscale and are sorta like the ones found on the Spit at Cosford.  Sorta... if you look at them in a darkened room.

 

Painting roundels is new to me, and there seems to be a lot of discussion about painting them first or last... so I experimented with both.  First on the fuselage and fin (the random tape is holding foam blocks to protect the underside paint while I'm faffing around):

The mask is hooj to make sure the roundels would be positioned correctly (or at least, the same!) on both sides of the fuselage.  You can just make out, I think, the tags I included to help with vertical alignment.

 

I also sprayed and masked the walkway lines before adding the camouflage,  then I added the upper roundels, serials and finally the code letters.  I opted for white codes à la BoB film:

 

I took some liberties, in that the codes on the stbd side ought to be CD-E rather than E-CD, but with a spurious serial number comes a spurious construction number, which I can partly hide behind the "D".

 

---

 

Incidentally - some may not be aware that if you want to see some more footage of the BoB aircraft, out-takes and unused footage was included in a Czech film "Dark Blue World"; the "hero" aircraft were painted with BoB codes and serials to match. 

 

---

 

I'm away for a few days, which will give the codes time to set up.  Next job will then be to attend to the inevitable boo-boos and bleeds.That's all for now - thanks, as always, for looking.

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

Edited October 1 by Sepp

[Out2gtcha]

Excellent!

[Greif8]

Beautiful work Sepp.  You did a great job masking and spraying the markings.

 

Ernest

[dennismcc]

Very neat, looks great.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Sepp]

No update, but a question for the knowledgable:

 

What colour should the top and rear surfaces of the fin be (where the rudder 'mates')? Camouflage or natural aluminium/silver dope?  Ditto the horizontal stab.

[Greif8]

On 10/7/2024 at 1:08 PM, Sepp said:

No update, but a question for the knowledgable:

 

What colour should the top and rear surfaces of the fin be (where the rudder 'mates')? Camouflage or natural aluminium/silver dope?  Ditto the horizontal stab.

 

I am no expert Sepp, but when I recently built my Kotare Spitfire I looked at a lot of photos and they showed that the interior structure of the areas you are asking about were aluminium.  

 

HTH,

Ernest 

[Sepp]

1 hour ago, Greif8 said:

 

I am no expert Sepp, but when I recently built my Kotare Spitfire I looked at a lot of photos and they showed that the interior structure of the areas you are asking about were aluminium.  

 

HTH,

Ernest 

 

Thank you, Ernest.  I initally went with "the adjacent external surface colour", but then had doubts.