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1/18 Spitfire Mk. XIVe - Race #80


airscale

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It's certainly worth the time to double check the orientation when working with overlapping panels.

 

IIRC, the first production run of the Austin Mini in the early '60s became notorious for flooding the interior in wet weather.

A fault which was corrected by overlapping the front underside of the central body shell with the forward engine compartment bulkhead pressing.

It was originally built in the reverse order, creating a forward facing open seam with water being driven in between the spotwelds.

 

A rear view of the F6F Hellcat fuselage also illustrates the 'forward panel should always overlap the rear panel' school of thought.

 

Still trying to figure out how your replicating the look of the piano hinge is accomplished, as it looks very convincing.

Edited by Chek
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Check,

 

Thanks for sharing those shots of a FRIX here earlier even though that's not what Peter is making here.

 

I'll use those for when I modify the extra fairings that are meant to be used under the wings that come with the Alley Cat Spitfire PR XI conversion for making the FRIX "Violet Dorothy" on that decal sheet I made reference to earlier.

 

Still looking amazing Peter keep it coming!

 

Cheers,

Brady

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My question may be redundant, but has the structure of TZ139 been modified since being in military service?  The reason I ask is that I started an FR.XIVe conversion from the Tamiya XVI, and it has stalled - primarily because I couldn't work out whether the camera bay would be sealed with a bulkhead as shown in the photo above, or open.  As the FR.XIVs didn't have pressurised cockpits and only sideways camera ports, they would be performing low/medium level reconnaissance missions and the pressure and temperature difference wouldn't be as great as higher level photography.  My references show that the FR.XVIII did have bulkheads separating the camera bay, but it was also built with vertical camera ports for high level photography.

 

If the structure is unchanged from her service days, the image answers my question perfectly, so I now have to find other reasons to procrastrinate:)

 

Jens

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Jens:  From my very close-up of the real TZ138, it would be very difficult to tell if the camera area had been modified but grom working on structures , I would have say No.!  We had an interesting evening  going over the aircraft and I wish that I had taken more photos.

 

Barney 

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afternoon folks :)

 

 

The overlap effect is amazing Peter! Yet again you are holding the torch to light my way forward with the B-17 :) I love that hinge too.

 

Craig

 

 

thanks for tuning in Craig - can't wait to see what you do with the B17. I am learning about overlapping the panels - things like really thinning the edges, bevelling the run-off of the lower panel (making them oversize in the first place), marking the panel line of the panel that will sit over it etc..

 

 

It's certainly worth the time to double check the orientation when working with overlapping panels.

 

 

Still trying to figure out how your replicating the look of the piano hinge is accomplished, as it looks very convincing.

 

Hi Chek - thanks again for the info - on the overlaps, the science was taken out of it as monforton actually details the overlap situation for every single panel! As I said, the best $29 I ever spent :) All I did was look at the overlaps and work backwards to the first panel that must have gone down..

 

..as for the hinge, I just did another one so will explain how it is done..

 

 

Peter:  Here is a close-up of the camera hatch on TZ138.  Hope this helps

 

Barney

 

 

Hi again Barney :) your pictures certainly do help, this one is really useful for seeing the size of the port as a proportion of the door - I could not get this right without this cool stuff so thanks again :)

 

 

My question may be redundant, but has the structure of TZ139 been modified since being in military service?  The reason I ask is that I started an FR.XIVe conversion from the Tamiya XVI, and it has stalled - primarily because I couldn't work out whether the camera bay would be sealed with a bulkhead as shown in the photo above, or open.  As the FR.XIVs didn't have pressurised cockpits and only sideways camera ports, they would be performing low/medium level reconnaissance missions and the pressure and temperature difference wouldn't be as great as higher level photography.  My references show that the FR.XVIII did have bulkheads separating the camera bay, but it was also built with vertical camera ports for high level photography.

 

If the structure is unchanged from her service days, the image answers my question perfectly, so I now have to find other reasons to procrastrinate:)

 

Jens

 

 

Hi Jens - what you can see in the pic is not a bulkhead, but the back of the fuel tank - this sits in the upper fuselage between the seat and the door - as you say I suspect a high altitude version would be fully sealed (I know the front bulkhead in front of the instrument panel was added in that version, so it follows there must have been a rear one to seal it all up..

 

 

..the start point today is the fin fillet panel - a horrible one-piece form that curves in many directions not least of which a concave one as it follows the fuselage up into the fin.

 

..as I would have to form the panel over the model I needed a smooth surface as otherwise it will deform and follow any ridges or panels so I tried to fill where I could to support it..

 

the top fuselage panel seen here (with the wonky rivets) ended up getting damaged during later forming as I had annealed it so it went all soft and disfigured..

 

WIP1073_zps1qncqmrm.jpg

 

..this is the first of three attempts, they kept splitting on the leading edge, or had too many creases to knock out - eventually I used a thicker material (thanks to LSP member Dicas - I think it was tin sheet from Portugal) and a balsa block with a deep vee cut into it to work both sides of the sheet downwards over the leading edge at the same time, then it was a matter of tapping out the creases..

 

WIP1074_zpsjeerkxpz.jpg

 

..after a LOT of work I ended up with a basic form from which to trim the fillet shape..

 

WIP1075_zpsdljywbe7.jpg

 

..after a LOT MORE work, I finished shaping and applying the fillet - then it was a case of adding the fasteners. A neat trick to get equal spacing across an odd length is to have a sheet of lines and cut to an angle that matches the number of spaces you need, between the start and end points - then just tick off the marks..

 

WIP1076_zpsmjsc0e3f.jpg

 

..and the finished fillet - there are a few marks I can't seem to shift so we will just have to put that down to 'hangar rash..'

 

..the best part of two days bechtime went into it..

 

WIP1079_zpsbcdagaio.jpg

 

,,after that it was the lower fuselage panel that has a cutout for a hatch - this needed a piano hinge so for those I score a sheet of litho with closely spaced lines (mid-left), a strip is then cut and folded (bottom) and a slot is cut in the fuselage to hold the strip (top)...

 

WIP1077_zps0mi1nif5.jpg

 

..then the door and hinge were added, but straight after adding those, I made the lower panel itself.. I left the door cut-out scored, but in place until I had rolled the sheet to take a curved form..

 

WIP1078_zps3fvajaic.jpg

 

..and all of it fitted in place.. I have to be acreful not to remove the scoring on the hinge when I clean up the surfaces with wet n dry and wire wool..

 

WIP1080_zpszdljfyij.jpg

 

..after clean up, I pretty much can't go any further forward as I get into panels that go over where I cut out a section to get to the cockpit..

 

WIP1082_zpss0zzechb.jpg

 

WIP1081_zps4gtixrqy.jpg

 

..looks like I am back in the cockpit next and that will take some time to get sorted :)

 

TTFN

Peter

Edited by airscale
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Super result Peter, and thanks for the hinge forming detail.

 

Good work on the fin base fairing. As I pointed out in an earlier anecdote, even the full sized version required an extremely experienced craftsman to form it.

And yet it appears to be such a simple thing ... until you try to replicate it.

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