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Second project: Tamiya Spitfire Mk IXc - FINISHED


Sepp

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Ahoy!

 

With my first build now progressing well, I've decided to make an early jump into number two - namely, Tamiya's lovely Mk IXc, plus bits and bobs from Barracuda, Eduard/Brassin, Master, Yahu.. and possibly others by the time I'm done. Paint will be Vallejo and possibly some Xtracrylix for the fiddly bits. Markings will be a mix of kit and other decals, and painted.

 

Without further ado, obligatory box shot (which I remembered this time :P ):

 

f27rij.jpg

 

It will be a present for my dear old ma, who loves the Spit.  Originally, I wanted to represent EP120, which was the Spitfire on display at Birmingham Science Museum... my poor mom spent hours and hours there when I was a little kid, while I just gawped at it in awe. However, I've recently been digging into the history of mom's side of the family (dad's I can take back to well before we came to England with William I on holiday in 1066) and I've had long conversations about my maternal grandmother, who I never knew. Her name was Eva Pritchard and her birthday was 10 Feb. A quick look at Robertson's British Military Aircraft Serials suggested that EP102 was never issued, so I decided that this build would remember Eva instead.  The spurious code JL-C reflects my son's initials; mom dotes on him, too.

 

SrOHwf.jpg

 

The style that the "Eva" inscription takes may change by the time I'm done, but for now, this is where I'm headed.

 

Sepp

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  • 2 weeks later...

Small progress:

 

IP and stick assembly done, except for the addition of some brass piping on the left hand side.  Added a couple of black cables to the front of the stick. There should be three, but it looked too crowded. At least there's something there.

L04CTo.jpg

 

Unfortunately, the lovely Barracuda seat broke in transit; after some deliberation I decided to use the kit seat but with the pad part of the resin seat grafted onto it.  It's not perfect but as I wanted the padding there and the finished article won't have to suffer the torches and magnifying glasses of show judges, it's a reasonable compromise I think.

q3kdJ7.jpg

 

Currently sending myself mad with HGW's fabric harness. I'm using the RAF QS harness (set #132503) rather than the Sutton (QK) for this build. Insanely fiddly but very satisfying to do and it'll be well worth the effort, I think.

l3FrMV.jpg

 

That's all for now!

 

Sepp, out.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Sepp
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  • 2 weeks later...

More (slow) progress):

 

fptOZs.jpg

 

lAUGxO.jpg

 

LSgtFu.jpg

 

Not much to show, I'm afraid, but it all adds up.  I'm not going to add any detailing to the engine, just a black coat - ditto rough green/silver on the frame - as the cowling will be buttoned up.  Now waiting for some cockpit placards to arrive ... if the weather (and light) improves, I'll swap back to the Mustang build and start on the markings. If not, I might start on the Spit's wings.

 

Sepp

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ahoy!

 

Although moving at what can only be described as a tectonic pace, I have made more progress!

 

Cockpit tub finished - added at least a representation of a throttle cable which, unfortunately, you can't quite see in this pic.

 

XnZK6W.jpg

 

Fuselage buttoned up.

 

tuSkhV.jpg

 

Started work on the wings, and couldn't resist a trial fit to the fuselage. Putty manufacturers aren't going to make a fortune out of this kit - the fit is, so far,  excellent. Just a trace along the spine so far.  Gun blisters are by Barracuda and only required a tiny bit of sanding to reduce the thickness of the leading edges to get a pretty much spot-on fit.

 

emfAgR.jpg

 

I'm going to finish assembling the wings, then take a break from this to make more progress on project no. 1.

 

That's all for now but I'm looking forward to getting back here; I'm really enjoying this build. :)

 

Sepp

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  • 5 weeks later...

Ahoy!

 

Now that my first build is finished, I've resumed work on this bird.  Wings and fuselage are joined and all the minor sub assemblies have been built up.

u79AyJ.jpg

 

I had intended that the next step would be to polish the (very minor) seam off the sliding prt of the canopy and get all the transparencies masked up and sprayed - but as I've cleverly mislaid the supplied masks, that will have to wait until replacements arrive. So, what next? Well, it seems the expression "the devil makes work for idle hands" has some grain of truth in it...

 

Looking at the left cowling, it seemed a shame that the scoop/intake/cover had blank ends, so out came the tiny drills and I opened them up - front:

plEIlo.jpg

 

and back:

pLckJc.jpg

 

I didn't want to risk deforming the shell, so the lips are still quite thick, but I'm going to keep tweaking the apertures with the tip of one side of the yellow tweezers you see, as they are half-round in profile, until I get cold feet.  Given that Tamiya give you a separate part for the similar thing on the top cowling, I'm surpised this detail is just a blank bulge. It's large enough to warrant a separate part, I reckon.

 

Whilst looking around for something quite unrelated, I stumbled across Wolf Buddee's mind-bendingly magnificent build of this kit that exists elsewhere on these forums. Still in need of something to occupy me and suitably inspired,  off I went at the deep end... first the riveter came out, wielded with far more enthusiasm than skill, then I added braces made from 0.5mm tube. I crushed the ends with the flat cheek of a side cutter and added 0.5mm dia fixings punched out of 0.3mm styrene sheet:

FAjJZG.jpg

 

Once it's set up, I might try to improve the lie of the flat ends... or I might wimp out - as usual, it looks much better i.r.l. than in the macro, and a good job too! :P

 

I've added semi-circular brackets for the actuators to attach to - but I currently have precisely no idea at all how I'm going to make them. One thing I think we can all be assured of - they're not going to be the 11-piece wonders that Wolf came up with!  Of course, all this is pointless fun - the recipient of the finished article will never look in here... but it's all good practice, I suppose!

 

That's all for now - I need to go have a long think about push rods and U brackets, lol.

 

Sepp

 

 

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Well, I managed to cobble something tgether. It's agricultural and only its mother could love it but once it's under paint and hidden under the wing, at night and with the lights off it'll look OK  :P

 

U brackets are strip scavenged from the frame of a previously used etch set, bent round the end of a steel rule. The top rods are cut down spare wing hinge pins.  I used 0.7mm brass tube for the, er, tube and the discs were punched from styrene sheet of various thicknesses. 

stbqcy.jpg

 

Other renditions I've seen all terminate the actuator on the cowl body itself but this would put the rod that connects them (either to the lever on the left of the pilot's seat, which my build has, or the later wiggly amp controller) outside the wing - so mine extend just shy of 2mm above the body and so terminate just below the roof of the radiator housing, and inside the wing:

6P4hIC.jpg

 

I'll hold my hands up and admit that I didn't check before installing the actuators but fortunately there's just enough room for the part representing the radiator face to fit behind them. Phew!

 

I'm still not happy with that brace on the left... it may have to go although it does look OK in the flesh.  Anyhoo, my replacement canopy masks have arrived so I guess that's this afternoon sorted, while I ponder the gun heater ducts.  Why do we do this to ourselves? :mental::lol:

 

More later,

 

Sepp

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

A busy couple of weeks have put the Spit on the back burner, sadly, although I did find some time the other day to look at the canopy handle and emergency release ball.

 

The etch handle looks very flat, so I added a grip using a tiny sliver of Tamiya tape:

T4Ka70.jpg

 

Next up, the release ball.  first idea was to use the end of a Lego lever/aerial thing:

a2hVOD.jpg

 

but that was waaaay too big and I didn't fancy trying to either cut or sand it down to size.  So - fine wire from the wrapping on a bottle of what was a very decent Rioja, bent into a hook to hold a tiny roughly ball-shaped blob of Mr. White Putty. No need to make a perfect sphere - I let the rough shape set then added a dab of neat gloss varnish and surface tension pulled it into a ball. Neat :)

apmtaR.jpg

 

After that dried, I applied a thin coat of Tamiya clear red and:

lVHrk1.jpg

 

Voilà!  For some reason it looks a bit balloon shaped in the pic, but it is actually a nice, round, ball. 

 

Next up - undercarriage legs and start getting paint on things.

 

Sepp.

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been working away at this on and off since the last post, so time for an update...

 

The gear legs have had some attention. 

 

I started by making the precharge safety rod thingies from 0.3mm tube threaded through 0.5mm tube fastenings, and opened up the holes in the uplocks

RGXnuj.jpg

 

Drilled out holes to receive the end of the brake pipe behind the hubs, joined the legs and gear doors, and after some paint and bmf for the oleo made the main part of the brake lines from 0.4mm tube through 0.6mm tube for the fitings, and tamiya tape for the straps.

8lzCt4.jpg

 

Added 0.4mm lead solder for the flexible lower part of the brake pipes, and after some paint we have this:

hyyqel.jpg

 

To avoid endlessly knocking them off, I'll add the upper flexible hose just prior to fitting the legs to the wings. 

 

None of this is in any way accurate, but it's better than nothing or the kit's rubber parts!

 

The prop and spinner have been painted, gloss coated and decaled.  I used HGW's wet transfers - I love the system, but they have some issues with registration.  The ones I used on my P-51 were perfect, but the second set of those I bought were hopelessly out of register. These are a little better, but still required some careful touching up with a small brush to hide the white backing.  Some random white and blue ... bits, for want of a better word ... transferred from the backing sheet. Very odd.  They were eventually edited out, too - I noticed after I took the pic that I'd missed one (right hand blade, next to the white decal).

tdHnQb.jpg

The hub can stay black as the spinner won't be removable.

 

O0UDoK.jpg

Some of the spinner decals broke up - if you use these wet transfers, wait patiently for the decals to separate from the backing. If you attempt to coax them, they'll break up or come away from the transfer film.  It was no problem to touch up the affected ones using a small brush.

 

Then it was on to proper, actual painting!

 

Underside first - not shown, it's grey. What can one say about that?  Then dark grey upper and roughly masked with film and Blutak sausages along the edges.  My first go at attempting a feathered edge.

HViy0I.jpg

 

And after the dark green:

zaW3ge.jpg

 

There's some overspay, some patches that are fuzzier than I'd like, and some harder edges than I'd like... still, a good learning experience and I think I'll be able to pull the errant bits back into line.

 

I'm gong to let it cure for a while then look at restoring the bits that didn't work.  Then I'll leave it a day or two before giving everything a gloss coat and starting on the yellow leading edges.

 

It's slowly starting to come together! :)

 

All for now!

 

Sepp

 

Edited by Sepp
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Two small steps forward:

 

Firstly (and it really is a tiny step!), the red ball now has a home behind the canopy handle:

G40TCG.jpgQeXxKl.jpg

These pics show better than the previous one that the ball really is nicely spherical.  The ball ought to attach to wires that run round the outside of the canopy though various tube sections to just in front of the triangular fillet at the rear. I may, or may not, add them as (1) the smallest tube I have is 0.3mm, which looks very oversize and (2)  I don't want to risk getting adhesive on the transparency and ruining it.  I've left a short wire tail on the ball that runs up to the transparency just in case... we shall see.

 

Secondly and finally, all bagged up for a white coat on the leading edges before the yellow goes on:

Xn61iN.jpg

 

and out from under the wraps:

luFuV9.jpg

 

There's just these three very small patches to touch up where the paint came away with the Tamiya flexible tape, but nothing soul destroyingly bad:

MoalJK.jpg

 

Next up: day fighter band, then serials.

 

That is all,

 

Sepp.

Edited by Sepp
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