SH Tempest Mk V "Kicked Up A Notch". January 14/21 New eBook!

[Out2gtcha]

Lovely! Nice work so far for sure. I prefer my pits a little dirty depending on theater, but the attractiveness of the int green and black makes the slightly cleaner version super attractive.

[turbo]

Great start Chuck, looking forward to this...

[dodgem37]

Good stuff.  Nice and neat.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Rick K]

Hey Chuck a great start on this.   Love the rescribing and pit work.

 

Ace Maker gyroscope gunsight. 

 

If you happen to have Roy's BR32011 Spitfire Upgrade Part II this has the Ace Maker gunsight as well as Barr & Stroud.  I swiped the Ace Maker.  Trust me, this gunsight is a little gem.

This is Roys Acemaker Gyro gunsight i used om my Mk.V Tempest.  I used the supplied SH PE reflector shade.

 

Go to my WIP page 3 and scroll down for more build details. 

 

Also check how I worked the wheel well fit my WIP page 2 there will be issues when you fit completed wing to fuselage...well at lest for me.   I assembled all the wheel well parts on the upper wing in lieu of instructions calling out assembly on lower portion.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Rick K

[Marcel111]

Wow that cockpit is looking stunning!

 

Marcel

[scvrobeson]

I think the Mk. II kit comes with the other gunsight options.

 

 

 

Matt 

[chuck540z3]

On 6/22/2020 at 9:46 AM, Rick K said:

If you happen to have Roy's BR32011 Spitfire Upgrade Part II this has the Ace Maker gunsight as well as Barr & Stroud.  I swiped the Ace Maker.  Trust me, this gunsight is a little gem.

This is Roys Acemaker Gyro gunsight i used om my Mk.V Tempest.  I used the supplied SH PE reflector shade.

 

Go to my WIP page 3 and scroll down for more build details. 

 

Also check how I worked the wheel well fit my WIP page 2 there will be issues when you fit completed wing to fuselage...well at lest for me.   I assembled all the wheel well parts on the upper wing in lieu of instructions calling out assembly on lower portion.

 

 

Thanks Rick for the tips!  Yes I do have it since I used the other gun-sight in my Spitfire build, but I'm not sure which one I'm going to use yet, because the kit resin one is pretty good too.   I also have some gun-sight parts from my P-51D build, so I will likely mix and match the best of each like you did.  FWIW, I've built one of these before in my P-38L build, but the front pad is much different.

 

 

31 minutes ago, scvrobeson said:

I think the Mk. II kit comes with the other gunsight options.

Matt 

 

Thanks Matt and you are correct.  If you look at the second post on the prior page, I have the instructions for same and the correct mounting bracket, which is Part J21, which is also in this kit.  The instructions for this kit have omitted how to mount it, probably because you need to drill two small holes at the top of the instrument panel, to match the Mk II Tempest instrument panel.

 

Thank you everyone else for your words of encouragement.  This build may be slow, but I think it will turn out pretty good if I keep plugging away.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited June 24, 2020 by chuck540z3

[skydivin]

Great build as usual...have a glue question.  I noticed your assembled cockpit shows absolutely no excess glue around joints etc.  I never seem to have that luck.  Do you touch up paint after gluing to even everything out or do you use magic Chuck glue  that always looks perfect?  Super impressive.

 

Rod

[Anthony in NZ]

On 6/25/2020 at 8:09 AM, Marcel111 said:

Wow that cockpit is looking stunning!

 

Marcel

 

Could not have said it better!  But then we have come to expect this of Chuck, nothing short of superb

[chuck540z3]

Thanks Guys.  I'm home again, so I should have an update sometime this week.

 

7 hours ago, skydivin said:

Great build as usual...have a glue question.  I noticed your assembled cockpit shows absolutely no excess glue around joints etc.  I never seem to have that luck.  Do you touch up paint after gluing to even everything out or do you use magic Chuck glue  that always looks perfect?  Super impressive.

 

Rod

 

Thanks Rod.  My "Magic Chuck Glue" is usually ordinary CA glue with this methodology:

• While I use Tamiya extra thin cement on unpainted parts, CA glue is better for painted parts, because it won't craze the paint.
• I try not to use too much glue or it might show, but when it does, I have a dry micro-brush on hand to wipe up any excess, which doesn't damage the paint.
• While CA glue is clear, it's also shiny, so excess glue will be visible.  To eliminate the shine, I spot spray Dull Coat on these areas, which usually eliminates any evidence of glue.
• Yes, now and again I touch-up glued areas with paint on a brush.  This is very effective when I sometimes also want to eliminate gaps and other flaws, using the CA glue as a filler and the paint as a cover.

 

HTH,

Chuck

 

 

 

[skydivin]

Thanks for explaining Chuck's magic glue.  Another tip to keep.  - Rod

 

[chuck540z3]

July 1, 2020

 

Happy Canada Day!  Not that happy these days?  Either am I, but we all truck on, don’t we?

 

Steps 13 to 16 on Page 6 of the instructions are all a blur of assembling the resin seat, adding HGW fabric seatbelts and getting the entire cockpit assembled into one unit before installing it into the front fuselage halves.  Here are Steps 13-15:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I did anything, however, I dry fit the resin seat to the cockpit cage, since seat supports I59 and I71 have variable angles, so it’s better to glue them to the seat installed than after the fact.

 

 

I found this fit to be a struggle, since the lower seat support I79 didn’t fit the seat very well.  After many dry fit attempts, I wound up gluing the seat from the bottom, despite the poor fit.

 

 

 

 

Despite this, it looks OK.

 

 

 

 

But you can see that the seat was glued a bit higher than the tabs on the sides, exposing them slightly on the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

I then painted and detailed the seat according to a few references, then added the HGW fabric seatbelts.  The top of the seat was painted the same canvas color as the belts, the cord at the top was picked out with brush paint and the seat was heavily worn by dry brushing brown paint over a black base.

 

 

 

 

The seat belts were also heavily worn, by wrinkling them and adding oil stain pastels to add staining.  The belts included in my kit were a bit of a mixed bag.  While I appreciated the fact that they were already pre-cut, which is a big bonus to other HGW belts I have used, the stitching on them was almost nonexistent.  These belts are almost identical to the “Late Spitfire” belts I used on my last build of a NA Harvard, so I already had instructions to compliment the kit ones.  I recommend you find these instructions on-line before attempting assembly, which was done entirely with CA glue.

 

 

 

 

I posed the shoulder harnesses a bit high to separate them from the bottom, since they can be pushed upward over the seat back on the real deal.  Excuse some of the belt "fuzz" that has since been removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recommend you don’t glue the “towel bars”, Parts I67 and I70 into place before you add the belts, because the clearance behind the bars is barely enough to allow the seat belt hardware to pass through.  The end of the shoulder harness should be glued to the inside of the upper seat support, I71.

 

 

 

 

Seat glued into place, which is quite a complicated feat with all the other parts of the cockpit cage fit and glued at the same.

 

 

 

 

For wiring, I added only one line from left throttle to the rear.  Only one!  First of all, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of super obvious electrical and hydraulic lines visible in the references I have, as found on a Spitfire.  Most of the cables are tucked underneath.  Second, as you will soon see below, you won’t be able to see much of it anyway, so why bother?

 

 

 

 

 

Step 16 has you add the instrument decals, which I’ve already done.

 

 

 

 

But I also added the Mk II Gyro Gunsight, mounted on Part J21, used on a Mk II Tempest.  2 Holes were drilled at the top of the instrument panel to accept the gunsight mount.  For the gunsight, I used the kit resin one, but the glass and overhead shade were sourced from my last Tamiya Spitfire build, because they were more solid than the kit PE and thin acetate glass.  Decals for the gunsight were sourced from Barracuda for this same kit.   Here’s a bit of a walkaround.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main reason I added the gunsight now, rather than in Step 40 as per the instructions, was to ensure that the gunsight would fit under the windscreen.  It does, but barely, so make sure you mount the gunsight at the very front of the mount.  The windscreen also fits poorly and isn’t molded very well, so it will need a lot of work to get it installed and glued cleanly.

 

 

 

 

Now a bit of a disappointment.  With all the work I did in the cockpit, you can barely see any of it from the top with the fuselage halves together.  At least the Spitfire has a big door that is left open to peek inside, but from the top, this is all you see, which is very hard to photograph.  Oh well, at least I know it’s all in there, which is why I didn’t bother with a lot of wiring that will never be seen, especially from the top angle.

 

 

 

 

 

On to Steps 17 to 27, which includes the new Barracuda nose assembly.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited July 1, 2020 by chuck540z3

[dodgem37]

Pretty stellar work, Chuck.  Great show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Dpgsbody55]

Great work, Chuck.  It's a pity so much of it is covered up.  At least we have to photos in this build to admire and inspire.  I was going to suggest that the Airfix Typhoon might provide some ideas for the wiring, but that idea is probably redundant now.  Looking forward to more progress on this.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited July 2, 2020 by Dpgsbody55

[scvrobeson]

The cockpit looks very good all put together. I'll have to remember your tweaks when I get around to mine.

 

 

Are there not cockpit access doors on the side like on the Spitfire, Hurricane, and early Typhoons?

 

 

 

Matt