Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire XIVe Conversion (Laminar Flow Design)

[Uncarina]

Nice work on that control stick John!

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Woody V]

18 hours ago, Thunnus said:

On the right is the more recent digitally printed control stick from Barracuda.

 

Is the control rod (for lack of a better term) on it hinged? 
One simply cannot believe these printed aftermarket parts.

[Thunnus]

21 hours ago, Uncarina said:

Nice work on that control stick John!

 

Cheers,  Tom

Thanks Tom!  Obviously, the Tamiya stick would need some work to get it up to snuff.  The two Barracuda sticks are pretty comparable but it was quite fiddly to drill the small holes in the older resin stick to run the wiring through.  No work done on the 3D printed version... just a coat of primer.  Not sure why the shapes of the handles are so different on the two Barracuda sticks.

 

 

10 hours ago, Woody V said:

 

Is the control rod (for lack of a better term) on it hinged? 
One simply cannot believe these printed aftermarket parts.

There is no physical hinge (small pin) but the control rod can be posed as if hinged.  When I arranged the parts for the photo, there was not enough friction to hold the 3D control rod perpendicular like the other two examples (which were glued). And yes, the detail on the 3D printed control stick is quite impressive.

[Biggles87]

I really like the look of the Barracuda sticks and plan to fit one in my (still unstarted ) PCM conversion, which now might become an F18 rather than F XIVe, I can’t decide which.

 

John

 

[Thunnus]

On 9/16/2023 at 8:36 AM, MDuv said:

 

 

If any one knows what is the purpose of the control unit behind - Correction : between the radio control box and the door access, I’m all ears.

 

My research says that the circular grey control between the radio box and door is the Type 45 gun camera film footage indicator.

 

 

[Thunnus]

8 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I really like the look of the Barracuda sticks and plan to fit one in my (still unstarted ) PCM conversion, which now might become an F18 rather than F XIVe, I can’t decide which.

 

John

 

 

Yes, I think both Barracuda control sticks look very nice.

[Thunnus]

In a bit of a holding pattern as I await some XIVe specific cockpit parts from Laminar Flow Designs.  Decided to kill some time and assemble and paint the kit instrument panel to see how it would compare with the Quinta Panel.  I started off trying to use the decals for the gauges but I had Airscale's instrument decals as well as the PE instrument bezel fret so it was dressed up with those.  And I topped each gauge with a clear acetate disc.

 

 

Obviously a lot less detail than the Quinta panel but I do like the less cluttered look of the kit panel and the superior contrast between the individual elements.

 

[geedubelyer]

Both versions look good in your hands. 

One advantage that the etch shows is in the daytime flying panel. It is much sharper and thinner than the Quinta version and more closely resembles the 1:1 item. 

Cheers.

[mozart]

The kit panel wins hands down in my humble opinion John. The Quinta one is just too cluttered. Less is more.

Edited October 28, 2023 by mozart

[scvrobeson]

I'd say that it's a coinflip either way John, but the Quinta panel does look nice with everything printed on. The kit one looks a bit thinner and flatter though, which has its own merits. 

 

 

 

Matt 

[Martinnfb]

Master builder at work. Absolutely stunning work John, super clean and ultra precise.

 

Cheers

Martin 

[MDuv]

On 10/26/2023 at 9:56 PM, Thunnus said:

 

My research says that the circular grey control between the radio box and door is the Type 45 gun camera film footage indicator.

 

 

Hi John, that’s a great find! Thanks for sharing this.

i happened to have taken delivery of the Kotare spitfire recently, and it looks it was already equipped on the MkI as well. I was thinking it was some super secret (for the time) equipment related to fighter recon mod… definitely looking the wrong way on this.

 

Great progress also on your cockpit ! I do really like better the kit part! Much neater and better definition on the details. One addition that could be worth is to picking up the instruments 4 fixing bolts. Magnification glass aid welcome.

 

Cheers

Mathieu

[Uncarina]

Nice work on that instrument panel! I wonder if the Yahu version would be a happy medium here between the kit version and the Quinta counterpart.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Troy Molitor]

The panel looks fantastic John.  Toss up between the two.  Busy is good.  lol.  

[Thunnus]

It's been a while but I think I can get back onto this build.  After starting this build, I've learned that the XIVe cockpit differs in some ways from the XVIe and I wanted to attempt to address some of those differences.  The most significant is a big control panel that resides on the port sidewall.

 

 

A rectangular box can be a relatively simple thing to scratchbuild but I personally have trouble getting square corners on boxes.  When I saw that Mathieu at Laminar Flow Design was developing a set of XIV-specific cockpit details including the control panel, I decided to wait for it to save me some work.  It took a while but I finally got it...

 

 

Like his other 3D-printed products, Mathieu incorporates a protective crate around the printed parts.  He graciously include an entire spare set and I found that the spare set was definitely needed.

 

 

Here are the parts still attached to the base but with the protective walls removed. Many of these parts are super tiny and lots of patience and care needs to be taken when removing the parts for use.

 

 

I tried to be careful but I still managed to lose and/or break a few parts.  Mathieu includes two copies of the especially small or fragile parts in each set so sometimes I had four copies to work with. I needed all four removal attempts to get a complete throttle lever detached without breaking!

 

 

After the parts were freed completely from their printed supports, I glued together the sub-assemblies. These included the pilot door and crowbar, throttle quadrant, landing gear control quadrant, cylinder priming pump. The control panel, waffle-style foot guards, canopy crank and a small trim wheel are stand alone items.

 

 

The parts were given a light coat of primer (Mr Primer Surfacer 1000).

 

 

I've got a lot of Spitfire cockpit stuff from Barracuda as well so I'll to sort out which bits I'll be using.  One of these is a resin seat with the backrest cushion, which looks to be a nice upgrade from the kit parts.