scvrobeson Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 Happy to see this one back John. Missed your builds. Looks like a great cockpit upgrade to address the differences that you need. Matt Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckT Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 Wow, really fine details. Looking great! Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbo59 Posted December 4, 2023 Share Posted December 4, 2023 Excellent update! Now I want to build one. Preferably a high back. Martinnfb and Thunnus 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 21 Author Share Posted April 21 Hello LSP community! It's been a while since I've spent meaningful time at my modeling bench but I'm getting that urge again. Not sure what project I want to continue on at the moment but as I'm contemplating, I thought I'd crack open the Spitfire build again and try to re-orient myself. I left off exploring the 3D-printed cockpit upgrades from Laminar Flow Designs. I'm trying to mix the Tamiya XVIe cockpit parts with the LFD XIVe-specific upgrades and adding Barracuda resin on top of that, where applicable. As usual, I am not going to claim great accuracy with what I'm doing but will use the resources that I have available to make a reasonable facsimile of an XIVe cockpit. One of these resources has been previous Spitfire builds, most notably NGBZ's VIII build from 2020. From what I know, the XIVe cockpit is based on the VIII and Gary's build does a great job of capturing some of those differences with some help of Vincent K's past scratchbuilding work. Of course, there are differences between the XIVe and VIII so I have to pay attention to that too. I started modifying the Tamiya kit parts to accommodate the LFD upgrades. The biggest change is the big electrical box that needs to be added to the port sidewall. Some surgery is needed on the kit part to make room for the electrical box. After making most of the necessary modifications like moving the voltage regulator, making a jackplate for the gun camera film footage indicator out of sheet styrene and filling in ejector pin marks, I've tacked the rest of the port sidewall components into place just to get a feel for the wiring that I'll be adding later. There is a big fuel tank directly behind the seat, which will block the view off from the seat bulkhead to the rear. This will limit visibility into the rear bottom area of the cockpit so I'm not going to bother with trying to replicate the flying control linkage wires that run under the pilot, which I was previously considering. I've done similar modifications to the starboard side, which features a resin sidewall replacement from Barracuda. My plan is to separate the cockpit into subassemblies... the port and starboard sides as presented above, the instrument panel/cockpit floor and the seat/rear bulkhead. Once these subassemblies are assembled and painted separately, I'll put them together as the fuselage halves come together. JayW, scvrobeson, Landrotten Highlander and 22 others 25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 Great to see you back, John! Kev Martinnfb and Thunnus 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 Also glad to see this again as I can continue to make notes for my PCM conversion. The Laminar Flow cockpit parts look superb, especially the throttle quadrant and gear selector. Looking forward to more. John Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Molitor Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 We're in for another treat. Welcome back John. Martinnfb and Thunnus 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayW Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 YAY!! Looking forward to re-following. Looking very cool so far. Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scvrobeson Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 Very happy to see you back at the bench John. I hope that Winter was good to you. Good to see the Spitfire back on the bench, the mix of detail parts look really sweet Matt Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cycling Guy Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 Welcome back - I hope your time away was well spent. Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greif8 Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 I just finished looking through your build thread John. Your work amazes as always due to your high skill level and standards. Ernest Martinnfb and Thunnus 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 23 Author Share Posted April 23 On 4/20/2024 at 11:09 PM, LSP_Kevin said: Great to see you back, John! Kev Thanks Kevin! It's great to be back! On 4/21/2024 at 6:40 AM, Biggles87 said: Also glad to see this again as I can continue to make notes for my PCM conversion. The Laminar Flow cockpit parts look superb, especially the throttle quadrant and gear selector. Looking forward to more. John Thanks John! I totally agree about the LFD components... great upgrade! On 4/21/2024 at 8:07 AM, Troy Molitor said: We're in for another treat. Welcome back John. Thank you Troy! Appreciate the welcome! On 4/21/2024 at 8:48 AM, JayW said: YAY!! Looking forward to re-following. Looking very cool so far. Thanks Jay! Gotta catch up on yours and all of the other great builds here! On 4/21/2024 at 9:30 AM, scvrobeson said: Very happy to see you back at the bench John. I hope that Winter was good to you. Good to see the Spitfire back on the bench, the mix of detail parts look really sweet Matt Thank you Matt! Winter was very good to me but its good to be back on the modeling bench again! On 4/22/2024 at 6:22 AM, Cycling Guy said: Welcome back - I hope your time away was well spent. Thank you! My trip to Central Asia is always a high point of the year so yes, it was well spent. In addition to the mental decompression and jetlag, I have to sort through 4,000 photos and process them, culminating in a slideshow that I prepare and post on Youtube. On 4/22/2024 at 6:47 AM, Greif8 said: I just finished looking through your build thread John. Your work amazes as always due to your high skill level and standards. Ernest Thank you Ernest! I'm gonna put this one on temporary hold as I wait for some replacement parts from Mathieu at Laminar Flow Design. In the meantime, I am going to take my talents to 1/48 scale and start a new project on the Non-LSP board. Shoggz, JayW, Biggles87 and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azgaron Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Excellent work so far John! Looks very nice! Håkan Thunnus and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted May 26 Author Share Posted May 26 The Tempest II is done so I can get back to the Spitfire XIVe! One of the reasons I put a pause on this build is that Mathieu at LFD informed me that he had updated the cowling for the XIVe conversion and was sending it to me. It was worth the short wait. I love how Mathieu incorporates a rectangular cage around the printed arts, protecting them during the shipping process.It looks like he sent me the entire conversion set and an additional goody... thank you, Mathieu! Also included is this new 3D-printed instrument panel. I was most curious about this so I decided to take a closer look. As you may recall, I have two previous version of the panel already. One is the kit panel, slightly modified with the addition of Airscale instrument bezels to give more 3D relief to the panel. The other is the Quinta panel, which is incredibly detailed but I don't like the "pillowed" look around the edges of the parts. The LFD panel, which is comprised of three big parts and a couple of small levers, looks very promising and may be superior to the previous two if I can paint it adequately. Here is the panel mounted onto the front cockpit bulkhead. Mathieu thoughtfully included the wiring loom on the left side. But I chose to work up a scratch-built alternative using bits of styrene and copper wire. I'm slowly familarizing myself with this build and working very slowly. I'm trying to identify sub-assemblies that can be glued together prior to painting. The Barracuda starboard sidewall and modified kit port sidewall have been glued into place. The bubble top XIVe has a canopy crank on the starboard sidewall that needs to be utilized, which forgot to include in the last mock-up of the starboard interior. LFD has a crank replacement in its cockpit set so the kit crank is trimmed off and replaced with the new one. Dpgsbody55, denders, JayW and 13 others 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scvrobeson Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Good to see that the project is back up and running. I'm sure this one will be just as spectacular as the Tempest Matt Thunnus, Fanes and Martinnfb 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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