damouav Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 Hey Chuck, I havent been around much as I have been busy with work/life outside the temple of modeling aka my model room. Your build has come along considerably since I last droped in, saying "well done" feels cheap in comparison to what you have done (I woke up and writting this at 3am). Thank you again for taking time to capture your build, I learn so much from your dedication to post the details of each build stage and your projects in general. All the very best. Damian chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted June 23, 2018 Author Share Posted June 23, 2018 (edited) June 23, 2018 Well, it's raining on a Saturday afternoon, giving me the perfect opportunity to do a few things to push this build down the road a little further at its glacial pace! Like most who build this kit, I'm going to paint the fuselage without the engine attached for ease of handling, but if there are any fit issues, the time to fix them is now. The other thing I want to explore is the fit of the cowlings, since I have noticed in other builds that the fit is usually not great and I added the Eduard PE brass plate dampeners to the cowling frames, which likely made it worse. I expected that I would, but I'd rather have this detail since the engine will be displayed most of the time, if not all of the time. First, the fit of the engine firewall. Not great. In Step #55, the instructions tell you to attach the engine, “so that the cowling frames match the fuselage shapeâ€. I'm not sure how they expect you to do this, since the cowling frames are already glued to the firewall and they really can't be adjusted any more. Note the gaps at the bottom and the angle that the engine fits to the fuselage parts. In my case, it's possible that there was some user error along the way to cause this problem, but I have no idea what it might have been, since the parts appear to fit in a certain way without allowing for adjustment. In any event, there is a fix. By cutting and sanding down the rear firewall and cross brace beneath it within the fuselage, you can correct this problem. It isn't pretty, but it will never show later anyway. After at least 100 dry fits with adjustments in between, the engine fit looks good now with good alignment at the back of the firewall and cowling frames along the curvature of the wing. In preparation for the next steps, I sanded down the top of the firewall slightly for the top cowling and deepened the grooves for all cowling tabs at the front of the engine. One problem I did create was to add the brass Eduard plate over the kit metal plate used for the magnets. The top cowling fit isn't bad and with a little adjustment and sanding underneath it, I can make it fit better. The side cowlings are only so-so, partly due to the loss of magnetism with the brass plates covering the metal underneath it. The bottom cowling could use some adjustments as well to reduce the gap at the top of it. To fix the loss of magnetism to the side cowlings, I ground down the very small kit ones then glued larger ones on top of them, making sure that there was still clearance to the cowling and engine frames. This really helped to adhere the cowling to the engine sidewall. The bottom cowling comes in 3 parts, with the intake made of 2. According to many pics of this cowling in the Montforton book, the middle and rear seams of this intake should be filled, in this case with CA glue. I suspect that the fit of the cowlings is problematic for most, because in the 5 builds in Brett Green's book, Brett didn't use them at all (or show them), while the other builds either glued the cowlings in place or when they were used, the fit is only so-so. I had some trouble with the cowlings on my Mustang build as well, but not as bad as this kit. With some fiddling, trimming, sanding and many hours of work, the end result can go from this…. To this… There's no use playing with the panels until the engine is solidly glued to the fuselage, so that will be a few months from now. With the engine alignment corrected, at least now I have a chance. Till the next rain (or snow) storm! Cheers, Chuck Edited June 24, 2018 by chuck540z3 BloorwestSiR, A-10LOADER, Gazzas and 10 others 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantomdriver Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 I hear you Chuck...,my own modelling hiatus is now 2 years! yep... same here... hopefully in a few weeks once my cave is finished it will end........... chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 Some nice demonstration of ways to work out fit problems, mate. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocat Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Great work on the fitting of those panels, I like the idea of larger magnets :-) chuck540z3 and BloorwestSiR 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peterpools Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Hi Chuck Glad you are inside for a day or two and discussing the cowling fit issues and how you solved them. Much appreciated. Keep 'em comin Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloorwestSiR Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Great problem solving Chuck and thanks for posting all the pics of how you did it as well. I think the cowl fit is hit or miss. Of the eight I've built, four still have removable cowls and two have a decent fit and toe have a couple gaps. The ones where I didn't use an engine are similarly split too. I still haven't figured out what made some go together fine and others be slightly off. Your post sheds some light on that so I'll keep it in mind whenever I get to my next one. Carl chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GusM Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Wish you'd posted this a few weeks ago Chuck. I'm just finishing up the mk. XVIe kit and ended up losing most of the engine detail and gluing all the covers on because of the alignment issues at the firewall. The screw that attaches the engine just doesn't seem to have enough clearance. At least they fitted in an acceptable way after all the hacking about. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted June 24, 2018 Author Share Posted June 24, 2018 (edited) Great problem solving Chuck and thanks for posting all the pics of how you did it as well. I think the cowl fit is hit or miss. Of the eight I've built, four still have removable cowls and two have a decent fit and toe have a couple gaps. The ones where I didn't use an engine are similarly split too. I still haven't figured out what made some go together fine and others be slightly off. Your post sheds some light on that so I'll keep it in mind whenever I get to my next one. Carl Wish you'd posted this a few weeks ago Chuck. I'm just finishing up the mk. XVIe kit and ended up losing most of the engine detail and gluing all the covers on because of the alignment issues at the firewall. The screw that attaches the engine just doesn't seem to have enough clearance. At least they fitted in an acceptable way after all the hacking about. Thanks everyone and also for the feedback above. Based upon my experience and what I can find on the 'net, cowling fit is a problem for most modelers. Although I have seen some pretty good examples of cowlings over a detailed engine, I can still find many gaps that shouldn't be there with my critical eye. I am certain that is why many pics of this kit show either no cowlings or maybe one or two fit at a time- and almost all shots are from some distance. One tip I can offer when trimming the firewall is to use some masking solution on the back of the engine to see what is touching and what is not. That way you can work on the high spots rather than other areas that down't need any more trimming. Cheers, Chuck Edited June 24, 2018 by chuck540z3 Gazzas, Rocat, Lucio Martino and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandy 1 VX 4 Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 Chuck for me, checking my clearances we use washable ink markers at work. draw it on and test fit the part. sand where transfers across. If need to, reapply and do it again. When done just wash it off with water Kais, Rocat and chuck540z3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Maxim Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 Nice work and really good explanation re the fix. I had read that the panels on the Spitfire were troublesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted July 20, 2018 Author Share Posted July 20, 2018 (edited) July 19, 2018 Well Boys, this is "Goodbye", sort of. For a bunch of reasons that don't matter any more, I am taking my work back over to ARC where I started these build threads about 11 years ago. I started posting here about 4 years ago and I have enjoyed just about every minute of it as I learned a lot from the very best model builders there are anywhere. If I named those I would like to thank, I would forget and exclude somebody, so I won't even try. I will miss most of you, but it's not like I'm leaving the planet. To those I crossed swords with recently, I'd like to apologize and shake your hand. Life is too short for conflict, especially in a hobby we all should be enjoying. For those who might want to see this build to completion, and I am not recruiting anybody, the ARC link can be found below. 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire Mk IXc, "Kicked Up A Notch" at ARC Happy Modeling and Cheers, Chuck Edited July 20, 2018 by chuck540z3 Christoffer Lindelav, A-10LOADER, Rocat and 1 other 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Sorry to see you go Chuck, but understand why......Harv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Whaaat.....Noooooooo Whatever has happened, you appear very gracious. Your work is very inspiring and I want to say 'thank you' from the bottom of my heart for your posts here. I try to limit going onto other forums as I just dont have the time to go through them all. However I will go to ARC to follow this (and any others you do) through. Thanks again, you will be sorely missed Anthony scvrobeson and chuck540z3 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Matt Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Good luck over on ARC and thanks for your LSP contributions in the past. They've been really enjoyable. All the best Matty chuck540z3, scvrobeson, MikeC and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts