1/72 Pavla/Octopus Seafire Mk III with Skyfarer Intrusions

[CedB]

Hi Alex - sorry to hear you're not feeling well and I hope you're better soon.

Sorry if I've opened a can of worms here... it's quite possible / likely that headrests were fitted when catapults were introduced to stop the poor chaps banging their heads on the armour. I've tried zooming in to PC's image and there seems to be something there? Hard to tell.

I think your idea of pressing on and maybe adding it later is a good one!

[The Spadgent]

Wonderful attention you are lavishing on this here build Alex. I would have gone banonkers pages ago. Gone it seems are the days of kit, glue, stickers and paint. Hell, I used to follow the Tamiya instructions to the letter. I barely look at them these days. You are an inspiration.  hope you feel better soon dear boy.

take it easy.

 

Johnny.

Edited January 22, 2017 by The Spadgent

[AlexN]

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I find those binary situations where two different photo references give contra-indications to be one of those points in modelling that mirrors the uncertainties that historians themselves must encounter, writing as they do something which is a construction via discourse, and based upon not just surviving evidence, but also at times involving the use of inference and probability.

 

One thing I've learned regarding paint-schemes and a whole load of other structural issues is that apparently clear cut descriptions in reference books about what left the factory do not always match the modifications and alterations that subsequently took place on the front line, as a result not only of operational experience, pilot preference etc. but daily wear and tear over the lifetime of the aircraft. 

 

Running up up against such issues always reminds me that the historical record appears a much calmer and retrospectively-ordered representation than the frequently dynamic and chaotic experience of those events were for the original participants.

 

Tony

 

Nicely and succinctly put analysis of 'The Gloss of History', Tony! One is apt to forget that history is the sum of myriad events and interactions, seeing only the overview or salient landmarks. Your post above also brought to mind Asimov's concept of Psychohistory.

 

I did manage to find the reference to the clipped-wing treacting tailwheel Spitfire of 1940: it was N3297 and was a production-line conversion of a Mk I to a Mk III and flew on 15 (the Ides of) March 1940 at Castle Bromwich. It became the first prototype for the Mk IX (F IX) with standard wingtips re-added, more powerful Merlin and a 4-bladed prop.

 

I will do some further searching for photos, since I have exhausted my meagre collection of two Spitfire/Seafire books. Maybe you can never have too many Spitfire books, either. I'm hoping to find some more information from the three extensive Seafire pages from the ArmouredCarriers.com website, already referenced near the beginning of this thread (although on that occasion it was regarding the cockpit door). This website seems to make use of a lot of stuff from the Crowood Seafire book, but by no means all.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

[AlexN]

4 hours ago, CedB said:

Hi Alex - sorry to hear you're not feeling well and I hope you're better soon.

Sorry if I've opened a can of worms here... it's quite possible / likely that headrests were fitted when catapults were introduced to stop the poor chaps banging their heads on the armour. I've tried zooming in to PC's image and there seems to be something there? Hard to tell.

I think your idea of pressing on and maybe adding it later is a good one!

 

Thank you for your kind thoughts, Ced . The 'orrible 'eadache wot I woke up wiv this morning was most likely the result of not enough cups o' tea yesterday. Although the cold was still making its presence felt as well. A bit better this evening, but still somewhat groggy and clagged up.

 

Yes, I can imagine the complaints from the pilots - not only was the aircraft barely landable and the barrier would then try and kill you (and did), but the plane went and banged your head  on take-off. Luckily for the pilots the early-used RATOG units were found, while successful at their duties, to be too much of a deck hazard - the (incoming) Seafire by itself was bad enough. Don't worry about the can of worms:the worms have proved to be very interesting .

 

 

2 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Wonderful attention you are lavishing on this here build Alex. I would have gone banonkers pages ago. Gone it seems are the days of kit, glue, stickers and paint. Hell, I used to follow the Tamiya instructions to the letter. I barely look at them these days. You are an inspiration.  hope you feel better soon dear boy.

take it easy.

 

Johnny.

 

It's entirely possble that I went (more) bonkers pages ago, myself - and haven't noticed yet. Ah, the days of glue, stickers and paint - the last plane that I built from those sorts of days was the 1/24 109 - back in March 1972... I may exaggerate, it could have been the 1/32 Revell Raiden in 1973. Great kit, that: it built itself, more or less. Since that year, kit completion became more and more difficult - which is partly why I'm determined not to let this wee beastie defeat me!

 

Thank you for your kind wishes, too. Tomorrow is another day, as they say in the Classics (or one of them at least), and I'm hoping to be able to do more than just poke about on the internet.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

[TonyTiger66]

10 hours ago, AlexN said:

If a certain country wishes to make Arm Erika, Elizabeth 'n' Everyone Else great again, I suggest that they look into the risble gouging by the country-of-export's international freight companies vis-à-vis said country's inability to export (rather than, say, tooling up to blast the rest of us into meat sauce). We are not amused

 

That particularly eloquent rant has given me the best laugh I've had in weeks Alex !

 

TT

[AlexN]

Only too happy to oblige, Tony - I'm glad that you found it funny . I actually went back and toned it down (pun not intended) a bit since I didn't want to get banned (I'm still very unhappy at what happened recently to a certain excellent modeller from these parts). I preferred the original by a country mile but it was a little too venomous.

 

I skittered off into another (related) rant, but decided to squelch it, perhaps for another post if it becomes appropriate.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

[AlexN]

You can never have too many photos of Spitfires. Or Seafires:

 

On 22/01/2017 at 14:50, Procopius said:

Seat armour seems to be present here:

 

 

 

I can convince myself that there is a just-visible headrest in this photo, viewing it on the 27" iMac. Just. Looks as though it's a Pacific aircraft too. Note the absence of the canon stub on the Seafire wing - a specific modification for the Seafire to reduce drag. Some aircraft also had the outer .303 MGs removed, too (to reduce weight, the other enemy of flight). The flap indicator panel is also in the 'up' position (flaps down - close to 100 % by the looks). Thanks are due once again to @Procopius (and Madeleine).

 

Anyway. Sunday was a washout as predicted; Monday also, since we were attending the funeral of the Boss's last remaining uncle (he lived to the ripe old age of just several weeks shy of 91, and died peacefully in his sleep). I did actually manage to get some stuff done on the Seafire yesterday, untilI the blasted cold made its present felt again .

 

Here's what did I get up to. I tried fitting the smallest Evergreen plastic rod into the PE armour plate - too big. Then I remembered the recently-acquired Albion Alloys 'brass sliding fit microtube set':

 

1. Albion Alloys brass 0.4 mnm micro tube and armour plate: 0.4 fits through the bolt holes very neatly

 

Albion Alloys brass 0.4 mnm micro tube and armour plate by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. Microtube and armour plate again: 'bolt' problem solved . Although rather big for the bolts at scale, it is getting closer to the knurled-nut size at the plate front: a bit of 0.6 mm tube and some filler should sort that out

 

Microtube and armour plate again by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

3. F12 (F11) and armour plate, before filing away the arch in F12/11. According to the Crowood book (via the barely-legible 'free' version on Scribd) on the Seafire it's actually Frame 11. I am inclined to trust Crowood on this (and will henceforth, therefore, be calling what I have hitherto called 'Frame 12', 'Frame 11'):

 

F12 (F11) and armour plate by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

4. F11 meets a Perma-grit riffler. Run away! Run away! Far too coarse for the puir wee thing. To be fair on the Perma-Grit file, it is intended for fine work on r/c planes 1/10 and bigger...where they excel!

 

F11 meets a Perma-grit riffler by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

5. Home-made file and some jeweller's files: the home-made one is simply sandpaper contact-glued to some K&S 3/16" or 1/8" brass tube. It didn't fit between the arch and the clobber on the mid-frame cross-piece

 

Home-made file and some jeweller's files by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

6. F11 after shaping with oval and round files. It was more very gentle scraping than actual filing, though. Not perfect, but neither is the original part. I also used the tip of a no. 11 scalpel blade to speed and neaten things up a bit. Surprisingly, the pencil marks for the bolts holes are still partly visible

 

F11 after shaping with oval and round files by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

7. F11 and armour plate, now with a suitable gap for the Sutton Harness. I had the devil of a time trying to get the plate to line up properly and stay on station: it skated about like anything. At least my latest clamp discovery (Sellotape) helped keep F11 in one spot and stable...

 

F11 and armour plate, now with a gap for the Sutton Harness by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

8. Vac-formed canopy parts for the Seafire. I got them out to fit one to the fuselage to check F11's height, but decided that I was too lazy and used a bit of handy plastic rod instead. Looks as though I will need to add a bit back onto the tippy-top of F11 to get it snug under the aft fixed canopy

 

Vac-formed canopy parts for the Seafire by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

Follow the following link to my Seafire flickr album blah blah blah...

 

 

That's all for the moment. I have a bit of gardening to do today (planting out the large of plants that we have acquired for the Boss's New Garden Bed^TM) so may or may not have the energy to get to the Seafire later on.

 

After an Abebooks (also, curiously, owned by Amazon.com) search as suggested by the Boss, I found a couple of copies of the Seafire book that I just ordered form the US via its gouging and scalping freight companies at HUGE expense, available from the UK, where the postage from is much more reasonable. (I do have an amazon.co.uk account (well-used) as well, but haven't been able to convince them that I have changed email addresses, yet, which affects my use of said account.) Oh well, they have 'Mike' Crosely's They Gave Me a Seafire available from the UK, so I will see if the Boss (who uses ABebooks all the time to acquire research material) needs to get something from the UK, too. The canonical 'Spitfire' book 'bible' (can't remember its exact title, or author(s) at the moment) is way out of my reach, sadly.

 

I'm not even sure what I will be doing on it if I do get the opportunity, my brain still being somewhat cold-fogged, but I'm sure that something will occur to me in situ.

 

Cheers,

Alex.  <-- also cold-befuddled

Edited January 25, 2017 by AlexN
Added, edited, corrected and clarified stuff - as usual

[bbudde]

Oh, hello Alex. Befuddled? Cold and foggy? Good morning and good night from Münster.

Edited January 25, 2017 by bbudde

[AlexN]

Describes the state of my mind - muddled and fogged by a cold (achoo!).

 

Good night to you in Münster from here in Blaxland .

[TheBaron]

Nice progress with the plastic and brass Alex.

Tony

[AlexN]

Thank you very much, Tony . It's getting there, slowly.

 

I did wonder if there was a half-finished kit that I could haul out and play with while I'm still under the influence of the totally unexpected cold (I still think that it was a germ that got on - then off - a plane from the UK). The most likely candidate was the Tamiya 1/35 Landrover Ambulance (no photo etch!). On fiddling about with it, I came to the same conclusion that made me put it to one side previously: the tricky assembly and painting - or rather, painting and assembly and painting - of the medical part of the vehicle.

 

It's mostly flat white with a semi-gloss dark green floor, and by the look of it, I had been having a difficult time with a rattle can of Tamiya white, without first having put on a coat of primer onto the balck-green plastic.

 

Also, I found that the steering column had snapped off again, about the third time I think. I measured the column thickness with a view to replacing it with brass microtube: at a bit less than 1.1 mm on not the not-removed moulding seam side, it meant that I could use some 1.0 mm Albion Alloys tube. But that also put the seal on this kit as 'too hard at the moment' - much bigger than the Seafire, but almost as difficult in my current state.

 

So I put it back in its box, and will return to the Seafire undistracted by another model; the Skyfarer is in hiatus as well, awaiting the renewal of my fuselage alignment jig:

 

1. Melamine-coated particle board for fuselage jig: the three lengths of timber next to it are for its very simple base

 

Melamine-coated particle board for fuselage jig by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

That's going to be a bit of effort despite its apparent simplicity, since I will be scribing a 50 mm grid onto the board, with 5 and 10 mm guide lines around the centre of the board. My memory of doing the last one was that it was not easy. I won't be using a Stanley knife to do the scribing this time, though .

 

I think that the next Seafire step will be the attaching of the head armour poate, but that will need the return of full mental focus (or such as I have) before I go anywhere near that. At least the temperature has cooled down for a bit (today only got to much 24.6 ℃!), although it will be back up into the low 40s early week.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by AlexN
Replaced the snap placeholder with the snap, and the usual tidying up

[TheBaron]

40 minutes ago, AlexN said:

Also, I found that the steering column had snapped off again,

Snap! (Literally..) Mine fell out the Barra onto the bench at some stage yesterday, I've a very small 1/72 search team scouring the desktop while I'm at work.

[AlexN]

Oh no! Er, 'snap!' indeed (my favourite card game, in fact  - I suspect that that says a lot about my psyche). Hopefully those searchers are all in one piece, not dragging about minus various limbs, heads, etc. They would be spending most of the time looking for their owm missing bits... Good luck with the search. And thanks for the Slater's tip, via your Barracuda thread! Love the cutting block by the way - what sort of wood is it?

 

Cheers and good luck!

Alex.

[TheBaron]

3 hours ago, AlexN said:

what sort of wood is it?

IIRC Alex it's Mexican pine, from an old bedstead that got recycled for the chicken and duck houses. I'll double-check when I get home this evening.

 

That Slater's stuff is superb - I've a pack of microstrips and one of microtubes that live permanently on the bench now.

 

Tony

[AlexN]

I have pinned Staler's website for future action, thanks once again Tony .

 

Mexican pine? Hmmm. Nice wood, whatever it is (there are a number of Pinus species that rejoice under that common name, as is usual with common names, which is why a Latin binomial is far and away more accurate. Well, ALWAYS accurate (unless there has been a taxonomic revision - not uncommon these days with the ease of using DNA-based cladograms to map species; both a 'lumpers' and a 'splitters' delight...sorry, technical jargon there ).

 

I am a keen collector of interesting wood (much to the Boss's annoyance, and worse by the fact that I can now use a chainsaw ) - about as keen a collector of wood as I am of kits and large-scale r/c plans... For example:

 

1. Waxed ends of some cherry branches. Bit of discolouration (spelting?)  in the centre: time will tell whether this - or how much of it - will be any good or not. Note the very thick (corky) bark

 

Waxed ends of the cherry branches by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. 'Norwegian pine' stacked on the loading wharf, Holy Loch, Sandbank, 25 June 2016. I almost had to be physically restrained from going to watch - so had to be content to watch from the window and take snaps instead...

 

&#x27;Norwegian pine&#x27; stacked on the loading wharf, Holy Loch, Sandbank by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

3. Sticked wood pile behind the aft end of my self-built (from plans) 8' OzRacer Mk II dinghy. This is in fact the first few feet of the pile: there is quite a bit of wood in this. Raw-milled, the larger bits need slicing up and/or thicknessing

 

Sticked wood pile by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

4. Another view of the sticked wood heap and the mid-aft part of the OzRacer cockpit. The boat got a thorough cleanup inside and out not long after this snap was taken. The milled/dressed bits of wood on the right of the snap is mostly Douglas fir, Western Red Cedar and eucalypt, and some common-or-garden Pinus radiata

 

Another view of the sticked wood heap by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

5. Frame capture from British Pathé film of the Seafire in operation: note the headrest. The mid-longeron fishplate and radio compartment stiffener plate suggests that this is a Seafire Lx. Mk III. This capture was made when I was investigating the cockpit door some time ago. I'll have to go back to the original video in my uchoob account histrory and see how many exhaust ejectors this aircraft has per side (six small ones means a Mk III)

 

Frame capture from British Pathé film of the Seafire in operation by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

6. Setting up to cut 1.5 mm lengths (approx.) of 0.4 mm brass tube: 0.2 mm nickel silver ROD for internal support; 0.6 mm tube used as a length stop. I don' t currently have any 0.2 mm tube

 

Setting up to cut 1.5 mm lengths (approx.) of 0.4 mm brass tube by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

7. Ready to cut the fIrst short length of tube. Single-edge razor blade placed against the 0.6 mm tube and the 0.4 mm tube cut wih a rolling action. Didn't take long to cut through!

 

Ready to cut the fIrst short length of tube by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

8. First length of tube cut, using the single-edged razor blade. Apologies for the poor focus

 

First length of tube cut by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

9. More obviously-liberated length of tube. Apologies again for the poor focus in this and accompanying snaps. Don't know what the problem was - apart from the camera not focussing

 

More obviously-liberated length of tube by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

10. Three armour plate support blanks. The drill bit was used to push the shortened tube back out of its larger support/length stop

 

3 armour plate support blanks by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

11. Four cut tubelets - in focus for once. I actually cut seven or so, to take account if the inevitable attrition that will occur with at least the first two attempts to install them in F11. One of them was lost to the floor monster

 

Four cut tubelets - in focus for once by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

12. Four very short 0.6 mm tube pieces. Less than half a millimetre, these will be used to widen the 'bolts' to simulate  the knurled nuts that hold the head armour plate in place. 0.8 mm tube used as the length stop. Getting them off the 0.4 mm support is going to be the real trick: this is very much an experiment. If I can't get the rings off, I will simply cut the 0.4 mm tube at the required length and use them instead - might in fact be better to cut straight to the chase...

 

Four very short 0.6 mm tube pieces by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

Follow this link to my Seafire flickr album...

 

 

I spent rather too much time faffin' about looking for snaps of the wood pile. This included  having to lever open the iPhone 7's Otterbox so that I could extract the SIM to put into the iPhone 5s which had the snaps - after I had looked through the iCloud snap galleries on every other Apple device... I'm not sure that it was worth it. Nice to see some of the Scottish Trip snaps again, so I included a couple of them as well. I came across the British Pathé frame in the process of looking for the wood heap, which was a real bonus (I still have to check ewechoob - and it still probably isn't a Pacific Seafire).

 

By the time I had cut the four thin slivers of 0.6 mm tube - which seem to be firmly stuck on their 0.4 mm mandrel - I was feeling decidedly , so called it a day at that point.

 

It doesn't look much, but the initial very simple sums required and the tube cutting are and advance. I just need to be in a very sharp state to do the drilling in F11 for the 'bolts: these need to be in exactly the right positions and in exactly the same planes for this to work. In metal-working, a tap holder - or a CNC machine, drill press or lathe - could be used for this task, but at the size that I am working at here I am set up none of these (yet). So, this won't be tonight. Maybe  tomorrow. I'll see.

 

Cheers,
Alex.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by AlexN
Added stuff about the thin rings; spelling/typos

[CedB]

Great tip on cutting those small tube bits Alex and they're impressively even in size - good job!

Good find on the Pathe clip too, definitely confirmation on the headrest and apologies for the diversion  

[AlexN]

Please don't apologise for the diversion, Ced - if something's wrong, it's wrong and no amount o' wishing is going to make it otherwise .

 

Thank you also for the kind words - the tube support was based on my experiences with bending tubes in r/c (using a bowden cable insert), general tube cutting, and what I've read here on BM. All synthesised for your greater enjoyment .

 

Off to dinner now. Feeling a bit wobbly .

 

Cheers,
Alex.

[AlexN]

Sadly, the Seafire above has three exhaust ejectors per side . Back to the searching.

[TonyTiger66]

Great work with extremely fine tubing Alex  . The photos are fine, especially given the sub 1mm size of the tubes in question.

 

I can visualise this now. How on earth you do this in this scale is beyond me, the holes on the headrest are just tiny, to make individual bolt heads....well, my eyesight  isn't up to that!

 

Do you use a magnifier of any kind to help you with the fine work?

 

Its great when a thread has a 'potters wheel' type intermission.

 

New knowledge (for me) and good for the old noggin. The wood photographs and information were worth the photo searches . 

 

I hope you can shake this cold; might be worth seeing a doc? it's been rearing it's head often now  .

 

I'm relatively closer to your Blaxland abode today; in Jamberoo. Spent last night (Friday) in the  rather splendid, very characterful pub/hotel here.

 

Established in 1857 it has an extremely 'Traditional British Pub ' feel about it. I haven't found many 'family friendly' old pubs like this in Oz, so it has been a very happy experience. Mrs. T surprised me by saying (in a happy way) that she had never been to a pub like this in her life!

 

Needless to say a couple of glasses of VB, some Pinot Grigio, Nachos with beef and sauces were consumed last night. I know that you can't partake, but I had one for you anyway  .

 

Off to buy a car (again) today in North Nowra. Lovely part of the world this...new to me.

 

Looking forward to your next instalment, only when you feel a bit better .

 

All best regards

TonyT

[AlexN]

Hello Tony,

 

Thank you for your kind words - I'm feeling better today, fortunately! Just in time for a really hot day . I think that this is a separate cold than the one that I managed to shake off eventually at the end of last year. It's a bit of a worry: I was expecting my health to improve up here, not get worse! I've seen the doctor on so many occasions that it almost isn't worth going: not because she's a not a good doctor, but because of my weak constitution. I have been doing work out in the garden as a fitness-level-raising occupation, but that hasn't seemed to help either. What I would really like to be able to do is go and live by the sea again. In Adelaide.

 

I hope that your car-hunting went well. The whole South Coast is a lovely region (including the Bega cheese factory, yum yum  ) - and so conveniently close to Canberra. I wish we had the time/opportunity to visit it again, but sadly, it is too far off our Adelaide route(s) for our limited time-budget (The Boss is now an Associate Dean of School (formerly Faculty), so time is even more crimped ). And of late, road trips have been replaced with 2-hour flights. I can feel an irrational rant (with a rational basis, i.e., the so-called 'quality of life' in current times) so I had better desist forthwith.

 

Coming home from rehearsals on the M4, I see a sign up saying "Jamberoo Action Park- only an hour away!". Our daughter went there on a school excursion to one of the big tourist attractions at Wollongong: . She loved it. I love staying in Australian country towns. I lived by myself in the Bush while working on a farm for six months, after I finished my music degree, and loved that, too: many many years ago now...

 

The trick to any and all of the above (modelling) activities is my 2.5-ish times 'General' head-magnifiers. Without these I would not be able to have done any of it; I also use them for reed-tying and scraping, and metal work, and...:

 

1. 'General' head magnifiers. What I would really like is a 20 x (miminum) dissecting microscope...

 

&#x27;General&#x27; head magnifiers by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

I have been immersing myself while not feeling the best in the Armoured Carriers web site. This is thoroughly recommended to those with only even a passing interest in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy (the Royal Oz Navy had one too). And those who haven't. I found some interesting footage of LF Mk IIIs along the way:

 

2. Seafire - getting aboard. Note the eucalypts in the background - FAA seafires on Australian soil

 

Image © British Pathé

Seafire - getting aboard by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

3. Seafire - good view of seat armour plate. Well, a corner of it, anyway

 

Image © British Pathé

Seafire - good view of seat armour plate by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

4. .Seafire LF Mk III head armour plate. Note the conspicuous lack of headrest in the British Pacific Fleet aircraft (destined for waters around Japan) - see discussion at end of post. Also note the late-war aerodynamically-rounded rear-view mirror housing, and the canopy release handle

 

Image © British Pathé

Seafire LF Mk III head armour plate by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

5.Seafire - Closing the canopy part 1. Note the corner of the gyroscopic gunsight - the late-war replacement of the reflector sight on all RAF fighters. Which means that my painstakingly-nicked Eduard gunsight is wrong - and is probably also wrong for the Eduard kit as well, given that they claim it to be Mk IXc 'late version'. I will have to check... Also not the scuffed paintwork on the aft windshield framing

 

Image © British Pathé

Seafire - Closing the canopy 1 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

6. Seafire - Closing the canopy part 2: grabbing the handle and pulling on it. The pilot shuts the cockpit door (only just visible on the film) just before he grabs the canopy handle - unless there was ground crew out-of-shot, but his leaning outwards (see full video below) suggests that he was the one closing the door

 

Image © British Pathé

Seafire - Closing the canopy 2 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

7. Closing the Seafire canopy part 3. Headrest bolt-holes highly visible here

 

Image © British Pathé

Closing the Seafire canopy 3 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

8. Closing the Seafire canopy part 4: shut. Note the paint chipping on the windshield frame

 

Image © British Pathé

Closing the Seafire canopy 4 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

That series of wartime Seafire images was cribbed for your viewing interest from the British Pathé short, 'Sydney NSW: Fleet Air Arm Farewell Flight' a.k.a. 'Fleet Air Arm Leave Sydney (1945)' (EweChewb moniker):

 

 

 

Video © British Pathé

 

 

 

9. Cutting up more 0.4 mm brass tube: this lot with 0.6 rings

 

Cutting up more 0.4 mm brass tube by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

10. Four lengths with rings. Note that some of the rings have started to shift on th e0.4 mm tube. One of the rings broke and vanished in handling

 

Four lengths with rings by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

11. "And now for something completely different." Fuselage alignment jig supports cut to length and test-fitted under the board

 

Fuselage alignment jig supports cut to length by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

12. And at no extra charge: the new garden bed., now continuing various culinary herbs, and Australian native plants (the latter for the wattle birds and other honey-eaters). To be fair, this new be is not just for The Boss: I have been wanting to reconstitute my herb collection of the mid-late 70s for a very loing time, and now have the perfect opportunity to do so. Still a long way to go, but I have a lot of thymes, sage, a (real) bergamot, tarragon, some sorrel (good for soups) and finally some southernwood. The long-suffering and pot-bound bay tree got plated out as well. Hooray!

 

New garden bed by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

Follow this link to my Seafire flickr album...

 

 

So, no headrest on the British Pacific Fleet Seafires, then. Probably. Other photographic/video evidence that I have seen also corroborates this. You can just make out the presence of bolt holes where the headrest may have been removed from. And there appears to be a hole in the armour plate as well, which appears in other photos. There is always a but, however: the BPF Seafire (on HMS Indefatigable, August 1945) is only one of four different areas of conflict represented on the Pavla markings sheet. The other three are: in transit via the Suez Canal to the Far East (HMS Stalker); the post-war 'Indochine' French Aéronavale machine (1948; the French also flew Spitfire Mk IXs from land-based airfields in their ultimately doomed campaign to hang on to what became Việt Nam); and a British East Indies Fleet aircraft (HMS Hunter, early 1945). Carefully thought-out markings there by Pavla.

 

After all that fuss and feathers copying the Eduard gunsight, it looks as though I will have to fashion a gyroscopic site. That looks relatively easy, however: just a block with a clear disc in the top.

 

I still haven't decided which one I am going to be doing, but have narrowed it down to the BPF or BEIF machines, I think. After all my reading about the BPF activities, I am inclined to that one, but as I have said, still undecided.

 

It took me a while to set up the tube for cutting some more 0.6 mm rings yesterday, by which time I had had enough for the day and called it quits before I wasted yet more tubing (and nickel-silver rod). I will go back to it doday if I feel up to it, but previous comments about concentration or lack of it apply.

 

Cheers,
Alex.

[The Spadgent]

You seem to have a lot to keep you busy. excelent herb work, my sage was huge and was taking over everything else so I took it right back. It died. 

my green thumbs are rubbish. 

No need for a head rest then? Good oh. 

 

john.

[TheBaron]

You're chronically over-achieving on that tubing-work Alex. 

 

Great tip on using a central rod - duly nicked to stop me flattening the finer-gauge stuff.

 

Excellent spotting of detail on film frames also, just shows you what can be pulled out of old 16mm film frames even once they've been mangled by yewchewb's compression algorithms. Little did the MoI know it was providing 'walkarounds of the future'...

 

Is that French or Russian variety Tarragon you've got in your herbaceousess there? I must confess that after tasting the difference the French stuff is incomparably finer IM heavily biased and Gallophilic O.

 

Splendid progress on all fronts!

Tony

[AlexN]

2 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

You seem to have a lot to keep you busy. excelent herb work, my sage was huge and was taking over everything else so I took it right back. It died. 

my green thumbs are rubbish. 

No need for a head rest then? Good oh. 

 

john.

 

Hello John,thank you for your kind words, but the greenness of my own thumbs is about to be put to a severe test: it is getting super-hot again this coming week, and I may have planted them out too soon. I'm considering moving the sorrel into some shade as it didn't like the 39 ℃ of this arvo too much and it flopped (a thorough soaking brought it back, though). So 42+ ℃ for at least two days may well send it west. I have been keeping the water up to them all but the radiant heat - to which they won't be used - may polish the lot off.

 

2 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

You're chronically over-achieving on that tubing-work Alex. 

 

Great tip on using a central rod - duly nicked to stop me flattening the finer-gauge stuff.

 

Excellent spotting of detail on film frames also, just shows you what can be pulled out of old 16mm film frames even once they've been mangled by yewchewb's compression algorithms. Little did the MoI know it was providing 'walkarounds of the future'...

 

Is that French or Russian variety Tarragon you've got in your herbaceousess there? I must confess that after tasting the difference the French stuff is incomparably finer IM heavily biased and Gallophilic O.

 

Splendid progress on all fronts!

Tony

 

Hello Tony, nick as much as you like . And thank you for your kind words, too. I am grateful to be able to see the videos, via the www.armourdedcarrier.com web site, eewchewb notwithstanding (I have considerable issues with its parent company, which is why I rarely use its search engine). I'm glad that the MoI did its little propaganda numbers, although some verge on not being propaganda at all. And some of the footage (not for public consumption at the time) of Seafire deck 'arrivals' were definitely not to stuff of stiffening a war-weary nation's resolve!

 

The tarragon is French, according to the label at least: I don't think I ever had the Russian variety/species, although I knew of it via the aptly-named Rosemary Hemphill's books¹. The leaves are much smaller and thinner than I remember tarragon leaves being. Both tarragons - and southernwood - are in the same genus as wormwood (Artemesia), the 'absinthe plant', and are, in fact, in the same family as daisies (Asteraceae). Maybe I had the Russian tarragon unknowingly.

 

I squibbed on tackling the next lot of tube slicing today on account of the heat: since tomorrow is going to be a bit cooler - allegedly - I might pluck up courage and return to the fray, as it were.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

 

¹ Very oddly, she does not have a page of her own in the wikipedia, which I find rather odd, given her significance in the resurgence of interest in the growing of culinary herbs - at least as I understand it. Even more strangely, the illustrator for the book that I had (Fragrance and Flavour: the Growing and Use of Herbs) is. One link to information that I found can be seen here.

 

[AdrianMF]

Nice research and good work on the tubing!

 

In my garden, the sage and the rosemary have a permanent John-Wayne-style knockabout fight to see who owns the herb bed, and the other herbs (even mint, which is not averse to a bit of a scrap) tiptoe around the edges trying to keep out of trouble.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[AlexN]

Hello Adrian, very amusing - I laughed at that . My mint is down the bottom of the bed, where it is hopefully wetter; the sage and the poor rootbound rosemary (nearly dead, poor thing) that also got planted out are up the top at the notionally 'drier' end (although by mid-week it may be all dry - as chips). I'm expecting the mint to need a firm hand (another mint plant in another, damper, bed is already making the plant equivalent of invading Poland). The sage is variegated so I'm not expecting much from it - although I will be keeping a steely eye on the sage seeds that I planted on account of not trusting in the variegated form's vigour, after reading your account. We do have a number of fairly sharp pairs o' secateurs.

 

What I will have to watch out for are the couch and kikuyu grasses from the lawn: I am already pulling kikuyu out from the lawn side and the bed has barely been finished. That is going to be a never-ending batlle, since kikuyu can go down at least 30 feet, then up again,  and is very vigorous. It's no accident that the East Africans (specifically, the Kikuyu) use it for building dams, I believe...

 

None of the plants are triffids, at least...

 

Cheers,

Alex.