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

[AlexN]

Regarding photo services, one that springs to mind is Shutterfly. I have tried some others (in that I have 'free' accounts with them, but annoyingly their urls and joinup emails are on the sick disc, and I can't remember what they are pff the top of my head, either. Picasa is more or less defunct and replaced by Google Photos, but I personally wouldn't go handing over my photos (or anything else) to Google in any case. I'll have a trawl theough my (cloud-based) bookmarks and see if I recognise anything.

Just had a look through the bookmarks - nothing there that jumped out and bit me. You could try a search on image or photo hosting services (which is how I came up with the ones that I can't remember).

Edited July 23, 2016 by AlexN

[AlexN]

Hello Wooksta, I believe that, similarly, the Hawks' plastic parts are from the Airfix kit(s). I'm looking forward to tackling them in due course .

[AlexN]

Righty-O - here, finally - after most likely having scared away all but the brave few - are some snaps for your enjoyment and edification:




1. RB productions' 'Glue Tips': photoetched glue applicators










2. Wafer-thin sidewall clamped to the fuselage. Annoyingly, it shifted when I carefully and gently let the clamp go on it...










3. Sidewall glued to the fuselage, using the 'glue tip'; clamp removed. Note the missing bits: a console towards the IP and a bit of structure towards the bottom. I breathed out gently through my nose, and the tiny piece of resin structure became airborne then fluttered gently down towards the waiting Floor Monster










4. A piece of sidewall detail, what came off when sanding: this is for the other (port) sidewall. The missing starboard bit took a bit of finding - it wasn't in the film container where I thought I'd put it. This piece is back in said container - with the lid firmly back on!










5. The other piece of missing sidewall. I found after looking very carefully - it was lurking on the bench










6. Close-up of the missing piece, seen here glued onto the fuselage, happily rejoining its friends. The weird look from uneven glue dispersal will vanish under a coat of paint (or two, depending on whether I thin it or not)










7. Structural element replacement added. It's the thin white bit, cut from the thinnest piece of plastic card that I have (or could find) and a brand new No. 11 blade, glued with Roket Hot CA. RB Productions glue tip and wax pencil (for picking up tiny parts that might otherwise go "ping" out of a pair of tweezers) - the latter's first outing - can also be seen in this snap










8. Closer-up view of "mended" sidewall: it will barely be visible when the fuselage is closed up and the rest of the cockpit in place. Extra CA added under the sidewalls, too.










9. Model Master "RAF Interior Green 2062" ENAMEL paint: much easier to brush than acrylics or lacquer . This type of enamel was deliberately designed to be applied easily with a brush




10. Starboard Seafire cockpit sidewall with RAF Interior Green, applied with a Tamiya 10/0 brush. It's a wee bit grungy: I should have done some dust removal before painting - but didn't think of it. Some sink holes in the consoles need a bit of filling - probably with PPP

11. Drying MM 2062 in comparison with Mr.Color 364 RAF Interior Grey-Green BS 283. The Mr.Color 364 is on the seat armor plate

Follow this link to my flickr account. You never know, I may end up making its own flickr album...

Whew! I'm glad that post's up! It has taken me a while to get various useful software tools (such as dropbox, the old Firefox-based flickr upload and TextExpander) which I can't do without, installed - and a clear run at the machine. This argo's task will be dismantling the Mac Mini and its screen, moving them, and plugging the Mini onto the tiny desk that the overly large iMac sits upon. I finally found the right cord - via The Boss's suggestion. Thanks, Boss!

Another task will be trying to prise the now-missing cockpit seat bulkhead from the jaws of the exceedingly voracious Floor Monster (which is the same color as PU resin and therefore invisible - see a previous post of mine).

[CedB]

Looking good Alex - good job repairing the missing part.

I hope the Mac recovery goes well and that you find the bulkhead; it'll been the last place you look!

[AlexN]

Ha ha . It was in the last place that I looked, funnily enough. But not in the last possible place . Close, though...

The bad news about the iMac and its disk is that it looks as though the disk has completely croaked - target mode doesn't work, and in fact the disc powers off after a rather sad attempt at its power-on self test (POST). The iMac itself isn't too functional either - or there is something wrong with the thumb drive boot stick.

Next step? Find out exactly how much I have backed up (not much, thanks to neither of my Time Capules behaving themselves, either).

Cheers,

Alex.

[CedB]

Oh dear, sorry to hear that Alex... hopefully the Time Capsule will have done its job. I have three Macs backing up to an ageing Time Capsule and I really ought to make sure I have stuff elsewhere - it's really easy to let it get on with things in the background and not check that it's actually backing things up...

Worried (but only a bit) of Bath.

[Nigel Heath]

Those RB wax pencils are a real boon when it comes to working with the tiny stuff. A great addition to your modelling arsenal.

[AlexN]

@Ced - sadly, I think that the iMac itself may be damaged as well (overheating). The 'Time Machine' software associated with said Time Capsule(s) ate an important backup without warning (and replaced it with a much smaller one) and I haven't had the courage to a. try again or b. ask the Boss for a new backup drive (really false economy as it turns out.)

@Nigel - I'm looking forward to not having things going "ping" into the ether. I'm quite keen on putting that Floor Monster on starvation rations (having heroically wrested an item from its slavering jaws this arvo).

I am in fact currently using the Mac Mini, which is much newer than the iMac - and the forum pages do many more interesting things than they did on the old iMac (out of date and just about to be replaced when we bought it; we didn't know that Apple would have swapped it for the newer one (that did so much more), since we got it just before the new one came out - that was really annoying).

Cheers,

the alex.

[TonyTiger66]

Good to see you back with some photos Alex. That resin really is 'waffer theen'!

The main thing is, it's on and with a bit of luck the fuselage halves should fit together nicely now

I always find with computers that it is important to take a methodical approach, the one whereby the problem is solved with the least resistance.

The best results are usually obtained employing the use of a stout lump hammer.

Best regards

Tony

[AlexN]

Funnily enough, I have two stout lump hammers . That should scare it .

I'm hoping to get a bit more done on the Seafire today - it has also been a bit cold in the shed (something that, strangely, I didn't allow for...). We have a spare fan heater* lying about, I think, which should get pressed into service forthwith.

I have been thinking a bit about the Seafire cockpit recently - with all the shaving and sanding, things like the IP and "seat bulkhead" (for want of a better term) will need some shimming to fit properly. It will be interesting to see just how much - or little. I have done plenty of 'odstranit'-ing as they say in the various Czech instruction sheets.

* It can make friends and get in cahoots with the floor monster <gasp>

[AlexN]

A quick update:

1. Fuselage taped up for test-fitting the OK, the lovely 6 mm Tamiya tape doing the honours. Interestingly, the IP is still too wide for the fuselage - or the resin sidewall is too far forward

Follow this link to my Flickr account

Both the instrument panel and the bulkhead made Yet Another Break for Freedom, aided and abetted by the floor monster - but I caught 'em. The sleeve of my jumper was also implicated in the attempt.

At least the (phone) snap above makes it look as though there has been some progress, even if there hasn't (apart from knowing that the instrument panel doesn't need shimming). You can also see that the join betwen the fuselage halves is quite neat, even with loosish tape and without glue - which I find reassuring.

Note that the cockpit floor part (which I did cut off from its pour stub today, so I suppose that I could claim to have actually done something (else)) will also need some thinning on its sides, despite the 'odstraniting' (sorry) of the plastic and resin fuselage side parts.

I had a frustrating day with recalcitrant computing devices, but have at least sorted out why my 'Time Capsule' backup discs weren't behaving (ethernet cables in the wrong sockets on the drive casings).

I have installed a small fan heater after The Boss, bless her cotton socks, found it hiding in plain view. It keeps trippng the powerboard to which it is plugged in, so I will have to replace said powerboard - and maybe even the heater...

[styreno]

Good to see some progress, Alex. Very reminiscent of my efforts, although I binned the resin cockpit after much effort to fit it.

Beware the fit of the wings when it is time to join them to the fuselage. Dihedral will be a problem, if not adjusted at an earlier stage of assembly. You may need to adjust fuselage width, which is best done before closing it up.

Good luck with the rest of the build.

KE

[rob85]

Alex, nice work! Good to see you have some paint on her!

Rob

[AlexN]

@KE: Thank you for your advice regarding the wing and fuselage fits - I thought that it was probably too good to be true, remembering what others have muttered darkly about this kit. Forewarned is forearmed, though . Your binning of the resin cockpit suggest that you scratchbuilt the cockpit yourself.

Funnily enough, I was thinking last night of the bits and pieces that I chopped the 1/48 Hasegawa Spitfire Mk V "IX" into, and how I might go about reassembling it with the required plastic card inserts so that it doesn't end up all wobbly. At least I won't have to do any chopping and rebuilding on this one - famous last words?

@rob85: thank you for your kind words.

@Everyone who I have forgotten to welcome to the thread: my sincere apologies and consider yourselves warmly welcomed .

The starboard cockpit sidewall is too far forward, by around a milimetre (it's also slightly too high - i.e., rotated - at the front), which is going to throw out the location of the seat bulkhead and everything else). As I can't do anything much about it at this stage without dissoving the fuselage side with acetone as I try to get the resin off, I'm going to leave it and try to figure out a crude workaround. Again, my own silly fault, driven by impatience and vanity to see some progress (story of my life, sadly).

Given styreno's advice above, I will play about with the wings and some tape (I would have glued the wing parts together as a sub-unit but the partial wheel well stiffener detail needs attending to before that happens). And glue the port cockpit sidewall in place and redo the pilot door detail.

Then there's that lack of the proper shape to the ventral wing root surface. Hmm.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Proper modelling! Enjoying this (possibly more than you are...)

Even as a lifelong Mac-head, I would say that you can never have too many different kinds of backup (true of any OS). I run TimeMachine and a Cloud backup (Backblaze) and weekly clones onto a USB hard drive that I then deposit with a mate in a house several hundred yards away.... and I still worry that one day I might lose wedding photos or something similarly irreplaceable ..

Edited July 27, 2016 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[AlexN]

Proper modelling! Enjoying this (possibly more than you are...)

Even as a lifelong Mac-head, I would say that you can never have too many different kinds of backup (true of any OS). I run TimeMachine and a Cloud backup (Backblaze) and weekly clones onto a USB hard drive that I then deposit with a mate in a house several hundred yards away.... and I still worry that one day I might lose wedding photos or something similarly irreplaceable ..

Hello Ex-FAAWAFU,

Thank you very much for your kind words - really too kind - which you might be taking back when you see my next snap, below!

I tend to get rather complacent with Macs, considering their usual quality and longevity. There are of course stories that run counter to that, a couple of which we have had first-hand experience of (both laptops, in fact), but with 28 years' experience of Macs (starting with an SE), those have been rare exceptions. I dare say that with hard disks getting larger in terms of storage without getting any bigger (the casings getting smaller in fact), the likelihood of block and sector failure increases. I like your back-up strategy! As I said up the top, I have (rather stupidly) got complacent, and paid for it. Nothing's perfect - or permanent. Thank you for the Backblaze mention - it looks very useful: I'm checking it out.

I did a bit of fiddling with the wing parts - both they and the fuselage needed quite a bit of carving and sanding. It's fortunate that the short-run plastic is nice and soft and makes such operations easy. Being used to carving /sculpting with my large-scale r/c planes helps here, too. I haven't anything to show for it yet, but there will be more carving and sanding to come.

The scale wing trailing edge thickness, for example, comes out at 108 mm, or 4.25 and-a-bit-of-change inches. That wouldn't cause major turbulence at the trailing edge and consequent loss of lift (not to mention extra weight), at all... I think I'll be digging my sanding plate (a piece of glass shelving with sheets of wet-and-dry sandpaper stuck to it) out for this one. And, most likely, the Dymo tape, for replacing sanded-off panel lines.

After a bit of head-banging (initially) and trickery (I used my icloud browser history) I managed to paste a link here, from flickr, onto the ipad. Rather cumbersome and tedious but here is the result:

1. Taped Seafire fuselage, viewed from the port side. The partially-painted resin sidewall is visible here. It looks as though I forgot to finish thinning the starboard fuselage side in the cockpit region; and that resin part really does look askew to me. Maybe it's an optical illusion...

Follow this link to my flickr account...

I have made a flickr album for the Seafire, but have only got one snap in it at the moment - I will add more when I get back onto the Mac Mini (said flickr task is, sadly but unsurprisingly, not possible to do in bulk with yon iPad, or if it is, I haven't worked out how to do it yet; it can be done one snap at a time but I haven't the time or patience to do that at the moment).

More in the hopefully-not-too-distant future: probably back to the cockpit, having been rather scared off the wings for the moment (the fuselage-wing bottom fit is not very good, either, alterations to which accounted for more than a bit of the carving mentioned earlier). I will come back to them, but want a break to ponder how to proceed with them.

Cheers,

the alex.

[AlexN]

Well, I needs must apologise to flickr's programmers, eat my hat(s) and humble pie, and grovel obsequiously and generally abase myself before them. flickr DOES allow one to nest albums - at least to one level, which is sufficient for my purposes. (Note that I have been wasting my time setting up "TextExpander" "snippets" to allow me to generate coloured 'flickr' entities easily and at will - I love TextExpander )

1. Well, it was too good to last: here's the workbench as it currently stands (late July 2016) - a complete mess. Time to put some things away... (The 'Mr.' and Tamiya products are out getting formally put into my database, thence into my "Scalemates stash" - a couple of the fillers will stay out on the bench for use in the near future - hopefully!). Note the packet of Dymo tape in the background, right-hand side: awaiting its duty assisting in the rescribing of various panel lines

2. Current state o' play with the Seafire (July 31, 2016). There's that beautiful elliptical Spitfire wing-plan - I never tire of looking at it

Follow this link to my flickr account, or my Seafire flickr album...

As I haven't been doing any modelling (practising, and working in the back yard per Boss's orders have left me too tired to concentrate as much as I need to on the wee beastie) I have been looking for photos of Seafire Mk IIIs in spare moments to get an idea of the real thickness of the reinforcing plates. This wasn't an easy task - the best that I could come up with was a second or less in a British Pathé clip on this fantastic set of three pages:

Armoured Aircraft Carriers in World War II - Seafire

The link above is for page 1. The radio compartment plate can be seen at around 0:09 in the aforementioned (YouTube) British Pathé clip, towards the top of page 1. The set is a very good summary of the trials and tribulations (not to mention fatalities) in getting the Seafire operational in conditions that it was never designed to operate under.

There is an especial treat on one of the three pages which I will leave readers to discover for themselves (I hate spoilers - you will know it when you see, it, though). That this was achieved shows the desperate conditions that the FAA found itself in WWII- and is testament to the tenacity of all involved to achieve that solution.

Regarding the thickness of the Seafire plates - the real-life radio compartment access port stiffener is not as thick as one might have imagined given the size of it on the little Octopus kit. It still is thicker than scale, but will not need much sanding to get it right. The Seafire was, according to what I have read (see above), heavily beefed up to take the stresses and strains of the infamously lethal deck landings. This beefing-up was so much the case that the non-navalised Merlin-engined Spitfire performance was degraded somewhat - and which performance didn't return (but then in spades - outflying a 'normal' Mk. IX) until the low-flying version of the Seafire (LF) III.

[Grey Beema]

I converted a Revel MKV to a Seafire II. I made the longitudinal strengthener using sellotape cut to size using this kits strengthener as a pattern. Same for the Radio hatch strengthener and Accelarator spool. I think there was internal strengthener said as well which you can't see.

The additional weight of the strengthening and folding wing apparatus did degrade performance but it's climb rate was still significantly higher than any other FAA aeroplane..

Edited July 31, 2016 by Grey Beema

[Graham Boak]

The Seafire Mk.III is a heavyweight and draggy version of the Spitfire LF Mk.V. The low-level climb rate (and acceleration) of this version was spectacular for the time - but the significant point is that this was all low-level performance. Above 10,000 ft. it becomes another matter, whereas the Spitfire Mk.IX was optimised for over 20,000 ft. The Seafire Mk.III would indeed soar away from other FAA (and USN) fighters, but as the climb continued they would claw it back and pull further and further ahead until the Seafire died. The comparative values obviously depend upon where you need to fight, and if you are protecting warships then low-level is more important.

The Spitfire Mk.XII/Seafire Mk.XV bear the same relationship to the Spitfire Mk.XIV.

EDIT. Not an exact comparison as the single stage Griffon in the Mk.XII/XV/XVII did not have a cropped supercharger, to my knowledge. However the principle is the same, but rather less extreme.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Graham Boak

[AlexN]

Hello Grey and Graham,

Welcome to my weird thread!

@Grey: You're a braver chap than I!

@Graham: Thank you for the useful info. I came across a large article on the Spitfires and Seafires of later marks in Wings of Fame vol. 16 last night - interesting reading.

Cheers,

Alex.

[AlexN]

Making one snap do the work of two:

1. More Seafire cockpit work: pencilled locating marks for the resin sidewall (to help reduce mislocation when glueing), and lightening holes drilled in the instrument panel bulkhead, unfortunate misalignment of the holes, oh well...

Follow this link to my flickr account, or my Seafire flickr album...

I have replaced the original snap with something altogether much better! (I should have waited until the fluoros had warmed up to maximum output, but I was in a hurry; done now though.)

The holes were particularly easy to drill in the resin - a pleasure to do so in fact. One of my little set of small number drills used (0.8-ish mm, 0.035", no. 65). More anon.

[AlexN]

I have made some more progress:

1. First, however, a closer-up view of the drilled instrument panel bulkhead (drill in pice vice, twisted by hand: simple and easy)

2. Handy little number drill set of small-diameter number drills

3. Port sidewall CA-ed in place; oxygen cylinders also replaced, and the first piece of the pilot's door re-structuring glued in (CA)

4. Top horizontal element of pilot's door glued in: it took a bit of doing: the plastic strip didn't take to the CA even after I'd cleaned up the door area (before I attempted glueing), and I ended up using Tamiya Extra Thin and a clamp. The extra strip at the aft end of the rear part of the cockpit is for bulking up that area to drill some holes into

5. Some custom-cut pieces of plastic-card for the door uprights, from a longer strip: stored in a plastic lid insert out of the way (along with some dried(!) glue). Some offcuts in top LH corner of snap

6. Tools used to cut up the plastic card, plus card and the remnant piece of the strip cut for the door uprights

Follow this link to my flickr account, or my Seafire flickr album

More in a little bit: I got out Radu B's scribing tool and the Dymo tape, and tried my hand at rescribing the pilot's door panel lines. Mixed results, but not the fault of the scriber, which is an excellent tool. The PPP crumbled, as I expected, even after attempting to soak a bit of thin CA into it.

[CedB]

Looking good Alex, some nice detailing there

Those drills look useful.

[AlexN]

Thank you very much, Ced. The number drills do look useful: this is, if I remember rightly, only their second outing. I used a bit quite a few years ago in the little Minicraft 'drill press' - I remember using the drill, but not what I drilled!

There are a few more snaps waiting in the queue, but I have to wait my turn for the computer (or rather, the Boss's study).

In other news, a new 2 TB Western Digital hard disk (I've given up using Seagate drives) and the you-beaut iFixit deluxe toolkit for getting the creaking old iMac back into service was delivered today (only ordered it yesterday; it came down from Brisbane - quick! ). Neither acquistion is dead money, since the disk will be transferrable, and the toolkit can be used for many, many other things (including, but not restricted to, my CNC mill box).

Many thanks to TonyTiger66 for his help with information (iFixit and other things) in getting the old iMac running again.

So I will be busy tearing the iMac apart this weekend, and hopefully getting it reassembled in working order! That may leave little time for modelling, as I also have to do a firewood run - but worth it on both accounts!

Cheers,

Alex.

[AlexN]

Fits-n-Starts-R-Us brings you another instalment of a fractured build - attempting to scribe some panel lines, in this instance:

1. 6mm DYMO tape (red) in its cassette: getting ready for scribing

2. The DYMO tape cassette packet had this useful bubble cover. Good for putting things in

3. Small piece of DYMO tape in place, ready for scribing along the (RH) side of. The tape has been cut in half longitudinally; non-cut (i.e., outside) edge is the line that will be scribed

4. RB Productions' photo-etched scriber assembled, and installed in an X-acto handle

5. Etched fret with two scribers remaining. Great tool, this! Note the sharp cutting point

6. Three panel lines scribed. You can see where, predictably, the PPP filler, has popped out. Easily fixable with a tiny bit of 'silver' Milliput, and a piece something very thin to set up the straight line. Or, I may not bother

7. 'Rescribed' Seafire pilot's door. The RBP scriber worked fantastically well: thoroughly recommended'. As you can see quite clearly here, the 'rail' which the sliding canopy moves along needs to be redone: this is just the tool for it

Follow this link to my flickr account, or my Seafire flickr album...

Next up is the finishing off of the pilot's door, (I will probably make a pry-bar for it from a piece of 0.2 mm rod or some stretched sprue), after which I will be adding the two remaining loose pieces of resin sidewall, followed by a coat of paint. I am waiting until I can really concentrate before tackling the consoles and instrument panel (night or coal black, I think) - and the panel needs the gunsight and reflector adding before I paint that (more tiny fiddliness).

I still haven't decided whether to slice out the cockpit door or not: doing that would mean slicing up the vacuform canopy and I'm not sure that I have the bottle for that at the moment (not right this minute, certainly!). Pavla very generously supplies two full canopy sets (see snap 2 above), so maybe I will. One of RBP's smaller razor saws would come in handy for extracting the door from the fuselage proper. The door's inner face has been cleaned back down to clean styrene ready for gluing on the vertical components - most likely with Tamiya Extra Thin and some pressure, followed after setting by more clean-up. Sound like a reasonable plan, anyway. (An unreasonable plan, for example, would be making a diorama of the plane stuck in the barrier on HMS Indomitable or similar. )

Cheers,

Alex.