steh2o

Ok il looks to me that the windscreen is perfectly proportioned, sorry if I expressed a criticism

It looks to me like the windscreen is way too high, am I wrong?

I wonder which A6M2 they measured

Also the windscreen lower fairing is way too pronounced and gives (in my opinion) a toyish look at the finished product. For sure an Eduard canopy/windscreen is a better choice! Ciao Stefano

Lovely job there! Stefano

Very nice result Edward! I look with interest at your next Mosquito build!

Hello Phil, please see To date I have found no direct evidence about the Mk.XIV configuration. I think that the early Mk.XIV used a classic Sutton harness with Y-strap through the seat slot as seen in the Mk.XII, Mk.VII and Mk IX Pilot notes. Ciao Stefano

This is master class Giampiero! Bravissimo!

Hello Finn, I'll likely go for EB X or EB Z, codes are available for the first a/c in the Printscale sheet on V1 aces but I plan to paint the Sky codes to match the spinner and fuselage band color. Thanks for the positive comments, I have seen your work and is top notch!

Hello Fastterry, we share the same plan (sadly I didn't have a decent Mk.Vc wing). I think that you'd better try and reshape the Airfix Mk. XIV blades. Mk. XIV had the same blade length and maximum chord of the Mk.XII, so all is needed is reshaping of the blade root in a fashion specular to the Mk.IX blade. Great help comes from the Squadrons! book which has good photographs of the blade from different angles. I believe the Typhoon/Tempest blades are much longer than the Mk. XII blade. Your remark about engine power ratings is quite interesting- the Mk.VII/VIII/IX and derivatives had a propeller which blades have a similar maximum chord as the Mk.XII's, but are possibly 3 to 4 inches longer. Moreover the propeller diameter is 4" bigger in the Mk.IX. Overall I would say that the Mk.IX's propeller "pushes" more that a Mk.XII's did, perhaps that small difference was compensated with a coarser pitch. It is interesting to note that the Mk.IV Griffon prototype used a bigger diameter propeller (according to Shacklady, both 10'9" and 11' IIRC) but the operational variant Mk.XII and following used 10'5". While the two-stage compressor high altitude variants enjoyed more blade surface in to thin air with the simple expedient of a fifth blade, used the single stage, low altitude variants a possibly less effective propeller design? Another interesting point is the fact that the Mk.XV-fitted propeller adopted a modified blade design with the aerofoil profile further extended to the blade root (this for sure increased a bit thrust). Spitfire was a fantastic testbed for so many advances in aircraft design...

Hello, I'm currently building a Spitfire Mk.XII model (link below) and from time to time I discover that this Mark had peculiar elements that unfortunately are not easily traceable today (not for me at least). I'm trying now to figure out the shape of the Rotol propeller blades of this Mark. As remarked before, they are not the same design as in Seafire Mk.XV (Rotol design number RA.10167) because the blade root is visibly different. Though, looking at it more and more I noticed a similarity with something else: The two blades above can be perfectly superposed (except for the tip), and the blade root shape is almost identical. At left, Rotol design number RA 10046, Spitfire Mk. VII/VIII/IX, photograph mirrored horizontally At right, Rotol design number ???? Spitfire Mk.XII I'm not trying to say that Mk.XII used a simply mirrored 10046 design though; Mk.XII's blades were 3 to 4 inches shorter than Mk.IX's ones, accounting for the fact that the spinner had a 3" bigger diameter and the propeller axis sat about 4" lower than in Mk.IX (hence the need of a 10'5" propeller diameter instead of 10'9" for not hitting the ground in tail-high position). The maximum chord of the blade instead was possibly the same. In the photograph above, the Mk.XII blade is in coarser pitch than the Mk.IX one and, if scaled to the correct lenght, would look narrower due to the coarser pitch. To make it short, I'm convicted that the Mk.XII used the same but specular profile of the Mk. IX blade condensed in a shorter length. If anybody has more information about this aspect, I would be happy to know! Stefano

Very nice Cookie! And very dirty!! Well done!! Stefano

Fine details and rivets are really outstanding! Love the camo too! Stefano

I opened now Britmodeller and found lot of messages! Thanks for looking and thank you for the positive comments! @TempestV @fastterry: I do not have a direct experience with SH 1/48 Spitfires; the 1/72nd Griffon Spits though have a rather badly misshapen cowling profile. Airfix Mk.22 is very good in 1/72nd so I suppose it is valid even in 1/48th; otherwise, the new Airfix Mk.XIV in 1/48 would be my first choice for a donor: please consider that wathever choice you make, it requires some work both on the cylinder head blisters rear part and on the cowling fasteners. As TempestV pointed out, there is now enough good Eduard elements for the rest of the airframe. Please note that a Mk.VC wing is needed, but you also want a Mk.VII /F.Mk.IX ("short") carburettor intake: I'm now 100% sure that the production Mk.XII had this installed. As tempest pointed out, a Mk.VIII or Mk.IX fuselage are required (Eduard provides raised rivets on the Mk.VC fuselage) Ciao Stefano

August is ending and temperature here in northern Italy is again beareable- perhaps we really should forget about modelling and spend our free time planting new trees to devoure excess CO2... What I did in the last three weeks? Well I hiked in my favourite mountain place in the Alps Yeah that's me! At 51 I need two more paws to reach that places but that's a widely minor nuisance than the now-mandatory magnifier lenses for building model kits! OK the topic is about Spitfire building, so.... I started building up the main gear wells by thinning the well border (were needed) for a better scale-appearance and gluing the spar part to restore the correct wing dihedral (it was lost inserting the "plug" for the new oil cooler). At the end of the Mk.XIV build I was not happy with the look of the well ribs - after some reserch I discovered that I used the wrong kit part too so this time I choose the (presumably) right one and modified it to better represent the real thing etching a channel with a saw. At this day (23-VIII), I finished building the chassis well and I will start detailing it, the general idea being to get it fully detailed before even gluing the topside of the wing-really I spent too many hours in detailing the Mk.XIV well with the wings still assembled, that's because the work zone results almost unaccessible. Next major step was joining the Griffon cowling to the fuselage! Before that I managed to modify the cowling fasteners for a better look The small holes were added using a very sharp compass needle... ...and the mandatory 15x monocular magnifier!! The left-hand fuselage (the one without alignement pins) and cowling halves were checked for alignement against the profile view ( I used Tenma Mk.XVII for this) then glued together. This time I did not use interlocking keys (see Mk.XIV build) because I need using Eduard cowling frame (see picture below with frame in place) The cunning plan is using that frame as a support for the tube holding the propeller shaft and gluing it before closing the fuselage. The right hand fuselage was glued using the LH one as a jig The fit is excellent. As was the case with the Mk.XIV, there is a wedge-shaped gap in the lower cowling panel (about 0.9mm at the wing leading edge, I'll document it later) In the next post I'll describe some more work on the propeller blades Ciao! Stefano