Alex Gordon

G'day Chums, Thanks for the kind words Dermot. A little more done today.Masking on ready for the green coat.This was suprisingly tricky.The shape of the airframe doesn't help but the diagram is all over the place with very few colour boundaries on the fuselage lining up from the plan views to the side views.Got there eventually though,nearly 4 hours later. Green paint on.Humbrol 163 Satin RAF Dark Green was my colour of choice. The rocket pods needed a little more attention.A spot of masking and then some ground up pencil lead on the front and rear ends to denote the different sections of the pods was in order.A coat of matt varnish will seal all this in and stop my great big fingerprints getting all over them. The exhaust nozzles and heat shields had a coat of Metalcote Polished Steel.Again,a coat of matt varnish will give the required finish and prevent fingerprints. More tomorrow chums,30 hours to go and I'm waiting for paint to dry .

See you there old chum.

Hello again Chums, At Last! Spare Time! Work has been a bit busy lately,I'm not complaining but It doesn't leave a lot of time for plastic bashing.A bit more done today.The kit supplied driver seemed a tad weedy to me so I took one from an Airfix Hawk which was a bit bulkier. Before I set about sorting out the pilot I fitted the HUD.The kit item isn't spectacular but it will do for my purposes.Besides,there are only a few days left of this GB and I would like to finish on time. Anyway,a milliput facemask and visor cover and a copper wire oxygen tube later I hairy sticked a bit of paint at the soon to be Jerry Pook.This doesn't look too good just yet,the paint is still wet and there is a bit of plastic dust that needs to be cleaned off. And here he is in the office with a couple of strips of masking tape suitably painted attaching him to the seat.A bit of filling will be needed around the bottom edge of the canopy front portion. On the real thing there is either an antenna or a dump vent forward of the starboard front exhaust nozzle.I cut a slot to take my scratchbuilt offering. Not the best photo I will admit but I will post a better one along the line. Canopy on and intakes bunged up with bog roll,we're nearly ready for a coat of paint.The nose probe has been fitted but there is a gap underneath it that needs filling.The outrigger legs will be fitted too. First coat of paint on,Humbrol 164 Dark Sea Grey.The nose probe is a little on the small side and will be replaced. Finally for today the rocket pods have had their first coat of silver paint. All things being equal,more soon chums.Thanks for looking in.

No worries old chum,we all have our view on things.Good of you to come back in. Now then,how do we get you to Obsessed Member status?

Once in a while there is something that takes my breath away.This time Mal you've done that.Thanks for doing so and keep up the good work.

Dr Berna, Please do not be offended by the findings of those who have chosen to use "Those Wonderful Berna Clamps". Tools are tools.If the correct tool is applied for a certain job then that will provide the correct result.All tools have a secondary use,it is up to the user to find this use and make it work to the users need. If the tool isn't performing adequately then either the method should change to suit the tool or the tool should change to suit the method. I am certain that Berna Clamps are a splendid tool,their application is at the discretion of the user.Don't be upset when someone says that it should be binned,they just haven't found out how to use them yet. I don't own a pair,I never will.I don't need to.I have access to identical woodworking tools.Not that I will ever use these for this,I have my own methods that work more than adequately that I have developed over 37 years of bashing plastic. Would you mind awfully clearing up which obsessed member that you addressed in your last post please,there are rather a lot of us and if you look a little further up your screen you will find a user name with whom you may take issue. All the best,Alex Gordon.

For my sins I prefer to use Vinyl Insulating Tape.Berna clamps have their uses I'm sure but not for joining major components together. If the truth be known their use in the world if woodwork is a bit limited too.Splendid for task,just understand what the tool can do.

Oh Yes!

According to the Spitfire Site http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p044.html the second cockpit was installed in Sicily. Just applying a spot of service logic here,the Italian campaign was quite a nasty punch up all round.Any serviceable airframe would have been kept operating.Was ES127 in such a damaged condition as to be unuseable.and just left parked somewhere on the airfield? The conversion that we can see in the photo could be just a bit of a wheeze on the part of some groundcrew or other who had cause to cannibalise the fuel tanks either as a whole or for parts.On that basis it would be a fair bet that the cannons and associated equipment was long gone,likewise the propellor.It would be a possibility that a u/s propellor from another machine was fitted and the airframe used as a decoy. Just a thought.Just another thought,does GI Airframe mean General Instructional Airframe?That would explain everything if it did.

That is quite something,well done old chum.

Not sure if this is relevant but it is worth a look.Nobby's build http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234909296-the-attempt-to-turn-a-pigs-ear-to-silk-purse/

Well done,that looks superb.

It was in Planes magazine,early 1983 I think.I no longer have a copy so I can't help any more than that. Planes was ultimately absorbed by Wingspan.

I like that,well done old chum.

You've got your work cut out with this one old chum! The canopy method with this is the same as on the Skybirds 86 Prentice.Go easy with the superglue (fogging) and make sure that you've got it sitting straight and true,not a little lopsided (guess how I know) and where you want it before you commit to glue. Looking forward to seeing this one in the gallery.

G'day Chums, If nobody minds I'd like to chip in with this one if I may. My intention is to build this as HB837 as seen on the strength of 617 Squadron.If I look through the upstairs windows of the building I live in I can see the airfield they spent most of the war operating from so I think that it would be rude not to. This is not my photograph but it seems to be well in the public domain so I'll post it. This piccie is a still image from a film taken at the time.There are several that are very similar lifted from the same sequence that I have seen.There has been a lot of discussion concerning the colour and markings on this airframe,a goodly portion of this I have read and I am inclined to make my own deductions based upon this and a passing familiarity with Service logic. This is what I did yesterday. I started with the canopy.The kit supplies the front and sliding portion as a single piece.Typically awkward I want mine open. My trusty SAM Scale Rule,Scribing Template,Saw,Plays the Piano,Bar Mitzvah's a speciality was my tool of choice for parting the two.For anyone who wishes to follow this as a guide there are two things you need to know now. The thickness of plastic to be cut through is not a lot.A couple of gentle swipes per side with something sharp will do it. It is very easy to crack the sliding portion of the canopy no matter how gentle you are. I wasn't going to own up to that one,as the photography shows,but I'll show a piccie in the next instalment. My next step was to spray a spot of Humbrol 226 Interior Green at the interior bits.That's what the stuff's for and,suprisingly,the reason I bought it.It had dried soon enough for me to brush a spot of Matt Black onto some of the control boxes that are moulded into the fuselage sides. The layman will not notice the glaring error in the above piccie,the specialist will. From what I have read the curved shape to the cockpit floor is a feature of the Allison engined variants.This was due to the wing sitting slightly higher on the fuselage than it does on the Merlin engined variants and more or less following the curvature of the upper wing surface.There are several opinions on this but 3 Inches seems to be the greater consensus.The Merlin engined variants should have a flat cockpit floor. I'm going to leave it as it is.I'm going to trade accuracy for convenience,I would like to finish this one after all. More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

G'day again Chums, Just a small update,things have been a bit busy at this end just lately so bench time is becoming fewer and further between.The cockpit interior green has been sprayed on and the sanding of of the various bits of filling has been done.The pressurised canopy rails have also been sanded off and the cockpit door has been cut in. There's still some sanding and scribing to be done before construction proper starts but not much more.Thanks for looking,more soon.

Hello again Chums, My thanks for your time and attention one and all. Tony,externally Humbrol all the way.224 Dark Slate Grey,123 Extra Dark Sea Grey,90 Sky .Driver,Airframe portion of the cockpit is a mixture of 5 parts 90 Sky to 1 part 78 Cockpit Green or thereabouts to replicate the much bandied about Apple Green that I have read about.This time it doesn't quite match the hue of a Golden Delicious but I suppose that it could depend upon the time of year,availability of sunlight This was a colour and markings conversion.It did involve adding the arrestor hook bay in its entirety,which could be avoided by a spot of scribing and letting in a plastic card box to accommodate the hook.I had to,it was in the spares box.Next time I will just scribe the panel line and let in the box to contain the hook. This one,MB345,has been done to death.If you fancy a Seafire II then MB193 may be worth the effort.It has artwork under the windscreen and everything.With a bit of provocation I can probably find the website where I saw the film and point you in the appropriate direction. Thanks for looking in chums.

G'day Chums, I just fancied a simple build a little while ago and this is what I came up with.I started with this boxful and ended up with this.Enjoy. The markings were a mixture of kit supplied and cobbled together and painted into the bargain. Thanks for looking in chums.

G'day Chums, Thank you for the kind comments,I am enjoying the encouragement. A little bit more done today.The rocket pods needed a bit of sanding down at the back edge of the front section.Once cleaned up the two parts were glued together and trued up by the simple expedient of rolling the whole lump back and forth on a flat surface a few times.A spot of milliput will be needed to finish it all off but not in any serious quantity. A few days ago I took delivery of,among other things,an Airwaves photo etch set for the harrier.My thanks to Matthew Bacon for that boxful. I decided to make the tailplane inner end plates from thin plastic card using the brass items as a template.This meant that I can save the brass ones for the GR1 build that I have in mind if I have the time. This was a matter of cutting round the brass bit and then making a slot to take the locating tab on the tailplane itself.The slot was made by drilling a 1mm hole at each end of where the tab was going and then joining the dots. The kit supplied canopy sprue. The two main canopy parts were masked inside and out in readiness for the matt black paint that will go on the inside of the framing. More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

You've certainly made a job of that

Hello again Chums, It has been a bit of a slow start on this one.Thank you for the kind comments so far chums.Jonners,your build was one of the first that I looked at as a guide. After a bit of looking and head scratching I have come up with a revised plan.The idea was to end up with a PR XI and an XIV out of this deal but there is just so much to be done to the Hasegawa fuselage to bring it up to snuff that I've decided to build that kit as it is and take another route with the XIV.This involves using the leftover wing from the Airfix Seafire XVII. The fit of the wing root from the Hasegawa kit was going to take some fettling. The Airfix root is a lot closer but the wing chord is longer than the fillet on the fuselage.A bit of creative butchery should sort this one out. Anyway,today has been spent filling wingfold joints with stretched sprue and no longer required underside light lens holes with the round bits that stick out sideways from the sprue. The wing underside light locations were determined from photography,drilled out and then filled using the round bits that stick out sideways on a clear sprue. The unwanted underwing antenna holes were filled with more stretched sprue. The cockpit pressurization intake was cut off leaving a narrow slot in the side of the cowling panel.This was filled with plastic card.The camera aperture was covered with a circle of thin plastic card and will receive a kelching of Milliput in the near future.The sink marks under the canopy rails have been filled with some small bits of plastic card. The next job is to sand all of this down,then the build proper can commence. Thanks for looking in chums,more soon.

May I refer you to an earlier answer please. Wot Nigel told you works rather well too.

Your penchant for the unusual never fails to enthrall me.This one is no exception.

Nice one Wolwe.well deserved indeed.Well done to all who had a go and even more so to all who filled the Gallery.This has to be a benchmark Group Build. Thanks to all who chose to vote,from my point of view especially to those who chipped in for Horace and Basil.I still think that Snapper's Liberty Ship should have had the edge though. See you all in LTAT2,Obsolete2,Kits When We Were Kids (Should that be "Way back when men were made of Steel and ships were made of Wood"?Or is that just me...) Cheers Chums,do it like you mean it.It would be rude not to.