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Spitfire Mk 1 616 sqdn Jul/Aug 1940


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Well, it's Battle of Britain GB time at last, and here is my first contribution.

I chose the earlier Revell/Hasegawa version over the newer Revell Mk II because I think the fuselage shape is better, and I have added the following "extras" to help things along.

Barracuda wing correction set, because although Revell took the trouble to re-tool the wings, the ailerons still look like metal covered ones to me, and I might as well use Roy's radiator and oil cooler while I'm at it. Also from Barracuda, the cockpit parts specific to the Mk 1, including the door but not the seat, as this appears to me to be the plastic variety and mine will be the metal version and a set of five spoke wheels.

I bought a spare Sprue F from the Tamiya Mk IX as, although there are obvious differences to the fit, I think the basic cockpit structure remained the same for the Merlin engined marks, and this will give me, amongst other things, the horizontal frame on which many items sit, and I will be able to achieve a proper "floorless" look.

A Yahu instrument panel, which although designed for the new Revell Mk II will be near enough identical to a Mk 1.

I will be using the HGW early Sutton Harness and also some of their positive rivets for the rear fuselage, these will be ordered later in the build.

I will be attempting to scratch build the landing light control, very prominent on the Mk 1, the airscrew pitch control and the hight and speed computer which occupied a space on the upper starboard cockpit wall where the remote contacter was situated on later models. (no IFF on this one )

I am also armed with Edgar's comprehensive list of Mk 1 and Mk V cockpit differences, and of course I have access to the "all the Spitfire questions " threads, so how could I possibly go wrong? Just watch me.

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The sharp eyed amongst you will see that I have already started to take the major airframe parts off the sprues. I will start with the major surgery on the wings first so that if I get that wrong I can throw the whole thing away lol.

Thanks for looking,

regards

John

Edited by Biggles87
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Hi John. Good to see you here with what looks like a great project to follow. The kit, extras and scratch building is going to keep you very busy! :thumbsup:

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Thanks for the support chaps, I hope that the build lives up to your expectations. I started yesterday by taking a razor saw (gulp) to the radiator and oil cooler in preparation for fitting the Barracuda items, which although designed for the later Revell offering, look like they will be a decent fit. This afternoon I will remove the ailerons and hopefully I will be able to post some pictures this evening.

Good luck with your various projects.

Cheers

John

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Update: wing surgery.

Before

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After

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I started by sawing off the radiator and oil cooler about 2mm above the wing surface to minimise the risk of unwanted scratching. It was then just a question of paring off the lips I had created with frequent checking against the inner radiator piece until I achieved a reasonable fit. The oil cooler will sit in a recess in the wing which I will make by backing the hole (which is not quite large enough yet) with plasticard, leaving the front 10mm clear for the deep part of the resin oil cooler to sit in, well that's the plan anyway. I intend to leave the wheel wells as they are, they are probable too shallow and should be hacked off and replaced but I have to draw the line somewhere.

The ailerons were next, which were separated by sawing along the inner edge and then repeatedly scoring with an Olfa P-cutter until I could break them off, I did not attempt to cut around the hinges, I will reinstate them later. All went well until I had removed the first underside aileron and offered up the resin replacement. The leading edge of the aileron was straight but the corresponding part of the wing was kinked towards the tip ( which AFAIK is correct ), so I'm left with a gap between aileron and wing. If I had checked properly before cutting the problem would't have occurred, I assume that Revell got it wrong on the newer Spitfire and Barracuda made the resin replacements to match! Fortunately I had only done one when I spotted the mistake so I only have one to correct, the next one will be cut straight, which although not entirely accurate will give me the correct fit.

While I had the saw out I decided to separate the elevators from the tail planes, an easy job because the elevators are moulded full thickness whilst the tailplanes are in halves, but in fact I have not separated them completely, just deflected them, I will complete the job later.

Well that's about all for now, so I will go and beat myself about the head for making such a stupid mistake, and try to correct it.

Thanks for looking, any comments/criticisms welcomed.

cheers

John

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Hi John. Nice to see the patient is doing well following the surgery (despite having had more cut off than it should - sounds like some kind of back street hospital to me! :winkgrin:) I'm sure you'll be able to sort it out and we'd have never noticed if you hadn't mentioned it! To be fair I've done this kind of wrong assumption type of modelling many times - "that's bound to need cutting off on this one.......oh.....no it doesn't....... :weep: "

You are not alone - don't beat yourself about the head - well at least not too hard!

Kind regards,

Stix

Edited by PlaStix
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Hi Six, thanks for the sympathy. I have just looked at someone else's build of the later Revell kit and sure enough the aileron line on the underside is straight, I think that the ' kink ' on my version is probably overdone but I should have noticed the straight leading edge on the resin aileron. It won't be difficult to fix, just annoying to have to do it when it could have easily been avoided. Calm calm calm.

Getting warm again here, 36C by Thursday, close the shutters etc.

Cheers for now

John

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Hi John. To be fair I think I'd find it difficult to do anything right in that kind of heat where you are! Where I am it's cloudy, raining and dull and about 18C - which suits me fine. I'm stuck at work for another 2 hours yet though!

Take care.

Kind regards,

Stix

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Short update:

Work continues on the wing. I glued a piece of plasticard to the inside of the lower wing to act as a support for the sliver of plastic required to correct? the aileron hinge line, and cut a piece of the detached aileron and glued it back in place. This time I was sensible and used the resin aileron to check the lower line, then removed slivers of plastic until I was satisfied, you can see just how little of the "kink" of the original hinge line ( emphasised with pencil ) is left. The insides of the upper wings have to be bevelled until the edge is almost paper thin to allow the ailerons to sit correctly. I taped on the resin aileron to the starboard wing to check the fit and am satisfied with it, I intend to deflect the ailerons slightly and this will be the "up" one. Don't ask what the flashed over holes are for, I don't know, perhaps someone at Revell thought the Spitfire Mk 1 had wing pylons!

While I was waiting for the repairs to the port wing to set, I decided to opened up the cartridge case ejection holes an the starboard wing, which are represented as shallow depressions, and I do like to have holes where there should be holes. In the corresponding areas on the insides of the lower wing there are little lumps over the depressions and it is a simple job to pare these off with a blade then push out the thin plastic that's left. Must remember to clean them up and paint the inside of the upper wings black before I stick everything together, and put some filler in the trenches representing the landing light panels.

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That's it for now. It's 30deg in the shade here, so I'm off to the man cave (where it's about 20deg) to do some more, then a little dip in the pool if SWMBO will let me.

God it's a hard life

Thanks for watching

John

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Nice progress John. Glad it looks like you'll be able to sort out the problem okay......thought you would! I know what you mean about opening up the ejection holes - they wouldn't look right, especially not in this scale, just being depressions in the surface.

Sounds like a good idea heading to the man-cave - 30C wouldn't suit me at all!!

Enjoy your swim.....if you're allowed :winkgrin:

Kind regards,

Stix

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  • 2 weeks later...

UPDATE 26/07

This is as far as I'm going with the wings for now, when I break out the aluminium paint for the fuselage I will paint the ramps to the radiator and oil cooler, on the basis that this aircraft having been delivered in 1939 would have had aluminium painted undersides. I also intend to leave the ailerons off until just before the main airframe painting starts ( don't hold your breath! ).Those of you paying attention will have noticed the lack of oil cooler, I have temporarily misplaced the front part, and may have to resort to a begging email to nice Mr Sutherland for a replacement.

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Now to my favourite part, the cockpit. As mentioned earlier I intend to replace the Hasegawa lower side panels with those from the Tamiya Spitfire so I have been removing the locating pins/blocks which took a lot longer the I had anticipated, and I also forgot to take a 'before' shot of the port side.

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Hasegawa in their wisdom decided to make a cut out on the rear top edge of the door frame and this will eventually need to be filled in after I have fitted frame 11( the one with the seat mountings). The horizontal(ish) pencil lines are where I will need to shave off some plastic to allow the lower side panels to fit flush and the vertical lines are where frame 11 will be, thus allowing the whole thing to line up, he said hopefully. Talking of frame 11, you can see that the Hasegawa ( paler ) item is wider at the bottom than the Tamiya version because it follows the inner contours of the wing root fillet and also acts as a spreader for the fuselage to ensure a good fit with the wings, frame 12 is similarly shaped and will need modifying to fit the Tamiya lower frame I will have to do something about that. The Tamiya frame is also taller, in fact as it is, it will stick out above the level of the rear fixed part of the canopy, I'll have to do something about that also. I had originally planned to fit the side panels and ancillaries first so that I could join the fuselage halves and then insert the completed lower horizontal frame from below after I had made some embellishments to the fuselage ( see the build by Iain 32SIG ), but I now think that there would be too much risk of knocking thing off so I will go with the more conventional route and complete the cockpit before joining the fuselage halves.

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The port Tamiya sidewall was easy to fit, just a matter of aligning the top part with the bottom of the door frame and the frame 11 position with the rear of the door. When it came to the starboard side there was quite a lot of measuring, trimming and trial and error with adhesive tape until I was satisfied that everything would line up when the fuselage halves are joined. I was unable to fit the Tamiya frame completely flush because the Revell fuselage plastic is not as thick as that of the Tamiya Spitfire and I did not want to risk breaking through it, hopefully it will not be too noticeable when everything is in place.I have added another longeron on each side, and made some others to fit below the rear fixed part of the canopy, and have amended the throttle quadrant by removing the propeller pitch lever. I am now searching my spares box trying to find things with which to make the propeller pitch control and landing light control, then I will attempt to convert the Tamiya seat to an early metal one. I am getting impatient to get some paint on the sidewalls but still have several things to do before I can start, I might have made it easier for myself by modifying an Aires Mk V cockpit set, which was designed for the original incarnation of this kit, but it probably would have required just as much work, we all know how well Aires sets fit.

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That's it for now, not much to show for about 12 hours work since the last update.

Thanks for watching and feel free to comment.

cheers

John

Edited by Biggles87
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Hi John. That is some serious modelling going on there! Fascinating stuff. It should all make for a very impressive cockpit when it's done. :thumbsup:

Kind regards,

Stix

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Thanks Stix, I certainly hope so. I forgot to post the picture of the altered throttle quadrant, I'll put it on when I have finished the pitch and landing light controls, which I've just started and will hopefully be finished tomorrow.

Cheers

John

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UPDATE 29/07

Here are my representations of the controls for the landing lamps and propellor pitch, and the amended throttle quadrant and seat pan.

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The lamp control fits below the instrument panel and is still missing two levers and the wiring which will be attached immediately before joining the fuselage halves to avoid accidents, and the pitch control will go above the datum longeron immediately behind the throttle quadrant which has been amended by removing the propellor control from it and adding the mixture lever behind the throttle lever. The seat conversion turned out to be (thankfully) easier that I expected, using a half round needle file I gently filed the seat pan either side of the lozenge shape expecting to break through the plastic before I got deep enough to create a full width depression but managed to achieve my goal without doing so, although the sides of the seat pan are now paper thin! the result is probably not 100% accurate but sufficiently different from the original to satisfy me. Now all that's left is to make a cushion for the seat back and wait for my HGW harness to arrive.

Also included in the pictures is a comparison between the Tamiya and Revell versions of the rear cockpit frame ( frame 12 ) and the Revell frame after alteration to fit it into the lower horizontal frame.

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I was hoping to finally start spraying the cockpit sidewalls today but we've just had over 12 hours of rain and the temperature here has dropped to about 16C so it's now too cold and damp for spraying Aaargh! Still we needed the rain, it was beginning to look like southern Spain here. I will content myself with some brush painting of the smaller parts.

Thanks for watching and feel free to comment.

cheers

John

EDIT. I've just noticed from looking at the photos that I've managed to loose the mixture control from the throttle quadrant! Situation normal:

two steps forward, one step back.

Edited by Biggles87
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Excellent progress John - despite loosing the mixture control. We've all been there - and it's amazing how many times I've noticed something missing, broken or just wrong in the photos before noticing actually on the model! I hope you you are able to find it or fabricate another. I'm very impressed with the modifications you are making to this! :thumbsup:

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Thanks guys, it wasn't so much the temperature as the humidity Ced, but it's getting warmer again, we are having a beautiful evening we've been sitting in the garden with the dogs.

A new mixture control shouldn't be too much of a problem Stix, I will use the throttle lever from the Tamiya part and modify it. Looking at the pictures again, I think that the propeller pitch control is going to be a little overscale so I will try to thin it down a little.

I am determined to get some paint on the cockpit tomorrow, I want to get started on my Hurricane but I told myself that I would wait until the major components of the Spitfire were completed first.

It's wine-o-clock now so I'm off. ( I'm an hour ahead of you, but who'se counting)

Cheers

John

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UPDATE 02/08

Finally got some paint on the cockpit. I have gone for my interpretation of Supermarine's "apple green"as I think that Spitfires delivered in 1939 might well still have been painted in that colour. It doesn't look quite as pale in real life, the photos were taken in very bright sunlight (35C here again) and when everything is enclosed and weathered it should dull down a little anyway.

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The items shown above the Tamiya sprue are the landing lamps control in the pin vice, and the back armour for the seat, which was copied onto Plasticard from the Tamiya etched part for their Spitfire IX. You may notice that the back armour and the seat are not the same colour as the rest, they are in fact cockpit grey/green because I forgot to spray them with everything else. I will brush some of my mixed apple green onto the seat but I might leave the back armour in grey/green because this would have been a recent addition when the squadron was in action over Dunkirk. The head armour and headrest were cut from the original Revell frame 11 and sanded back to the correct thickness, I will use the Revell circular voltage regulator fixed to the Tamiya back plate mounted behind and slightly below the head rest.

Amongst the other painted items are the heel boards and rudder assembly (minus pedals ), the control column assembly and the perforated frame to which it is attached, and sundry other small parts. The silver/aluminium came from a Tamiya rattle can of silver leaf and didn't perform as well my usual AS12 bare metal silver, probably my fault, it was from a completely full can so the pressure was probably about 35psi! I will probably rub it down and do it again later.

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I won't be doing much for the next couple of weeks ( will you notice the difference? ) because we have visitors coming in a weeks time and we want to re-decorate the kitchen before they arrive. Oh joy!

Thanks for watching and feel free to comment.

cheers

John

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Good to see some more progress John and what lovely progress it looks too. The cockpit details look good under the coat of paint and your additions blend in beautifully. There seems to be much more detail in 1/32 anyway (obviously!) - I'm definitely going to have to try the new Revell Spitfire at some point.

Kind regards,

Stix

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Thanks Ced and Stix.

You won't get away from me that lightly Ced, there will still be time for "Breakfast with Britmodeller", we'll still be getting up at 0630 and won't expect to see the visitors, wife's brother & family, before 0800, and as they have two teenage sons probably a lot later for some. I just don't think I will be spending much time with the Spitfire, perhaps if I'm really naughty I will be banished to my man cave!

I think you should venture into 1/32 Stix, think of all the extra detail you could put into that Spitfire, then there's their Bf 109 and Fw 190.

Off to walk the dogs now before it gets too hot?

Cheers

John

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