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1:32 Tamiya Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IXc


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1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

Now I must have watched every episode of Popeye there ever was, and read the comics. Typically, he had either a black, navy blue, or white shirt. I don't recall yellow. The photo with Keltie looks very much to me like Popeye has a white shirt, the same colour as his pants. It will be interesting to see what this close-up photo of Popeye looks like in the book.

 

For what it's worth, Eduard's Royal Class Spitfire does not have either yellow borders or yellow shirt.

Yeah, I mean, the clue is in the name. Popeye's a sailor man, a little like Scuppers the sea dog, and he's wearing his uniform. He's in dress whites!

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The first of many mistakes I imagine. :doh:

 

I sprayed the inside of the fuselage halves with grey-green in the cockpit area and aluminum everywhere else. If I had bothered to read the nice book I got from Roy, this only happened on aircraft built after September of 43. For my plane, everything inside the fuselage should be grey-green.

 

Somewhere in the descending corridors of what's left of my mind...I knew that.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. I ordered that Eduard LööK set - I mean, why not? Only $11 and it includes steel harnesses. Am I a sucker or what?

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10 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

I sprayed the inside of the fuselage halves with grey-green in the cockpit area and aluminum everywhere else. If I had bothered to read the nice book I got from Roy, this only happened on aircraft built after September of 43. For my plane, everything inside the fuselage should be grey-green.

Bill

I'd suggest the opposite,  that a switch to all grey green occurred AFTER Sep 43, as before the use of aluminium for the rest of the internals apart from the cockpit was the norm

for example this Mk.I in spring 41

3052829500_1ce4f68d71_o.jpgSpitfire in England by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

note aluminium paint on gun bay and radio hatch doors

load of excellent colours shots here

https://www.flickr.com/search/?w=8270787%40N07&q=spitfire

courtesy of @Etiennedup

 

HTH

T

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28 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

I'd suggest the opposite, that a switch to all grey green occurred AFTER Sep 43

 

Thanks for the quick response!   :)

 

I knew there was a change at one point, and I was all set to follow the instructions in Brett Green's book. I just went back and re-read it, and I understood it correctly. He states "The instructions suggest that the fuselage interior (except for the cockpit area) should be painted Bare Metal Silver. This is correct for aircraft manufactured after September 1943. For aircraft built before that date, the entire interior would be RAF Interior Grey Green." I'm surprised he got that backwards. He must have been taking lessons from me!

 

Anyway, that saved me some extra work...

 

And while we're on this topic, I think "bare metal" is perhaps not right. These surfaces were painted with an aluminum or silver colour, is that not right? And this includes the bulkhead that the shoulder harness attaches to if I remember correctly.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Nice colour photos by the way - thanks for that link!

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8 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

And while we're on this topic, I think "bare metal" is perhaps not right. These surfaces were painted with an aluminum or silver colour, is that not right? 

I'd agree, not bare metal but painted with aluminium over a grey primer.

 

Edit: this post, by the late Edgar Brooks, confirms my view:

 

Edited by Beard
to insert link to another thread.
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Thanks mates.

 

What about this bulkhead?

 

IMG_2594

 

This is the one at the aft end of the canopy, and which the shoulder harness attach to, on that cross brace. Aluminum or grey-green? Tamiya say to paint it aluminum, yet all the examples in Brett's book (save one), have it grey-green, even when the other internals are aluminum.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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If that that's the frame that the rear armour and seat attach to, then I think it should be green.

If it's the next frame back toward the tail (I'm sure they have numbers but I'm glowed if I can remember them) then it'd be aluminium.

Here's a link to a rather splendid photo (of a restored plane admittedly):

http://www.warbirdsonline.com.au/2017/03/13/spitfire-restorations-update-march-2017/supermarine-spitfire-mh603-fuselage-interior-looking-to-front/

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3 minutes ago, Beard said:

If that that's the frame that the rear armour and seat attach to, then I think it should be green.

If it's the next frame back toward the tail (I'm sure they have numbers but I'm glowed if I can remember them) then it'd be aluminium.

Here's a link to a rather splendid photo (of a restored plane admittedly):

http://www.warbirdsonline.com.au/2017/03/13/spitfire-restorations-update-march-2017/supermarine-spitfire-mh603-fuselage-interior-looking-to-front/

 

I think you nailed it. This photo from the Spitfire Site shows exactly what you describe, and what Tamiya would have me do.

 

http://spitfiresite.com/2010/07/anatomy-of-spitfire-cockpit.html/07es09_007

 

Very cool photo in your link.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Bill,

Earlier you asked:

".....for an aircraft not configured with a drop tank, what position would the fuel cock control lever be in? I ask because Eduard and Tamiya (who both depict the drop tank control assembly in PE) have a disagreement about where this lever should be. Tamiya have it forward, while Eduard have it up".

 

The forward position is the OFF position.

 

HTH

Cheers

Dave

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In the 1970s a series of books was produced to accompany the Airfix 1/24 ' Superkits ' and I have most of them. Although now quite old and with only black and white photos they still provide some useful information, like a Spitfire fuselage profile with all the frames numbered. The rearmost frame in the cockpit ( the aluminium painted one ) is frame 12 and the numbers decrease towards the nose, frame 11 being the gray/green one with the seat armour and seat attachments.

 

John

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Forgot to post this the other day - these are the fuselage halves right before I almost painted over the aluminum with grey-green. Thanks again to @Troy Smith for the quick slap on my head to stop me from doing it!

 

IMG_2600

 

I used one of my favourites from many moons ago for the aluminum paint, namely Floquil Old Silver. Unfortunately, Testors (curse them to the ends of the earth) discontinued all Floquil paint, but I managed to find one on eBay and only had to pay half a king's ransom. A member of our local club told me that the Old Silver formula was still available as one of Testors Automotive Lacquer colours, but I have yet to buy a bottle and see if that's really the case.  I hope so, as Old Silver was always my go-to choice for replicating High Speed Silver.

 

There are many ejector pin marks on the fuselage halves, but Tamiya has engineered it in such a way that none of them will be seen. I like that, no clean-up.

 

We leave tomorrow for a week at the cabin in the woods and, of course, the weather forecast looks abysmal. You gotta love Western New York.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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The start of this build pre-dates me joining BM in earnest, but I'm here now! Looking forward to this one given that I now know what supreme magic you can do at 1/72 scale!

 

Watching with great interest and even greater admiration.

 

Terry

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Back from the woods and several hundred insect bites later (they've evolved to be resistant to all known repellent formulations), a nice little box arrived from Sprue Brothers. I had ordered the new Eduard LööK (are the umlauts supposed to be eyelashes?) Spitfire early Mk.IX instrument panel and was anxious to have a LööK-see.

 

Disappointment.

 

Here is a photo of what I received:

 

IMG_2607

 

My first impression was that it looked quite busy, and very high contrast. On closer examination I realised that the tics on the dials were the same width (or line weight as we say in the biz) as the indicators, leading to an effect that doesn't look natural. There is no attempt to print anything resembling a number or letter on the instrument faces; all characters are either a rectangle or dot.

 

The piece is made from a black resin, which has appropriate 3-D surfaces to represent the center panel and the dials and switches themselves. Eduard chose to print a grey colour to represent the fasteners, but this was ruined by bad registration. By that I mean the images aren't aligned to the 3-D structure of the resin.

 

Perhaps this photo will show it more clearly:

 

IMG_2608_oops

 

Note that the instrument dial faces are not centered in the dials. The grey fastener images are not centered on the fasteners. The coloured circles aren't centered on the rings. The registration is better on the left hand side of the panel, leading me to believe that the entire image is actually rotated a bit from the panel itself. The misalignment gets progressively worse as we move across the panel from left to right.

 

I don't know how to explain it other than poor quality control on Eduard's part. Perhaps the inspector didn't LööK at this one.

 

I guess I'll send a note to Eduard along with a photo and see if they'll replace it. I'm sure it would look better if properly registered, but I am not so sure about the line weight of the tics, and the lack of characters. That just looks weird to me. Maybe the printing/painting process on the resin isn't of sufficient resolution to produce characters. Which is probably OK, if only they had reduced the size of the tics, etc. Although, the Yahu panel (photo earlier in this thread courtesy of their website) seems to indicate that they are able to print characters onto photoetch and have them legible.

 

Eduard also included a set of steel seat harnesses. Sweet!

 

But then I had a closer look at those...and here we go again. I held them at an angle to my lighting so you could see the issue, hence the odd appearance to the following photo.

 

IMG_2609

 

I think the printing of the tan colour on the steel substrate is out-of-registration. For example, shouldn't the metallic rings around the grommets be a complete circle? You can also see how the tan intrudes into other parts of the harness that are metallic, the brackets and buckles for example.

 

0 for 2. Ouch.

 

Could I use these as they are? Sure. Should I? No.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Squadron is having another one of their weekly huge sales events! Of course, that doesn't include any of the stuff that I'd actually buy. Since I'm on some kind of instrument panel quest, I ordered one from Yahu. I'm really curious how it will appear.

 

PPS. The thought just occurred to me that I will end up with an excess of instrument panels - four, in fact, when I only have one kit. I suppose there's a solution for that dilemma.

 

 

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Ouch! (for the insect stings and the aftermarket too...)

 

The Sutton Harness issue, this is what it looks like - see the links.

 

https://goo.gl/images/osMu9X

 

https://goo.gl/images/94G2tL

 

https://goo.gl/images/PGxoA2

 

 

Onwards and upwards.

 

Trevor

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15 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

I suppose there's a solution for that dilemma.

Easy, buy three more kits...

 

 

OK, OK, I'll get my :coat:

 

Seriuosly, I'm sorry Eduard's IP was a disappointment, I wouldn't have expected anything like that from them, especially in 1/32... :shrug:

 

Ciao

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Hey Bill,

IMHO you'd be better off using the Yahu instrument panel.

If you'd care to send me an email or PM with your mailing info I have a spare Yahu Mk IX panel for the Tamiya kit

that you can have for free, gratis and for nothing.

 

Cheers

Dave

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2 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

The Sutton Harness issue, this is what it looks like - see the links.

 

Thanks for the links, those are nice photos. I guess I'll have to try and touch up the misprinted harnesses, since they're the steel ones and are nicely flexible so they can be draped quite naturally.

 

2 hours ago, giemme said:

Easy, buy three more kits...

 

Hmm, then I'd have a tri-lemma. Why would I need to have more than one 1:32 Spitfire model? Oh, wait, never mind.   :doh:

 

1 hour ago, tango98 said:

IMHO you'd be better off using the Yahu instrument panel.

If you'd care to send me an email or PM with your mailing info I have a spare Yahu Mk IX panel for the Tamiya kit

that you can have for free, gratis and for nothing.

 

Thanks, that's a very generous offer. For now, I have one on order from Squadron so I shouldn't be needing one for this build. However, if I follow the advice of @giemme, I may need another one! Or more...   :)

 

1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

Crikey Bill that is a disappointment.  I have got a Yahu IP for my Revell 32nd MKII and it looks very nice indeed.

 

That's good to know, thanks. I should have one in a week or so, Squadron is pretty good with their shipping. I use their 1:72 panels all the time, and I really like them. I should have just bought their 1:32 panel instead of this new one from Eduard, but I was curious about their new process for printing on resin. I think it has promise, but this one got through QC somehow.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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I don't think Yahu will have to worry about the competition to their panels based on you comments.What really attracted me to the Eduard version was the inclusion of seat belts but they don't look too good either, let's hope you just had a bad example. My only complaint about the Yahu panels is that the bezels are a bit flat in 1/32, but I guess I'll be sticking to them, unless Eduard come up with an improved version.

Keep up the good work.

 

John

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Having enjoyed the 'LööK' comments I then shared your disappointment over the registration of the printing - nasty :( 

I'd sent the Eduard stuff back for a refund Bill - they'll only take up space and the 'return' might tighten up their QA.

Let's hope the Yahu panel suits, fingers crossed.

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I agree with Ced. Send that onion(*) right back, Eduard needs to know that they have quality issues. The have a tendency to act upon that...

 

(*) Why write Onion instead of Löök? Well, in Swedish a Lök is an onion...and it makes me quite dubious about the entire Löök product range.

Edited by Christer A
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Thanks mates.

 

I sent an email to Eduard's Support department, including my photos of the onion. We'll see how they respond after the weekend is over.    :)

 

So, I've actually been working on this project, strange as that may sound. I've finished the rudder actuator assembly (or whatever it's officially called). I used the photoetch pieces from Eduard to replicate the grooves in the rudder pedal surfaces (I thought about printing a decal with the Supermarine logo to add to the pedals but quickly realised that was a one way ticket to the rubber room). Eduard also provide photoetch pieces for the rudder pedal adjuster wheels:

 

IMG_2612

 

Thin strips of PE were used for the leather(?) straps on top of the pedals. Some photos show these; others don't. I added them just to make things more interesting and busy. I thought they might be a post-war restoration artifact, but they appear in diagrams in the pilot's notes. They may have been aluminum - I painted mine brown due to the colour photo I was referencing, but it is from a warbird so I may be wrong.

 

Speaking of post-war restorations, Eduard also provide a small PE piece that attaches to the bulkhead just behind the pilot:

 

IMG_2611

 

As before, some photos show this and some don't. It appears to be a guard or support for the lines that feed to the voltage regulator and altitude switch. I suppose this means I will have to add those lines...

 

The armoured headrest is provided by Tamiya in PE, and it fits nicely onto the bulkhead. Eduard give you teeny tiny PE rings that slide over the attachment pegs to replicate the fasteners or washers or grommets. Whatever they are. These will be painted grey-green.

 

IMG_2614

 

I've also been working on some other sub-assemblies - stuff that goes on the sidewalls primarily. And there is a lot of them! It doesn't seem like I've accomplished much, but I've already spent enough time to build a complete 1:72 Spitfire kit.

 

Here is one reason - Barracuda provide a resin control column and some small gauge wire for the pneumatic lines. Using a #80 drill, we're told to drill three holes each on the top and bottom of the control column for the lines to feed through. Right. Well, what the hey, let's give it a try.   :banghead:

 

Believe it or not, I managed to drill out five of the holes, but the sixth broke through the resin, leaving a slot instead of a hole. I actually threaded the wire through the holes, and only lost 20-30% of my eyesight and nearly all of my patience. There is still much work to do here, but I thought I'd provide a photo to show that I am not making this up!

 

IMG_2610

 

You can see that it was the central hole on the lower bracket that morphed into a slot. In 1:72 scale I would declare "Pneumatic lines? What pneumatic lines?" and be done with it. But apparently in this scale these things must be done or else the Illuminati will be set upon you.

 

Aye ca rumba.

 

So we are slowing making some progress. I think I mentioned earlier that I'm treating this as several projects. When the cockpit is finished, I will consider the first project "done" and the next sub-assembly will begin the next project. I think this helps the mojo thingy, although playing some 78 RPM Leadbelly records helps in that regard as well.

 

It's entirely possible that in the middle of this build I will start building another kit simultaneously. I've been thinking of doing the A&AEE Boscombe Down FG.1 in the 25th Anniversary scheme. Using the 1:72 Fujimi kit - because I own it and don't want to buy another.

 

Speaking of markings, I'm having second thoughts about what to put on this Spitfire. (Those of you who have followed any of my builds know I'm notorious for this.) I have markings for two additional aircraft - MK826 GC-K (Wing Commander George Keefer) and BS152 AE-W (Squadron Leader Lorne Cameron). The latter has a nifty skull artwork on the cowl. I'm going to research these two and see if I can have more confidence in their configuration than I do with EN398 AE-B. Ta for now.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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