1:32 Tamiya Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IXc

[Biggles87]

That sidewall is fantastic, the placards and decals make a huge difference. ,The rectangular item below the IFF destructor and emergency U/C selector is the windscreen de-icer fluid reservoir and the stopper was normally bare metal or brass and the plumbing associated with it was sometimes unpainted brass, if you want to add more colour.

 

John

[Navy Bird]

So where were we? Right, Spitfire...I think I left off with the sidewalls. The port sidewall has got most of its gubbins attached, including some very tiny stickers from Barracuda. Of course, if you look closely enough at the label on the airscrew control you'll see that I somehow managed to stick it on upside down. I didn't notice that until after the Micro Sol had done its trick, and I was checking it with a magnifier. But it at least goes to show that the printing is actually legible.

 

 

I decided to go with aluminum for the compressed air tanks instead of grey-green. This was done solely for the reason that I wanted to "break up" the cockpit and bring in some contrast.

 

Eduard give you some PE for the radiator flap switch, supercharger test button, generator switch, and the lower radio controls. Each one of these pieces was about the size of a quadriplegic gnat's armpit. Luckily, they give about twice what you need, and I used them all. I'm quite sure they're not done falling off yet. You might also notice some PE cabling on the port side of the instrument panel, along the lower edge.

 

I had a look at how it will appear when positioned on the fuselage:

 

 

I noticed that there is no gun camera film indicator - I'll have to look through the Barracuda stuff and see if they included one or not. On the starboard side, I added the remote contactor box from one of the Barracuda sets. I'm surprised that Tamiya seem to have left that out. Barracuda give you the stickers for the labels on this box, but not for the instrument face itself, so I found something to use over on the Island of Misfit Stickers.

 

Tamiya also moulded the signaling switchbox and the shelf holding the three spare filaments in one chunk of styrene, and Eduard have you hack this all up, separating the filaments and then mounting them on a shelf made from PE. Why not? I've got plenty of sharp things to stick myself with. In any event, it came out OK.

 

 

I finished up the aft end of the starboard panel, where Tamiya have supposedly put the oxygen tank in the wrong place. I have several photos that agree with Tamiya, and a few hundred that don't, but I put it there anyway. Barracuda provide a nice sticker for the O2 bottle, but you've got to paint the straps after the sticker is on. You sort of have just one chance to do this!

 

 

It ain't perfect, but it will work!  

 

Let's see, what else...oh yeah, the seat. I painted the Barracuda resin with Gunze H47 Red Brown to represent that type of material. I tried to do some highlights with a lightened version of this colour, but I'm not sure you can see it. As I mentioned before, I opted to drill out the lightening holes on the seat support, and I used Eduard's PE for the seat adjusting handle (specifically the ratchet area).

 

 

 

I tried a bunch of stuff for the seat cushion, including a base of Gunze H77 Tire Black, and then some post shading with greys and finally a black wash to bring out the seams in the leather. The harnesses will cover most of this up anyway...

 

 

At this point, I think it's time to start putting all these little assemblies together. I've done some test fitting, and Tamiya's fit is so good that I'll have to take some paint off the mating surfaces to get some pieces to go together. I think it's going to make a nice cockpit at the end of the day though! I'll have another look and see if I've missed anything, or if there are any more cables that need to be added. And, of course, I'll probably do some chipping with my trusty silver pencil, and perhaps use pastels to make some dirt and scruff marks. But I am not going to go overboard because I never go overboard, right?

 

Cheers,

Bill

[CedB]

Lovely work Bill  

I especially like the spare bulbs and the seat. Oh, and the Oxygen bottle. And the... oh, it's all brilliant.

[Max Headroom]

I love that seat👍🏻

 

Will you be displaying this canopy back and entry hatch open? Hiding all this detail would be a shame.

 

Trevor

[Stew Dapple]

Lovely work Bill, just beautiful

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Hamden]

 

Cockpit looks fantastic

 

    Roger

[Christer A]

That's an amzing cockpit for sure!

[Biggles87]

Superb! I couldn't believe that Tamiya had missed the remote contacted either, it's quite a large piece of kit and in a prominent position too. Three cheers for Barracuda.

 

John

 

[giemme]

Superb cockpit!  And I think you nailed the cushion rendition

 

Ciao

[amblypygid]

I shall add my voice to the chorus of huzzahs. It certainly makes me want to emulate your cockpit, though my skills are inadequate, I fear.

[Navy Bird]

16 hours ago, CedB said:

I especially like the spare bulbs and the seat. Oh, and the Oxygen bottle. And the... oh, it's all brilliant.

 

Thanks, Ced. If I'm not mistaken, having the extra bulbs present means I'll be using the Mk.II reflector sight, and not the gyro sight. That should be OK for any of the schemes I'm considering. The gyro sight didn't really come on until late '44 I believe? But I could be wrong.

 

15 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Will you be displaying this canopy back and entry hatch open? Hiding all this detail would be a shame.

 

I was thinking of having everything closed and all fogged over like you see with an old plane setting out in the desert for decades. Then no one will be able to see that the airscrew marking is upside down.  

 

Nah, the canopy will be open. I rarely close canopies.

 

9 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

Lovely work Bill, just beautiful

 

Thanks, Stew. I'm a bit chuffed so far myself.

 

8 hours ago, Hamden said:

Cockpit looks fantastic

 

Thanks - I can't wait to see how it all goes together. It's been a lot of fun building it since it has so much more detail than the 1:72 kits I usually build. But I'm not sure I would want to build in this scale all the time.

 

7 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Superb! I couldn't believe that Tamiya had missed the remote contacted either, it's quite a large piece of kit and in a prominent position too. Three cheers for Barracuda.

 

Thanks John. I was surprised too, and I kept looking on the sprues to see if it was there and perhaps they just missed it in the instructions. I suppose whatever Mk.IX restoration they used for reference didn't have one.

 

7 hours ago, giemme said:

Superb cockpit!  And I think you nailed the cushion rendition

 

Thanks Giorgio. The cushion came out pretty good, and it was pretty easy to do. I masked it off from the rest of the seat and sprayed a base coat of H77 Tire Black, er, excuse me, Tyre Black. Then I switched to a fine needle and sprayed a lighter grey, H305 I think, just along the top of the pleats, so vertical stripes if you will. Then I removed the masking and used a black wash made with Future. The Future wash is pretty simple, 50/50 Future and water with several drops of Gunze H2 Black. I found the recipe on Barracuda's site. The pigment doesn't break up at all, and the thinned Future naturally collects in the seams, stitching, and other "edges."

 

7 hours ago, amblypygid said:

I shall add my voice to the chorus of huzzahs. It certainly makes me want to emulate your cockpit, though my skills are inadequate, I fear.

 

Thank you! I try to follow the seven P's, but I usually lose focus and just throw everything together.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[giemme]

3 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

Tire Black, er, excuse me, Tyre Black

I've just come back from California, so you can say Tire, no problem  

Ciao

[(ex)Sgtrafman]

Hi Bill

 

I have to echo everyone else's comments - the cockpit is really looking the business, great work sir.

 

Keep it up - coz when your done she will be a show stopper!

 

Cheers

 

Iain

[David H]

It looks very very nice Bill.

 

Did i miss something, or did you make a switch over to acrylics recently? Building my Tamiya Corsairs, i too noticed that paint buildup had an effect on fit in some places. But that was when i used mostly enamels. I'm almost completely switched over to acrylics and lacquers now and the fit seems to be better. Just requires one a bit more fastidious surface prep when painting big areas, that's all. Your Mileage May Vary...

 

-d-

[Navy Bird]

17 hours ago, David H said:

Did i miss something, or did you make a switch over to acrylics recently?

 

Thanks David.

 

I've been using Gunze aqueous acrylics almost exclusively since the 80s. I discovered them during some business trips to Japan. I liked them so much I started a side business where I imported them into the US and sold them through mail order (no Internet at the time). The business was called "Model Finishers" and I sold the paint along with some other painting accessories. But then MMD (Military Model Distributors aka Squadron) came along and got the exclusive rights for importing and I had to buy through them. They were able to import by the boat load and I wasn't, so I understand why they got the distributorship. Ultimately, it lowered my profit margin and, to be honest, MMD really dropped the ball. They were always out of inventory of the popular colours, and I couldn't keep the business running without stock. Then there was some label controversy and they stopped importing altogether. The paint has incredible shelf life - I'm still using bottles from back then and they're just fine.

 

It's difficult to find Gunze aqueous in the US these days, so when I need to replenish, I buy from a dealer in Taiwan for $3.50 per bottle and free shipping. No minimum. Can't beat that.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. I also use Colourcoats often and Alclad for natural metal stuff. If I absolutely have to I will use Model Master, but not without a fight.

[Navy Bird]

Way back in the last days of vinyl records I remember a discussion about the proper routing of the Sutton harness - in particular the two sets of straps that go over the pilot's shoulders. I'm not talking about the straps that go through the slot in the armour plate behind the headrest, but rather the "other" Y-shaped straps with the grommets. I think it was Edgar who said those went over the back of the seat and down to their anchor point near the base of the seat (we'll call this Route A). The other viewpoint, from Roy S., was that these went over the shoulders and went through the slot that's in the lower portion of the seat backrest, and then to the anchor point (Route B).

 

Edgar said that Route B only happened with metal seats, as the plastic seat wasn't strong enough. Was there ever a conclusion to this issue? I'm about to add the harnesses to the seat, and would like to get it as right as I can.  

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Howard Moon]

Hi Bill,I’ve always gone Route ‘A’ the other way just doesn’t look right to me.  Don’t have definitive proof though, didn’t Edgar post a diagram which showed the ‘A’ option? Cant seem to find it st the moment. 

 

Your cockpit is beautiful by the way 

[Biggles87]

The only time I've gone for route  'B' was on an early Mk1 with a metal seat. I also understood that the O2 bottle on that mark was lower because the hose came from under the seat, and that after that it was in the usually seen position high on the starboard wall between frames 11 and 12.

Waiting impatiently to see the the completed cockpit.

 

John

[bigbadbadge]

Great work on the cockpit Bill.  Would love one of these Tamiya Spitfires.  

Keep up the good work. 

All the best 

Chris 

[Navy Bird]

Thanks guys. I've always used route A on my 1:72 Spitfires, but in those cases there usually isn't a slot in the bottom of the seat back, and I'm too lazy to put one in. Here is an interesting photo that was posted by Roy Sutherland over on that other forum, and it shows the pilot leaning forward in the cockpit.

 

 

The green arrow shows the belts that are going through the slot in the headrest armour, but the red arrow clearly shows the other shoulder harness going down the pilot's back - it can only be going through that slot in the seat. If it was going over the back of the seat it'd be stretched out. I'm told that this photo is a Mk.IX Spitfire, although I don't know that for sure.

 

I also found this on Radu's site (he makes some beautiful textile Sutton QK harnesses - why didn't I buy a set?), and he shows them going through the slot in the seat.

 

 

Edgar posted the following two drawings here on Britmodeller, where it looks to me like the drawing on the left is showing the straps heading south down the front of the seat back, and presumably going through that lower slot. There is even a little kink in the line. Now, even though he posted this in a thread about Spitfire, I'm thinking this drawing on the left is actually something else - Hurricane maybe? The drawing on the right could be interpreted either way, but to me, it looks like the strap is going through the slot.

 

 

The last thing that I could find from Edgar regarding Spitfire harnesses was this quote:

 

"My belief, at the moment, is that early Marks didn't use the slot, while later Marks did; which, and when, remains a mystery."

 

Which doesn't help me at all! I'll most likely follow Route A as I've always done, but this is a good example of one of those apparently simple questions that doesn't have a hard and fast answer. I like this part of the hobby, though. Doing the armchair research and learning what I can from the guys who are are on the ground doing the real research. Fun stuff.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. The good news is that I was able to use a brand new blade and scrape off the errant paint on the steel harnesses that came in the LööK set. You can refer back to the photo I posted earlier which showed the metal rings around the grommets being partly obscured by paint. They aren't now!

[Procopius]

That's Jan Zumbach's famous Spitfire Vb, but that should have no bearing on the belts 

[Kev The Modeller]

Superb work Bill 

[Navy Bird]

What's up with Eduard? I'm really starting to think they need to pay better attention. First, the printing alignment problem with their new LööK set. Next, as I'm placing the harnesses on the seat, I find that the strap that goes through the slot in the head armour is either too wide, or the single strap is not long enough. Take a look at the next photo and hopefully it will help explain the issue.

 

 

The harness on the left is part of the Big Ed Spitfire IX set, and is actually a "late" style harness. Regardless, the single strap fits through the slot and reaches the mounting point on the bulkhead. A portion of the area where there are two straps also goes through the slot. Now, the one on the right is from the LööK set. The single strap is shorter, and the double straps are spread too wide, and won't go through the slot far enough to be properly placed. (You can also see the printing alignment problem on the straps.)

 

Measure twice and cut once fellas!

 

The Tamiya straps, also in PE but rather thick and not so malleable, are very similar in size and shape to the Eduard piece on the left. Whomever designed the LööK set obviously didn't have a look at what they had done in the past, which was correct for the Tamiya kit. Crazy.

 

I'm going to have to kitbash the photoetch pieces to try and come up with something that works. This will be fun!  

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Oh, and Tamiya say to use the slot in the lower back of the seat...

[giemme]

Not envious of what you have to do, at the moment...  but I'm sure you'll come up with a brilliant solution, as always 😉 

 

Ciao

[Buzby061]

Have you tried annealing the Tamiya PE? It should make them more flexible. I used the RB productions belts on mine, really good results but a pain in the derriere to assemble.

 

Pete