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Spitfire Tr 9 PT462


Biggles87

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CDP_6951 copy 2

 Having had the good fortune to fly in this Spitfire at Duxford last May ( something I never dreamed would happen to me ), I am now going to attempt to create the aircraft in plastic, this will be my winter " kitchen " project and will probably be brush painted along with MH434. 

PT462 was built in 1943 as an HF Mk IXE and had an extremely varied career including service with Italy and Israel before being rebuilt as a two seater for the late Charles Church in the 1980s. She now belongs to the Aircraft Restoration Company and is one of two Spitfires operated by Classic Wings for their Spitfire Flights at Duxford.

My base kit for this conversion is the Eduard 1/48 Spitfire XVI weekend edition, not the usual Mk IX conversion you might expect, but I need a late ' E ' wing with the teardrop bulges over the wheel wells and their Mk IX.E does not have these. I do have the Brigade Models Tr 9 conversion but this has the original high rear canopy and not the streamlined " Grace " type seen on PT462, and I also have the Hasegawa Mk IX fuselage left over from my MH434 build, so hopefully I will be able to work something out.

IMG_1489IMG_1485IMG_1488

Incidentally, the Eduard Mk IX/XVI weekend series are probably the best value kits around at the moment, in addition to the sprues carrying the wing and fuselage parts peculiar to the sub type listed on the box there are two sprues common to the whole series which provide lots of spares, and I have four Eduard Spitfires at the moment!

Common sense prevails.

 Having done some comparison fittings between the different fuselages I have come the the conclusion that the Brigade conversion fuselage is based on the Hasegawa Mk IX fuselage which we all know is too short, and the surface detail between the fuselage and wing would be totally different so I have contacted Eduard who are prepared to sell me the fuselage sprue from their Mk IX.E kit, rather than being welsh and trying to bodge together something with parts that were never intended to fit.   

I do know that the front cockpit was 13.5 inches further forward on the two seater,  and if I can determine that the distance between the cockpits on the Brigade fuselage is correct I can start from there.  My biggest problem is going to be the rear cockpit canopy and the tunnel connecting it to the front canopy, I need to get some accurate dimensions from somewhere, and I would be happy to hear from anyone who has any information.

While waiting for the Mk IX.E fuselage parts I have started work on the wings, beginning with the wheel wells which consist of no less than 15 parts ( including the spar ) which took me over an hour to complete, slightly over-engineered perhaps, but it does result in a convincing representation of the unique ' sloping ' wheel wells of the Spitfire. 

IMG_1491

 

Next up will be to join the upper and lower wings and then fit the radiators which again consist of multiple parts.

That's it for now, not much but at least it's a start

 

John  :pilot:

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I'm in as someone said "can't have enough Spitfires!"

Not been lucky enough to do a Spitfire flight have managed second best with a Harvard flight out of Duxford

 

       Roger

 

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Hi John

Very nice project indeed, looking forward to this one.  Is the 32nd Spit still ongoing ?  I have been away from the forum for a couple of weeks and am now back, so will be able to watch with interest.

 

Good luck with your build.

 

All the best
Chris

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Thanks everyone for looking in and for the comments. I agree that you can't have too many Spitfires, I recently discovered two more in a box, a Mk VIII and a Mk 21 both ready for painting so I might add them to the brush painting list for the winter.

A Havard flight Roger, that's nice and probably as noisy as a Spitfire. Of course there's someone watching this who has done both, I'll let you guess who.

The 1/32 Mk V is still going Chris, I'm wrestling with the seat harness at the moment and hope to have her structurally complete soon so that I can start airbrushing again next Spring, 1/32 is too big for brush painting for me.

More soon I hope.

Cheers

 

John :pilot:

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Having given the wheel wells a couple of coats of Humbrol acrylic Medium Sea Grey it was time to attach the upper wings and leave them to set overnight before tackling the underwing radiators.

After painting the interiors of the individual parts I followed the example of Christer A's " Aussie Eight "  and built up the radiators on the wings, starting with the sides, forward and rear matrix faces and then the roof, which worked quite well. The radiator flaps are supplied as separate parts along with alternate mechanisms for the open and closed positions, and I have fixed them in the closed position as this is how they appeared on '462 when the engine was shut down.

IMG_1504

Without a fuselage to work on, ( Eduard say it's on the way ) my options for further construction are limited to small sub`assemblies.    

Wingtips and ailerons attached, and tailplanes joined, the cannon barrels will be added later to avoid the inevitability of breaking them off.

IMG_1507

At some stage I will need to fill the ' rivet ' pinholes on the upper wing ahead of the main spar line to represent the smooth surface in this area on the real aeroplane. 

Lower nose cowling will be next, but I am going to use a Barracuda resin part for the upper cowling and avoid the seam. I have both the flat and bulged parts but have not decided yet which one is appropriate. 

That's about it for now, all comments welcome.

 

John:pilot:

  

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Blimey, there's so many of us on here who've flown Spitfires that we'll have to form a club soon! 

 

In terms of the distance the front cockpit was moved forwards, it equates to about the width of the cockpit access door, as near as makes no difference. It worked well enough on my 1/32 conversion.

 

The rear canopy on the Grace type conversions is a bit longer than the standard front one, by the way!

 

I'll be watching with interest,

Dean

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Hi Dean ,

A BM Spitfire Flyers club  sounds like a good idea, maybe it could be affiliated to the Spitfire Serial Starters club.

Thanks for the info on the fuselage, I have been following a Tr 9 build over on LSM by Iain Ogilvy ( Iain 32sig) who also appears occasionally on BM. He used spare entry doors to fill the gaps created when he moved the upper fuselage forward so obviously came to the same conclusion, and I shall do the same.

Did you post anything here on your Tr 9 build? If so could you point me in the right direction.

 

John

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2 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Hi Dean ,

A BM Spitfire Flyers club  sounds like a good idea, maybe it could be affiliated to the Spitfire Serial Starters club.

Thanks for the info on the fuselage, I have been following a Tr 9 build over on LSM by Iain Ogilvy ( Iain 32sig) who also appears occasionally on BM. He used spare entry doors to fill the gaps created when he moved the upper fuselage forward so obviously came to the same conclusion, and I shall do the same.

Did you post anything here on your Tr 9 build? If so could you point me in the right direction.

 

John

Hi John,

 

Yes I know Iain as we started our conversions at about the same time and he helped me out with some reference material. He's using the Tamiya kit, I used the Revell, but the cut sequence I used was this:

spitfire%20cuts%20sequence_zpsbzwpbz19.j

 

If you get it right, it looks like this when finished:

PV202_zpsgasbprs3.jpg

 

The build article was in Model Airplane International last month, so it hasn't appeared on here, but if you've got any questions feel free to ask. I've currently got a 1/72 T.9 in the WIP section here, too...

 

Cheers,

Dean

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Thanks again Dean, that looks very useful.I  I used to subscribe to Model Airplane International but I stopped a couple of years ago, I'll see if I can get a copy of that issue..

I was hoping that my new fuselage would have arrived by now, but no luck yet. It's probably in France but everything'is being held up at the moment due to the current ' unrest ' over fuel prices.

 

Jhn

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  • 2 weeks later...

The fuselage sprue finally arrived today.

IMG_1509

The first thing I did was to compare it with the drawings supplied with the Brigade models conversion. As the Brigade conversion appears to be based on the Hasegawa fuselage I was expecting a discrepancy so you can imagine my surprise when the Eduard Mk IX fuselage is a pretty good match for length on the drawings, assuming that they are accurate.

IMG_1516

I will use them (and the photos of his conversion process supplied by Dean ) to determine my measurements for the cutting and have provisionally marked the port side with Dymo tape, and will remove the front portion first, then reduce the length of the fuel tank before checking again with the drawings to confirm the position of the rear vertical cut.

IMG_1520

Cutting will begin tomorrow, wish me luck.

 

John :pilot: 

 

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I’m planning to bodge a Grace from a Matchbox IX.  My reading of photos is that it’s the greenhouse between the canopies that is longer and has an angled rear to match the second canopy. The second canopy might be longer as well, though.

Cheers 

Will

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Thanks for the vote of confidence Roger, but I'm still a little dubious about my ability to vac-form a decen rear canopy.

Thanks for posting the link Bob, I should have done it myself, I'm following Ian's build very closely.

Hi Will, welcome aboard. You are correct in your observations on the tunnel and the rear canopy, I just wish I had taken a tape measure with me last May.

 

Thanks for watching everyone.

 

John

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On 12/4/2018 at 7:01 AM, malpaso said:

I’m planning to bodge a Grace from a Matchbox IX.  

That's just what I did!

35550149431_58aaabda2b_z.jpgwdq01 by Zac Yates, on Flickr

34839519144_0943973476_z.jpgmh36702-1 by Zac Yates, on Flickr

 

35296233870_b23d75cbb9_c.jpg73388E31-EF69-40E1-A249-6115010CA08C_zpswpwnabvb by Zac Yates, on Flickr

<Photo by me in place of the Airliners.net photo, sorry mods>

 

Apologies for the hijack! I'm excited to see how your build progresses.

Edited by k5054nz
Removing copyrighted photo
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4 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I'm still a little dubious about my ability to vac-form a decen rear canopy

I was similarly dubious John but my first attempts at plunge molding turned out OK - give it a go! :) 

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Yesterday, armed with a new No11 blade and my JLC razor saw I took a deep breath and started cutting. 

The vertical cuts were made with the razor saw and the horizontal ones by constant scoring with the knife. Having looked again at the thread on LSP by Iain (32sig) I decided to adopt his approach and make the rear vertical cut down from the back edge of the rear fixed canopy  and extend back from that later.

IMG_1523

The next step was to remove 7mm from the front of each fuel tank panel so that the cockpit would sit the equivalent of 13.5 inches forward of the original position, and I have roughly taped the forward port section to the fuselage and placed it beside a standard single seater ( actually a Mk VIII ) to give an idea of the different windscreen position.

IMG_1525

I must get some new Dymo tape this one is leaving 'orribe sticky residues when I remove it.  

That's it for now, any comments/suggestions welcome.

 

Cheers

 

John  :pilot:

 

Edited by Biggles87
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