1/10th Douglas Bader and Spitfire Cockpit

[brodiebear]

Next up for me is the 1/10th model of Douglas Bader sitting in a spitfire cockpit, released as a limited edition run by RP Models, I wont go into the full details as their is a lot of fantastic resin,but suffice to say even in dry fit without any trimming/ sanding it goes together like a dream, only small fit issue i have noticed is the googles, not matching up to the straps, but once sanded and cleaned the resin inside the googles may be a perfect fit, few photos of how it looks, its a chunky and not a light piece of resin. I will build the cockpit first then the great man himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, with the Christmas and New Year Festivities out of the way, I started cleaning up the major cockpit components, just the usual seam line here and there, opening up some of the holes. The hardest part was where the compass slots onto the instrument fascia, the slot is too small to get a file in so it’s a case of scrapping away the inside with a sharp blade. It is apparent that there is a bit of warpage on the main structural items, including the ‘keel’. Think it’s going to take some careful reshaping in boiling water. I did notice that if I was to glue the seat structure to the rear bulkhead and then glue this to the keel it should pull that part into alignment to attach the instrument panel bulkhead.

‘Douglas’ just required some scrapping and sanding of a few mould lines on his arms and back of his one leg, the googles required some time in cleaning out the back of the left lens, a bit of resin was lodged in here, again tricky to get rid of, but perseverance paid off, along with removing some of the resin on his helmet so the lens sat better. Will just need a smidgen of filler to join the googles to the strap.

[SA80A2AR]

looks nice

 

+1

[FredG]

To me it seems odd. I associate Bader more with Hurricanes. I know he did fly Spitfires of course, he bailed from one over France which ended his flying career due to captivity.

 

It looks like a brilliant kit 👍

 

I suppose the bad joke is - I noticed his legs come separately

Edited January 8, 2019 by FredG

[stevej60]

Look's superb.

[k5054nz]

What a fascinating kit! I've been thinking a lot about nose/cockpit kits lately and this is right out of left-field. I like it! I'm excited to follow your progress.

 

I'm not sold on the face sculpt - I'm guessing he'll look the part once painted, but right now he doesn't look much like the 1:1 example to me.

[brodiebear]

Got the big chunks washed and into the spray room (Utility !) and got a black primer coat on;

 

 

Followed by varying depths of cockpit green;

 

 

Next is to paint the composite seat and the instrument panel.

[Biggles87]

An interesting project, I'll tag along if I may.

 

John

[brodiebear]

On 1/15/2019 at 3:30 PM, Biggles87 said:

An interesting project, I'll tag along if I may.

 

John

glad to have you on board.

[Grey Beema]

Looks like an interesting and unusual kit, mind if I tag along?

 

I'm not sure I'm convinced by the legs, Bader was often photographed in Silcott suit and shoes but this was during the BoB did he wear the same once he had moved to Spitfires?  To me that looks like trousers and boots having said that I'm not sure what I would expect to see..

Are the seat belts that pass through the seat armour and the oxygen mask included?

[brodiebear]

On 1/20/2019 at 8:34 AM, Grey Beema said:

Looks like an interesting and unusual kit, mind if I tag along?

 

I'm not sure I'm convinced by the legs, Bader was often photographed in Silcott suit and shoes but this was during the BoB did he wear the same once he had moved to Spitfires?  To me that looks like trousers and boots having said that I'm not sure what I would expect to see..

Are the seat belts that pass through the seat armour and the oxygen mask included?

He has been sculpted wearing Silcott suit; this is the image the team used to base the sculpt on;

 

 

These are the promotion shots and yes the belts are included. No Oxygen mask though, rumours abound of him smoking his pipe while in combat !!

 

 

 

Steve

 

[SA80A2AR]

progress!!!

 

i did hear about him smoking a pipe in combat too

Edited March 27, 2019 by SA80A2AR

[brodiebear]

Bit of a biggish post,

Got the black preshade on, followed by the interior green, misted on over the black to give an irregular coverage;

 

 

Next up was the RBP (Synthetic Resin-Bonded Paper) seat. All painted and weathered, which maybe a bit of overkill as once the pilot is in the seat you wont see much, least i know its all there.

 

 

Instrument panel was next, and if i am been honest the bit i wasn't looking forward to. The decals were the first ones that the guys at RP models had tried to create, and been on a continuous carrier, i wasn't looking forward to cutting out. I had visions of them tearing, folding back, disintegrating. So the first one i tried was the smallest and i needn't have worried, they worked a treat. so once dry a drop of white glue was added to glaze them. 

 

 

A few parts dry fitted;

 

Now i thought i would be clever and drop a drop of vallejo water onto them to create a bit of a dome on the bezels - Disaster as youi can see;

 

The Vallejo water reacted with the white glue and things just misted up, thought for a moment it may come good, but it didnt, so i had to try and peel the resin away. Some dials were okay, others were destroyed. A quic plea to Huo at RP and he has put me some new decals in the post free of charge.

This weekend got the major body parts, undercoated with Tamiya fine white primer. More soon .......

[Mike]

Hopefully it's clear back up once the water's evaporated away.  Lovely sculpt - keep up the good work

[brodiebear]

True to his word, parcel arrived from Hugo in Portugal yesterday morning. Top class customer support

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by brodiebear

[Grey Beema]

21 hours ago, brodiebear said:

 

 

 

 

 

Love this, cockpit is progressing really well and it is going to look really excellent when finished..

 

Can I be a little bit nerdy though?

To the right of the Clock and below the Undercarriage Position Indicator on the left of the panel should be the Elevator Trim Tab Indicator.  I am not sure what the instrument that you have there is but the Elevator Trim Tab indicator you have on the right of the panel below the Oil Pressure Gauge so this should move across.

 

I am not sure what the instrument is beside the sight mounting slot but I think there should be a placard there warning about IAS and Flaps and no instrument.  There should also be cockpit light dimmer switches and a starter button below the blind flying panel magneto switches to the left etc but that's enough nerdy stuff for now..  

 

Just thought I might mention the gauges before you Got started..

 

[FredG]

2 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

Can I be a little bit nerdy though?

Oh we like a bit of nerdy 👍

[brodiebear]

22 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

 

Love this, cockpit is progressing really well and it is going to look really excellent when finished..

 

Can I be a little bit nerdy though?

To the right of the Clock and below the Undercarriage Position Indicator on the left of the panel should be the Elevator Trim Tab Indicator.  I am not sure what the instrument that you have there is but the Elevator Trim Tab indicator you have on the right of the panel below the Oil Pressure Gauge so this should move across.

 

I am not sure what the instrument is beside the sight mounting slot but I think there should be a placard there warning about IAS and Flaps and no instrument.  There should also be cockpit light dimmer switches and a starter button below the blind flying panel magneto switches to the left etc but that's enough nerdy stuff for now..  

 

Just thought I might mention the gauges before you Got started..

 

Thanks,

I Just went off their instructions for decal placement. Looking on the web their seems to be a myriad of different layouts for Spitfires, Mk1's early, Mk1 Lates Mk1a , so without knowing the spitfire they used for reference i cant say if it is correct. Dare i say it looks like a spitfire and the cockpit is a place for the main 'attraction' of the piece to sit. You could go totally mad and add in all the control linkages, cables, etc.

[brodiebear]

Got the replacement decals on last night;

 

 

Still one that is on wrong, so will rectify (lucky i have a second decal sheet) and then onto the gun sight and compass 

[brodiebear]

Spent a good hour or so last night working on the Gun sight. Had to file out the back of the lens holder and side frames. Did start to score away the top 'glass' but one of the side supports started to come away, so have abandoned that idea. In hindsight I should have cut that piece away first and then sorted the side frames, not sure if they would have survived though as the 'resin webbing' is quite thick, someone needs to devise a 'hot wire' for resin Lol. Anyway dry fitted the gunsight to the instrument panel and took a few photos;

 

 

 

 

[brodiebear]

Compass Painted up last night, cockpit green for the metal work, attached to back of IP, then a medium grey for the compass housing and gloss black for the compass dial. I acually painted the dial white and when dry over painted with the black, when that was dry i used one of my 'testing' needles (Diabetic Type 2), to scratch the black paint away to mark some sort of points on the compass. Then a blob of red for 'North' and sealed in with some vallejo water resin. The stick its on is a standard coffee stirrer (5mm wide);

 

[brodiebear]

Calling the Instrument panel done, painted in the last few bits, gear up / down indicator, switch and a couple of dial setting knobs. Glued on the Gun sight and compass. Throttle quadrant, IFF panel and undercarriage control lever 

 

 

 

 

 

[brodiebear]

Calling the cockpit finished, all items painted from reference photos found on the web, main source was 'Anatomy of a spitfire' website. Next up the great man himself.

Dry Fitted his lower torso, with parachute pack to make sure everything lines up - which it does so thats a testament to the model with all those pieces of resin.I think (after the photos were taken i knocked off the left rudder pedal stem) i will also remove the right pedal and set at a more vertical angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brodiebear]

So got to work on the life jacket last night, in hindsight I should have coated the jacket in white first before adding the fist coat of yellow, but hey ho. Shaded and highlighted with various wash mixes to give it a faded/worn look , didnt want it to look like a 'toy' version, plus references i have found shows them to be faded than overtly bright

 

 

 

 

This probably a more accurate rendition of the colour

 

 

Palette used to paint the jacket, along with the paints.

 

[John_W]

Historical trivia. Many pilots cut away the collars of their flying jackets as they found them too restrictive to wear with a life jacket.

[brodiebear]

After some advice on th PF forum I decided to revisit the shadows and highlights, so this is where I got to;

 

Then I noticed this piece of resin sticking out on the right side of the life jacket

 

So a quick look on the internet and I found this image on Alamys website showing the correct colours, so will have to paint these details, even though the right arm will probably obsucre the detail.