Sptfire XVIII wing, again

[ChrisBraid]

On 7/16/2019 at 11:07 PM, Graham Boak said:

Yes, I have quite a few e-books, and whereas they are fine for text and pictures (when effort is taken, which it often isn't) I find them unsuitable for presentation of technical drawings.  Partially to test this, I am considering getting the e-book version of Monforton's Spitfire book.  However, this is only because I have already had and used the hard copy, sadly lost to water damage.  But for the cost of postage from Canada I would prefer to buy another hard copy. 

 

Under the current licencing arrangements many e-books lack the value of ownership in the long term.  In many cases you do not own the books but merely have them as long as the licencing authority can be bothered to maintain their system and software.  Something which is already affecting some users, if not in our field as far as I know.  In general, the instability of the internet has led to the loss of material even over the few years of its existence, as the longer term users will attest.  The continual rapid obsolescing of the technology is a worry when it comes to long-term access to content.  Note the fate of the computerised Domesday Book exercise.  Books last (if you can keep then dry!) but on current evidence e-references are ephemeral.

 

It should be pointed out that despite considerable (massive?) improvement over the years, the Wiki articles are often somewhat less than definitive and even at best are immensely shorter than even the thinnest of reference books.  I would agree that such an approach is perhaps better than the rapidly forgotten and passed-over postings on bloated bulletin boards or thinner but no longer available ones.  However, I feel you are underestimating the difficulty of such a attempt, problems of the responsibility of the editors and the considerable workload involved in establishment and maintenance of both the site and the content.

 

I agree it would be a fairly massive project from technology and editorial point of view. But do you think if it was there people would 

1. Contribute their knowledge

2. Utilise it.

 

[Max Salas]

just found this in another topic here in britmodeller.......they seem useful

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2677622-Spitfires/page2

[Troy Smith]

13 minutes ago, Max Salas said:

just found this in another topic here in britmodeller.......they seem useful

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2677622-Spitfires/page2

It's late, but IIRRC the is debate about the Fred Spring drawings.

@gingerbob  maybe able to add what are considered accurate.   Poor Spitfire drawings have been responsible for many a flawed kit....

 

 

[gingerbob]

I tend to put my faith in Supermarine drawings.

[Work In Progress]

Not always a good move, as the debacle of the factory-supplied Hawker drawings for the Hurricane proved, causing most model Hurricanes to be wrong for decades. A factory drawing may exist for all sorts of purposes, including marketing, and still be entirely misleading for accurate reproduction of what the factory actually made.  

There's also the well known tale of the Fairey factory drawings supplied to Airfix for the Battle which were actually for the very different P4/34 prototype 

[gingerbob]

I know how to read blueprints, and my point was that anything else is second-hand information at best, or an artist's impression.  People want easy answers to hard questions.

[John Aero]

It's a long time since I spent any time on Spitfires and I'm a bit too busy at this time to do so now. However as I understand it, the wing of the Mk.18 (I prefer to use Arabic rather than Roman numerals for clarity), is identical in shape plan wise to the Mk.14 with internal and surface detail changes. Somewhere I have a very faded factory drawing of the Mk.18 which I obtained from the late Mike Eacock.  

 

I suggested the use of the Academy wing on my conversion as it was one of the few things one could rescue from an awful kit.

 

The drawings by the brilliant Peter Cooke however do have some inaccuracies such as those of the fin and rudder.  They contain the same error that has bedeviled most drawings of the Mk. 18 in that a "big" rudder has been drawn onto a standard Mk.14 fin. Peter's drawings have been widely copied and I think that the Fred Spring drawings are copies as they contain the same empenage errors. Springs drawings of the DH Hornet again show all the Huntley drawing errors.

 

I first became aware of the filler block on top of the fin in the early 1970's when I noticed a slight movement when I was inspecting the tail end on the Mk.21 which has the same back end as the Mk.14C, which we retained on No.1 Sqn at Wittering.

I didn't particularly think anything of it at the time, but some years later when I was able to measure the FR.14E at Manchester did the penny drop, that by the removal of the filler piece enabled the fitting of the broad chord rudder to certain Griffon Mk's.  The dimensions are shown on my photo with a diagram overlay to be found somewhere in this thread..

 

John

[Troy Smith]

26 minutes ago, John Aero said:

However as I understand it, the wing of the Mk.18 (I prefer to use Arabic rather than Roman numerals for clarity), is identical in shape plan wise to the Mk.14 with internal and surface detail changes.

 

photos here John

and drawings

 

On 20/03/2019 at 17:19, Tomas Enerdal said:

I have looked at the pics and info I have, this is a synthesis of my conclusions, in plan form.
The pics studied are mainly of the ex-Indian ones, before and after restoration. While studying pics I
have noted that one has be careful with conclusions based on pics after restoration; sometimes
changes has occurred. Examples are removed gun bulges and removed identification lamps from
underside of the wings, toward the tips (48 in the manual diagram). Were other changes introduced
during restoration? I don’t know to what extent these wings were re-skinned during restoration.
Mind you, both SM845 and TP280 were restored to fly.
Another note I made is that the skin of a Spit wing is very smooth. I will probably slightly sand the
surface of the Airfix kit in order to tone down the panel lines somewhat. And I’ll be careful with panel
wash during finishing..
It shall be very interesting to see how the forthcoming Spit part 2 from Valiant Wings will handle this
matter.
For the sake of accuracy, any and all comments welcome!
Finally, I have seen 45 inch stated as the size for the over-wing D-roundels on 208 squadron, desert
camo aircraft. Looking at the one pic that shows this roundel clearly, 48 inch looks closer. Any Ideas?

Regards,

Tomas Enerdal

 

 

(Yes, these are the earlier C-guns, but I didn't have any 1/48 later, rounded gun plans handy, so I used these, for placement only)

Edited March 29 by Tomas Enerdal

 

Not intended to denigrate your input, just added here for clarity and ease of use. 

 

29 minutes ago, John Aero said:

I suggested the use of the Academy wing on my conversion as it was one of the few things one could rescue from an awful kit.

 

 

From my own research and attempt, the Academy kit is nearly all useable, but does require a load of chopping,  bending sanding and scraping,  and a new spinner.  I couldn't salvage that. (the Airfix Seafire 46/47, it done as a 47 has a spare though) The below is mostly pasted in, and I'd be curious to know your views on the fix?

 

The biggest visual glitch is the nose, and that's quite easy to do.

 

the back plate on a Griffon spinner is 28 inches. which is 7/12th's of an inch in 1/48, or .5833, or 14.8 mm. 1mm =approx 2 inch in 1/48 (1 inch = 25.4 mm)

the kit backplate is a scale 30 inch, so it's about 1mm too big, so the above makes the nose ring too small.... so armed with Peter Cooke plans, and a Aeroclub XIV fuselage, I had a quick go at a fix.. and am trying to avoid using aftermarket replacements as well.

the upper line of the fuselage is OK, the problem is the nose is too deep because the wings are too thick!

 

Spit academy nose mod DSCF0709_zpssziaklh8 by losethekibble, on Flickr

 

some saw cuts to reduce the nose ring, and a triangular wedge to bring up the lower cowl line, note how the over thick wing makes the cowl line too low, and thinning the wing will bring the wing up to lower cowl line.

the difference in depth compared to the unmodified cowl is clear.

 

The cut maybe better to do higher up...more investigation needed.

 

the backplate of the Academy Spinner is too wide, but it's also too long, and sanding this back will take off the extra diameter I hope.

the prop blades are too short, about 1mm, and wide, but this looks fixable with a little root extension and reshaping.

The rear fuselage is a little too deep, but back with plastic card and sanding will cure that.

 

the radiators are too deep and too narrow, but cutting the bottom off and the fixing this between the sides look like a possible fix.

the wings apart from being thick , have the oval wheel wells and too broad chord, and are a touch too far back on the fuselage, but all reasonably easy too correct.

There are other areas that need work on the Academy kit, but I thought trying to tackle the biggest problems first to see if feasible.

the panel lines seem mostly in the right places, and the fixes outlined if done carefully will not destroy much detail.

 

I also pulled out the Daco 'correction' set, which is basically a new nose, which is slimmer, but does not correct the depth problem caused by the thick wing, so it's the undercowl is wrong. Also, adding the new nose destroys lots of the panel lines, and the Daco nose I have is poor on the panel and fasteners detail

The above may sound like a lot of work, but if you have a stashed Academy kit that won't get done because of it's problems,and you don't want buy correction kits, (though IMO the Daco set is of limited use) then perhaps applying "some modelling skill" maybe the way forward.

 

 

 

 

 

[Graham Boak]

8 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

Not always a good move, as the debacle of the factory-supplied Hawker drawings for the Hurricane proved, causing most model Hurricanes to be wrong for decades. A factory drawing may exist for all sorts of purposes, including marketing, and still be entirely misleading for accurate reproduction of what the factory actually made.  

There's also the well known tale of the Fairey factory drawings supplied to Airfix for the Battle which were actually for the very different P4/34 prototype 

Had they been for the P4/34 then the Airfix Battle would have made a nice Fulmar, but it didn't.  The drawings were for an early design iteration of the Battle.

[Tomas Enerdal]

Dear All,

Thanks again for the input!

The drawing I made are the Peter Cooke drawings modified to look like what I believe the 18 wing looks like. I looked closely at the Peter Arnold Pics of the Indian a/c and pics of restored same. My caveat is due to the fact that I'm not sure that some panel lines (especially upperwing) have not been changed during restoration. Some details like id-lights and gun bulges do have disappeared

John, could you do us a favour and compare the drawing I made with the faded factory drawing of yours? To see if we've got it right.

The Airfix 1/48 FR.XIVe seems to have captured the two versions of fin/rudder perfectly.

Troy, many years ago I started to try to correct the Academy kit, your results are indeed impressive! I gave up and added some Hasegawa wings to a Falcon vacform XIV-conversion instead, for a high-back XIV.

Now the Airfix FR.XIV seems to be the best solution for a FR.18