Spitfire Mk. IXB Floatplane

[Worms]

Wooo, quite impressed so far, a little box with lots of stuff. 5 sprues, two sets of transfers, P.E.  and a cockpit canopy!

 

 

 

[jrlx]

Welcome to the GB!

 

Very interesting choice! You can't have too many Spitfires

 

Good luck!

 

Jaime

[Worms]

Thanks Jaime, 

 

No rigging on this one 😁

[pheonix]

A long time ago there was an article in Airfix Magazine on how to convert the Mk IX to this floatplane using Frog Shark floats: I still have the Airfix kit and Frog Shark floats in a plastic bag with header in the roof...... I also have some prototype 'P's somewhere!  Ummmm.

 

P

[Worms]

20 minutes ago, pheonix said:

A long time ago there was an article in Airfix Magazine on how to convert the Mk IX to this floatplane using Frog Shark floats: I still have the Airfix kit and Frog Shark floats in a plastic bag with header in the roof...... I also have some prototype 'P's somewhere!  Ummmm.

 

P

Go on, you know you want to! 😁

[Worms]

1 hour ago, jrlx said:

Welcome to the GB!

 

Very interesting choice! You can't have too many Spitfires

 

Good luck!

 

Jaime

...only been back at the game 10 minutes but this is my third spit this year!...as you say, you can't have too many 😁

[bigbadbadge]

Lovely , can't wait to see this develope, great choice. Good luck with your build.

All the best

Chris

[Worms]

Well, I must say I'm rather impressed with the kit so far, lovely fine detail regarding panel lines and such like. No locating pins but no flash or ejector pin marks in silly places.

 

The plastic is hard but not brittle and quite thin but component parts match well!

[Courageous]

I have the same kit waiting in the wings. Will be interesting to see how she builds.

 

Stuart

[Worms]

Cockpit is quite detailed and fiddly to assemble....

 

 

I could have detailed it more but, to be honest, there's not a lot you can see when the fuselage is together and the lid's on!

Edited September 24, 2019 by Worms
addition

[jrlx]

Great start! The cockpit is indeed well detailed. Good job!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Worms]

A bit more progress. The wing tips have been added after trimming the clipped wing supplied. the panel lines don't quite match but the profile is good.

The fuselage halves were joined and the fin removed to be replaced with the floatplane extended fin and lower stabiliser. Not a bad fit and a bit of filler makes things good.

Float halves assembled and the rudders and tiny P.E. hinge/actuators added (these needed to be folded in half and I managed it without pinging any of them across the room!!!)

 

 

My next task is to fit the tail planes once I have dressed the filler on the tail and, think about fitting the floats. Now that is going to be a tricky affair. Butt-jointing them to the underside of the wing is going to require a spacer between the foat aerofoil pylons to ensure that they are level and square to each other. I may drill and pin them for extra security. At least you get a dimension in the instructions giving distance from wingtip to pylon but it's still going to be a bit of a balancing act! In retrospect I would not fit the upper wings prior to drilling and pinning from above but, we live and learn 😉

 

Also, the question of painting. It's going to be a pig to mask the floats/underside with the floats fitted so I'm considering:

a) Paint floats separately to airframe, fitting floats afterwards;

b) Paint floats and underside of wing, glue together and add fuselage then paint upperside

c) Assemble, mask and paint all as one.

 

Option a gives the obvious problems of glue on paint!

Option b requires a fair bit of filler at the upper wing root on both sides,

Option c involves a horrendous amount of fiddly masking and minimal glue area for the pylon to wing interface!

 

What larks Pip!

[Courageous]

1 hour ago, Worms said:

I may drill and pin them for extra security.

That's the way to go although I would have drilled the holes in the wings before fixing the wings together but it's still possible, just need to be careful with drill location.

2 hours ago, Worms said:

a) Paint floats separately to airframe, fitting floats afterwards;

This would be my way, just be careful with your glue.

Care and patience is all you need.

 

Stuart 

[Worms]

6 hours ago, Courageous said:

That's the way to go although I would have drilled the holes in the wings before fixing the wings together but it's still possible, just need to be careful with drill location.

This would be my way, just be careful with your glue.

Care and patience is all you need.

 

Stuart 

Yes, my favoured method as well. Regarding locating the floats, I have a cunning plan, the float pylons fit across the wheel bay blanking pieces so pinning to them gives me an ideal locating feature!

[Worms]

Another interesting question,  the kit shows a camouflage scheme...yet the few black and white pictures of the aircraft don't show any clear demarcation lines at all...nor a sky spinner on the mk ix, a dark spinner is definitely in the photos!

[Graham Boak]

This is another example of the problems of Temperate Sea Scheme on b&w photos.  Depending upon the film and filter used by the photographer, these colours can appear as a high contrast, medium contrast, or very little contrast at all.  I don't think that there is any doubt that the aircraft was painted in Dark Slate Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky.

[Worms]

Thanks, although the underside will be trainer yellow as a prototype?

 

The spinner is definitely not sky as advised in the instructions however, unlike the MK V  versions.

 

So EDSG and DSG over trainer yellow it will be!

[Graham Boak]

yes for prototype standards.    I was thinking of the operational aircraft that went out to Egypt.

[Courageous]

2 hours ago, Worms said:

although the underside will be trainer yellow as a prototype?

 

11 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

prototype standards.

My Saunders-Roe SR-A1 was a prototype but never had yellow undersides...

 

Stuart

[Worms]

15 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

yes for prototype standards.    I was thinking of the operational aircraft that went out to Egypt.

Apparently those were the MKV versions, the single MKIX prototype never got past that stage.

[Nick Belbin]

4 minutes ago, Courageous said:

My Saunders-Roe SR-A1 was a prototype but never had yellow undersides..

But that was post-war; Yellow was supposed to identify them as friendly to our gunners.

 

 

[Worms]

8 minutes ago, Courageous said:

 

My Saunders-Roe SR-A1 was a prototype but never had yellow undersides...

 

Stuart

I'm not sure about post war colours but 1944-45 AMO specs were for prototypes to have upper surfaces for the role they were intended for and yellow undersurfaces...except flying boats and amphibious aircraft which had both surfaces in the colours for the intended role!

[Courageous]

I'm pretty sure that it was as Nick ⬆️ says.

 

Stuart

[Worms]

5 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

This is another example of the problems of Temperate Sea Scheme on b&w photos.  Depending upon the film and filter used by the photographer, these colours can appear as a high contrast, medium contrast, or very little contrast at all.  I don't think that there is any doubt that the aircraft was painted in Dark Slate Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky.

....On this prickly subject... I was going to paint the uppersides in Extra Dark Sea Grey and er, well, Dark Slate Grey.. Now their apears to be alot of contention regarding the correct colour for Dark Slate Grey so I was tempted to use Tamiya XF74 olive drab...

[Graham Boak]

It was normal, certainly earlier, for underwater areas to be painted with a different standard of paint, for protection purposes.  It is therefore possible that did not exist for Yellow. 

 

There's no doubt what is the correct colour of Dark Slate Grey, though there might be some argument as to which model paint best represents it.  Personally I use Xtracolour or Colourcoats.  However there is also no doubt that it wasn't any shade of olive.