A Summer Where the Bad Light Stopped

[Brandy]

Sorry Stew, I was referring to the last pic, of the flaps. On looking a little closer it does look as though the flaps and wheel hubs are the same.

 

Ian

[Procopius]

You know, something I never noticed before is that the bar running from the back of the head armour into the fuselage is X or cross-shaped in some of the photos. I note Eduard make it cylindrical in their MkIX...did it change over time?

[Smithy]

On 10/23/2019 at 2:53 AM, Procopius said:

I have the excellent and sadly-OOP Southern Expo BoB sheet from 2010. I have markings to do several of Grey's later aircraft, so his MkI might as well go into the queue as well.

 

Just a heads up about that sheet in relation to Deere's aircraft. The serial number for Kiwi II is incorrect on the sheet. They have this Spit listed as P9398 when it should be P9390.

 

Looking forward to watching these. I made one as a IIa last year and thoroughly enjoyed it, really fun little kit.

[Procopius]

Not much done these past few days, but Cookie should be here from the airport soon, and then:

 

 

[Procopius]

Hello all! I'm back. The house is somewhat cleared out while we try to sell it and move to more expensive digs, but we'll see if anyone actually buys it. I have my doubts, I'm sorry to say. I'm sorrier to say that the intense pressure of trying to get a house ready to be sold and then trying to sell it, coming hot on the heels of two of the best weeks of my life have caused me to stress buy things like crazy, just when I should really be making economies. Most notably, I have a new airbrush, a GSI Procon Boy .2mm, which I mostly blame @Cookenbacher. The GSI PS770 Custom .18mm that's due to arrive at my office (for some reason) tomorrow is more of a stretch to pin on him, but I feel I'm up to the task. 

 

 

 

I do think I like it more than my Badger SOTAR 20/20, which has always felt a bit finicky to me, with the usual caveats about the sort of workman that would blame his tools.

 

Anyway, it's been hectic around here, and I've been too tired all week to do any modelling, what with all the furniture I've been carrying out to the kerb and all the books I had to box and pack away, not to mention sanding down and repainting my front door. But tonight, I finally got downstairs, got some tunes playing, and had a look at the decals @Tempestwulf kindly sent me:

 

 

 

And then...Grant walked in.

 

 

Now, there's no way Grant can get out of his crib unaided, and he was shortly thereafter followed by Mrs P, who apparently thought I'd like to spend some quality time with him, two hours after his bedtime. Because, ha ha ha, who wouldn't wan't to spend their precious ninety minutes of personal time doing what they'd already been doing since they got home from work? 

 

For what seemed like three or four hundred years but was probably only fifty or sixty, Grant sat on my lap and contrived to almost knock one thing and then another off my modelling bench in succession. Eventually his mother tried to steal away and suggested I could bring him up "when you two are done playing", to which I responded (in a voice possibly more strangled than suave) that now was probably as good a time as any. 

 

So when we visited the BBMF, I took advantage of my phone's pretty solid zoom functionality to get a good photo of the reinforcing strut(?) that runs from the back of the Spitfire's seat frame to the fuselage:

 

 

I don't know how visible it is, but the rail or strut or whatever is somewhat T-shaped; I had always thought that it was a cylinder, as in the Eduard kit. Subsequent investigation suggests there were a few different shapes it took, but for our purposes, we'll go with T-shaped, because when we visited a model shop in Frome, I found the perfect bit of Evergreen styrene for it:

 

 

What're the odds?

 

So I dutifully sanded the bits off the kit parts and replaced them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And while I was sawing stuff off anyway, I removed the irritating solid styrene gunsights as well.

 

 

The it was time to do some light masking:

 

 

 

And airbrush the metal-coloured bits:

 

 

It's perhaps worth noting that I airbrushed the metal parts of the cockpit floor freehand with the Procon Boy:

 

 

 

If all of this seems like a bit of a faff to avoid closing up the models or make any real forward motion...well, you might be onto something. But I'll never tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stew Dapple]

Tell you what Edward, if one of your prospective buyers is a modeller and he sees your little grotto*, you've sold that house  

 

I see some uppage of skills in evidence too; T-shaped plastic strip: who'da thunk it?

 

Also, dead jealous of the new airbrushes...  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

* Not a euphemism  

[Cookenbacher]

The entire time you were talking about the 270, I was thinking that you should go whole hog on the 770, so you can blame me on some unspoken level at least.

The T bar looks very cool, and it looks like the 270 works like a charm.

Hi Grant!

[CedB]

Nice work PC and good luck with the house sale  

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

4 hours ago, Procopius said:

... what with all the furniture I've been carrying out to the kerb and all the books I had to box and pack away, not to mention sanding down and repainting my front door....

Even your front door gets sanded?  What was it: over-scale rivets?  Visible join?  Your kind of door only came in with a later Mk of house?  Entire house made by lunatic Fly Models designer?  
 

I think we should be told.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Procopius]

3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Even your front door gets sanded?  What was it: over-scale rivets?  Visible join?  Your kind of door only came in with a later Mk of house?  Entire house made by lunatic Fly Models designer?  
 

I think we should be told.

I'm afraid the reality is more prosaic. You know how fire doors are in essence a solid core sandwiched betwixt two layers of veneer? Well, the veneer on the bottom of the front of the door peeled a little from brushing against the carpet when it was closed, and my children (the little darlings) enthusiastically peeled it off in huge strips, which meant that my house looked like a great place to buy crack cocaine, which is not typically a desirable feature at the price point we're going for.

[Avereda]

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

....which meant that my house looked like a great place to buy crack cocaine, which is not typically a desirable feature at the price point we're going for.

We’re putting our house on the market next year, in our case I suspect that kind of look might be an advantage - I’ll run it past the estate agents when they do the valuation

[Tempestwulf]

My current (and first) house I moved onto the land it's on. Cheapest option at the time but dammit, it's my house and I have free reign to spread my paraphernalia at will. Solid post war house though roof needs replacing now (groan). Best of luck in selling Ed. Moving is a pain in the butt so feel for you.

 

Glad the decals arrived safe, hope you like the Polish ones I included.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Tempestwulf

[opus999]

Good luck with the house.  I hate hate hate moving.  Hope I never have to do it again.  

 

Kinda jealous about the airbrush...

 

Brilliant work with the T-bar support.  Now I've added something else to the list of stuff to do on my next Spitfire builds! 

[Procopius]

1 minute ago, opus999 said:

Brilliant work with the T-bar support.  Now I've added something else to the list of stuff to do on my next Spitfire builds! 

Be careful! It seems to vary from Mark to Mark. The VIII, for instance, does appear to have a cylindrical rod:

 

 

Mk Vs seem to have the T-shape:

 

 

 

 

And MH434's looks almost cruciform:

 

 

5 minutes ago, opus999 said:

Kinda jealous about the airbrush...

Happy to do you a deal on my Badger SOTAR or Krome if you get to me in the next fifty minutes...

[Procopius]

I'm still faffing about with the cockpit internals. which of course shan't be visible through the scale foot-thick armoured glass of the Airfix clear pieces.

 

I made sure the etch seatbelts fit through the seat armour:

 

 

Eduard have apparently made a bit of a boner on their steelbelts that I bought; the seatbelts should I guess go up through the head armour as shown, but then they should also have a Y-shaped bit going downwards and into a hole in the base of the seat back. Some improvisation was required.

 

 

 

This is sort of approximately how it should look, and that's good enough for me.

 

The lap belts were also added:

 

 

 

And then, I had to figure out the headrests. Ced had very kindly provided me with some bits of punched leather to take back to the USA to try, but I'm afraid they didn't quite answer in this instance. I ultimately found a few nubbins of sprue on the Airfix Spitfire I kit trees that could be trimmed down and used, and with a little work, two were procured:

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a little paint, they actually look jolly nice, I think.

 

 

I also dug out two spare reflector gunsights left over from Eduard Spitfire builds,  c a r e f u l l y  sawed them off with a razor saw, and even more  c a r e f u l l y  attached them to the bases of the kit gunsights. (I attached a long piece of tape to the clear bit I wanted, so that if it flew off into the heavens, it would be easier to find.)

 

 

Whew! Exhausting. 

 

The compressed air tanks behind the seats are in now as well, and the little greeblies on the sidewalls picked out a bit:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Procopius]

And now, plumbing new depths in the subterranean realm of pointless detail:

 

 

Not sure if you can see it or not, even, but I added the brass gun button with a toothpick, an idea I blame entirely on Cookie.

 

I also got the cockpits together:

 

 

 

Next will probably be fitting the control columns and then getting these in the aircraft.

 

 

[Stew Dapple]

If I were a 1/72 little plastic bloke I'd happily rest my head on those headrests  Nice work on the cockpits mate, even if you will never see it again

 

Cheers.

 

Stew

[CedB]

Very nice work PC, lovely detailing (especially the gun buttons)  

 

Sorry the leather bits didn't work out - one of those 'Oooh, they might come in' things - were they too big? If so I'll bin my stock too.

[Tempestwulf]

Fine looking cockpits PC. You know it's all in there behind that thick canopy so that's what counts.

[Procopius]

4 hours ago, CedB said:

Sorry the leather bits didn't work out - one of those 'Oooh, they might come in' things - were they too big? If so I'll bin my stock too.

The two smallest were just slightly too wide, there's not a lot of real estate there for them to go on.

[Adam Poultney]

On 21/10/2019 at 05:08, Procopius said:

 

 

Despite their age and the fact that Airfix has probably sold a cool billion of these kits, the latest issue of the Spitfire is still pretty devoid of flash save on one part: The starboard landing gear leg. The flash around the mounting point was quite thick and required careful carving to get it into shape; this was true for both kits. 

 

 

Close enough, I hope.

 

Tonight I had just enough time to drill out the holes for the locating pins on the fuselage to save on heartache later, remove the fuselage pieces from the sprues, and begin, almost imperceptibly, work on the cockpit. 

 

 

 

Eleven days until I leave for Albion. Looking forward to seeing you.

 

 

 

Can confirm, all three of my latest examples of the kit had the exact same flash

[dogsbody]

On my 1/72 Airfix Hurc, I painted the gun button red. This is not the kit part, but one that was in the spares and was already painted. I think it was from the Academy kit. I guess in this scale, it really doesn't matter what colour, because unless under high magnification, it will remain unseen.

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Procopius]

1 hour ago, dogsbody said:

On my 1/72 Airfix Hurc, I painted the gun button red. This is not the kit part, but one that was in the spares and was already painted. I think it was from the Academy kit. I guess in this scale, it really doesn't matter what colour, because unless under high magnification, it will remain unseen.

Quite true, but they were in fact brass on the actual aircraft, so brass it was. 

 

[Dandie Dinmont]

19 hours ago, Procopius said:

 

Eduard have apparently made a bit of a boner on their steelbelts that I bought; the seatbelts should I guess go up through the head armour as shown, but then they should also have a Y-shaped bit going downwards and into a hole in the base of the seat back. Some improvisation was required.

 

A little late for this build, I realise but I think you may have maligned Eduard unjustly. If you have the same set as I do,  then part 2 on the fret is the part of the harness that goes over or through the top of the seat while part 1 is glued to part 2 and is the Y-shaped part going downwards. 

 

Thanks for for an inspirational build so far which has me itching to get cracking on the examples I have in my own mini-stash. 

 

Craig. 

[Procopius]

4 minutes ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

A little late for this build, I realise but I think you may have maligned Eduard unjustly. If you have the same set as I do,  then part 2 on the fret is the part of the harness that goes over or through the top of the seat while part 1 is glued to part 2 and is the Y-shaped part going downwards. 

Hiya Craig! I was about to disagree with you, but then I reread the instructions, and you're quite right. I'm an idiot!

 

EDIT: Though Eduard do have the second part of the harness going behind the seat, when apparently it should go down behind the pilot's back and then out through a hole in the base. cf. this 1/32 example: