PR MOSSIE - TAMIYA 1:48

[top turret toddler]

That Jumpey guy likes his kitbashings the hard way it seems. Quite the dedication. He should have made a cast of the finished product and sold it as a resin kit. So the Tamiya rudder is too large, hmm. Sounds like a simple undertaking making a resin upgrade for the right person. What happened to Ultracast & Cutting Edge, did they go bust? I can`t find any of their mossie bits online.       

Edited April 20, 2020 by top turret toddler

[Troy Smith]

4 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

What happened to Ultracast & Cutting Edge, did they go bust? I can`t find any of their mossie bits online.       

Cutting Edge stopped years ago.

Ultracast only deal direct,. whoch is a pain as postage from Canada is expensive,  and in the UK if you order over £15 worth you are liable to get charged by customs  

Here's the Mosquito section

https://www.ultracast.ca/1-48-Mosquito-s/177.htm

 

I'm still annoyed I didn't order some wheels when Sovereign had them

4 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

That Jumpey guy likes his kitbashings the hard way it seems.

yes.  He's very good on some areas, but there are times when the law of diminishing returns sets in.  Still, usually thought provoking, and he does at least show how he works.

[Crimea River]

9 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

Yes, but I said "you don't walk away from a Mosquito..." in that state. No-one;s walked away from that aeroplane. The photo is taken by a crewmember who has literally just stepped out of it, or has pre-flighted it and is about to get in - or possibly a ground crewmember who's met them. It's not an unattended aeroplane.  There are crew milling around it. If you're modelling an operational scene like that as a vignette or diorama then that's what you model, but that isn't what we've been discussing up to now

 

The question was "would a parked Mossie sport lowered flaps/horizontal stabs? What about the rudder, any deflection the norm..." and I simply wanted to convey that deflected control surfaces were not uncommon. I was not aware that that's not what we've been discussing. It depends in what state the modeller wants to depict his subject and I don't think someone with basic questions should be led to believe that deflected control surfaces are "artistic license".

[gingerbob]

Here's a quick comparison, for what it's worth (two cents?)  Tamiya is the dark grey, Airfix the light grey, and Revell the very pale.  (Pay no attention to the numbers- I bummed a sheet of grid paper from my daughter)

 

First photo attempted to have the base of the fin (in other words, the top of the fuselage) on the same horizontal line (Tamiya left, Airfix right):

 

 

The shape of the tailcone seems a bit different, and it is hard to judge fuselage alignment (I really should do some direct half-to-half comparisons)  You can see the difference in rib spacing that Jamie mentioned, though.

 

Here's another attempt, and these I put the back end of the bomb bay on the same vertical line, though Revell's on direct comparison didn't exactly agree with the other.  (Both Tamiya and Revell break the fuselage to allow for alternate noses, so I was only working with back ends.)  I also (by eyeball) had the front of the tailwheel recess on a line, cross-checked with where the point of the tailcone fell.  Not very scientific.  Anyway:

 

Airfix/Tamiya:

 

 

Tamiya/Revell (with separate Revell rudder just laid in place).

 

 

The chord of Revell's rudder is broader than the other two, and it appears that this is because of the rounded front, along the hinge line.  The thing is, the fin isn't cupped to accept it, so if you compare "apparent rudder forward edge" the result is too broad a rudder.  From fin top to rudder top is about the same on Tamiya and Airfix, but is deeper on Revell.

 

And in case you think Tamiya's tail is clearly too tall, here's the Revell rudder on the old Monogram tail (sorry about the blur):

 

[top turret toddler]

Seems to me there is a different vertical stabilizer for every day of the week. So what day of the week is the Monogram one i wonder? My favourite day is friday so i`ll just go with whatever fin friday constitutes 😄

Edited April 21, 2020 by top turret toddler

[Crimea River]

Gingerbob has done a very good comparison there. FWIW, I include below a diagram by Osprey Publishing that identified the dimensional issues with the Tamiya fin. The black dimensions are from the original document. The red numbers are my recorded measurements taken from an actual Mosquito B.35 fin that I have access to.

 

[gingerbob]

Thanks for the illustration and dimensions.  Going by the two height figures, that's a difference in 1/48 of 2mm (just a hair of a fraction of a smidge under).  Tamiya is approximately 105% the correct height.  Once I've got some daylight I'll do a bit more comparison.

 

Personally I'm undecided whether this is something that I'd "need" to fix (and, of course, that has no bearing on whether someone else "needs" to do so).  As my photos hint at, if you line parts up one way it looks like an obvious difference, but if you line them up another way it doesn't seem like much to me.  I confess that the Mosquito is a type that I haven't really "stared at", but with three contenders (I don't count the ancient Monogram, except for historical purposes) I'm a sucker for "let's put them together and see how they get along!"

[Admiral Puff]

Roy Sutherland at Barracuda mentioned some time ago that he was considering doing a replacement fin/rudder with correct dimensions for the Tamiya kit. The last time I raised the subject with him, about twelve months ago, he was still at the "considering" stage. I don't know whether it's still a possibility.

[top turret toddler]

While looking in my Mosquito stash, to my dismay i found the wheels i had purchased long ago was infact the True Details ones, not Ultracast. With all the AM manufacturers around i would have thought there was plenty of high quality resin Mosquito wheels worth considering. Which type would be appropriate for my PR mk IV build and is the old Ultracast ones still leading the way here? Aires have the best cockpit? Can`t seem to find the Ultracast one, UGH! I found i had a resin control surface set in the box, but when placing it on top of the kit fin it was the exact same size/height. There was also ailerons and hor. stabs, probably the Ultracast set #034. Reading through articles in old magazines it`s interesting to note there is no mention of the Tamiya fin being off. To me this is "no big deal" and the likelyhood of trying to correct it is slim. I suppose every kit has their own charming pros & contras. Maybe a more pressing concern for me would be getting the prop diameter spot on. Quickboost have any "correction sets" out there perhaps?      

Edited April 23, 2020 by top turret toddler

[Troy Smith]

6 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

Which type would be appropriate for my PR mk IV build

the type with the 5 spokes on one side.  

6 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

and is the old Ultracast ones still leading the way here?

as i posted, AFAIK only Ultracast have done accurate tyre treads.  The Tamiya wheel are OK, but have too small tread pattern, IIRC I did at point count tread segemts, the Tamiya has 50 or so,  but it should be about 40. 

see here

6 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

Aires have the best cockpit?

I suggest you are making work for yourself.  Aires are famous for not fitting.   Unless you get a vac canopy,  not that much will be seen, and even then,  you may find that the basic cockpit is OK with some added details, which will most likely be easier than fitting and entire resin cockpit. 

I'd do some research on this.

6 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

Reading through articles in old magazines it`s interesting to note there is no mention of the Tamiya fin being off.

Plenty of articles don't pick up details the more obsessed do.

6 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

 

To me this is "no big deal" and the likelyhood of trying to correct it is slim. I suppose every kit has their own charming pros & contras. Maybe a more pressing concern for me would be getting the prop diameter spot on. Quickboost have any "correction sets" out there perhaps?

Whats wrong with the prop diameter?   This is a new one for me.

Regarding AM,  they don't always get things right.   

[top turret toddler]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

the type with the 5 spokes on one side.  

as i posted, AFAIK only Ultracast have done accurate tyre treads.  The Tamiya wheel are OK, but have too small tread pattern, IIRC I did at point count tread segemts, the Tamiya has 50 or so,  but it should be about 40. 

see here

I suggest you are making work for yourself.  Aires are famous for not fitting.   Unless you get a vac canopy,  not that much will be seen, and even then,  you may find that the basic cockpit is OK with some added details, which will most likely be easier than fitting and entire resin cockpit. 

I'd do some research on this.

Plenty of articles don't pick up details the more obsessed do.

Whats wrong with the prop diameter?   This is a new one for me.

Regarding AM,  they don't always get things right.   

Should for some reason Aires not fit, the resin parts can still be used as a guide to replicate these otherwise unseen details. Having to see details never did mean anything to me, i just like to know they are there. Work for myself, i am. Try to make it look busy. "Was nicht passt wirt passend gemacht" old german word of wisdom. Taurus vac is already with me 😉 Regarding the prop diameter, didn`t our friend Jumpei have a section on that comparing three different props i believe. Not easy to understand google translate though.

 

"The blades are air based. Left air original, with the middle air cut. Right Tamiya. The shape is good, but the length is 2 mm short" (page 2 of his review)

 

http://soyuyo.main.jp/mosquito/mosquito-2.html

 

Regarding AM, they never get it right, lol. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by top turret toddler

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Regarding the propellers, I disagree with the above.

 

The fullsize Mosquito propeller had a 144" diameter. In metric that is 144*25.4=3657.6mm. In 1/48 scale that's 76.2mm diameter, and therefore the radius of the tip of one blade to the centre of the hub is 38.1mm.

 

I just measured the propellers in a Tamiya Mosquito beside me using a steel rule, and I measure 38mm from tip to centre of the hub.