USAAF 4th Fighter Group Spitfire (Tamiya 1/48 Mk Vb) * FINISHED 30 NOV (+ few extra photo’s)*

[Cookenbacher]

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

 Some of the internals are actually visible!

That's a relief, so many details' day in the sun occurs only in the WIP and then forgotten - glad the radio compartment can still be enjoyed, and glad to have you back at the bench Steve.

[Fritag]

24 minutes ago, perdu said:

Have to say though Steve this aerodyne of yours is becoming even bettererer

 

I’ll take that ta Bill; ‘specially as you’re a self confessed seenjustaboutenuffofspittiefiresforonelifetime sort of chap 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Fritag
typo

[Fritag]

29 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

Now that's something I need to get to grips with as the Grob Viking I'm making comes with two vac formed canopies (one spare) and I've already cut one incorrectly. With just one left I'm feeling I should make a resin buck while I still have one good one, just in case...... but I keep putting all that stuff off! I'm sure your Hawk build has some stuff on how to do that somewhere, need to get searching and thinking 🤔

 

C’mon Terry - surely you remember that was page 109?

 

 

And page 110 has reminded me that if you leave a resin buck for just 18 months to fully catalyse then you don’t get any discolouration problems using a dental vac and PETg.  There problem solved and I dunno what all the fuss is about  

 

You’ve got 2 options probably Terry.

 

One is make a silicone mould of the outside of your surviving canopy and then use that to make a resin buck - but bear in mind that the buck will have the same exterior dimensions as the original canopy and so subsequent thermoforms may be slightly too large.

 

The other option is to do what I’ve just done with the spittie transparency, which is to pour resin (or some other medium of choice) into the surviving canopy so as to try and recreate the same size buck as was used for the kit canopies.  This is probably a once only shot though, in that there’s a good chance it’ll ruin the surviving kit canopy in the process.  IIRC pouring resin can get quite hot as it catalyses.

 

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

C’mon Terry - surely you remember that was page 109?

 

Ah yes, that was it, it's all coming back to me now. Thanks also for the summary options, you are a gentleman!

 

This should be fun..............

 

Terry

 

 

[Jackson Duvalier]

5 hours ago, Fritag said:

The other option is to do what I’ve just done with the spittie transparency, which is to pour resin (or some other medium of choice) into the surviving canopy so as to try and recreate the same size buck as was used for the kit canopies.  This is probably a once only shot though, in that there’s a good chance it’ll ruin the surviving kit canopy in the process.  IIRC pouring resin can get quite hot as it catalyses.

 

 

Perhaps plaster or dental stone would be less risky?

[The Spadgent]

And he simply makes a plunge canopy like it was gluing together two bomb halves. 😮😮😮😮

Stunning work. 
 

Jonster.

[giemme]

I enjoyed this update very much, Steve - lovely job on the undercarriage and excellent result on the rear canopy  

 

Ciao 

[Hamden]

1 hour ago, giemme said:

excellent result on the rear canopy

 

But has he remembered to paint the support strut for the head armour?

 

   Stay safe          Roger

[CedB]

What a catch up! Excellent stuff Steve, as always

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Chip-tastic!  My stuff wasn’t Ammo, but it’s all basically the same.

[TheBaron]

On 09/08/2021 at 15:13, Fritag said:

 

One of the most satisfying wheels I've seen in a long time Steve.

 

(File under 'Things you only ever say on Britmodeller'....)

[Fritag]

I’m in an Edinburgh coffee shop at the mo’; en route to the Shetland Islands for a weeks’ walking, cycling and general chilling.  But the ubiquity of wi-fi means I can at least prove that I’ve done summat on the spitfire this last week, in amongst the overload of work pre-hols 

 

Summat but not much (obvs….)

 

Take some old fashioned materials - stretch some sprue and bend some 1.5mm plastic rod.

 

 

Use the stretched sprue to make hint at the rudder and tailplane trim tab control linkages - just to give a post-painting wash to have something to highlight like…

 

 

(I scored the rudder hinge line first - and bent-in a very slight offset, just for a bit of added interest)

 

 

 

 

And some braces in the radiator flap:

 

 

And in the fullness of time and when cut to length the 1.5mm rod will be the gun heating ducts from the rear of the radiator.  @Navy Bird reminded me not to forget about them in an earlier post - although as it turns out the ducting is a different pattern to that in the Mk IX he built.

 

 

And some etch radiator grills.  Backed with 0.2mm plastic card, trimmed to size and fitted and painted Alclad Aluminium.  Ready for an oil wash (they look very shiny and bland at the mo’)

 

 

Also a bit of sprue for the whatever-it-is pipe at the front of the radiator.

 

 

Like I said.  Not much; but proof of life as it were 

 

Now, on to Aberdeen for the overnight ferry to Shetland….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

You're doing much more than I am, currently  Nice and effective detailing  

 

Ciao

[TheBaron]

Neat work as always Steve.

 

Envying you Shetland but in a distinctly amicable fashion.

[CedB]

Usual excellent level of Fritag detailing - nice work  

 

Have a great break Steve!

[Terry1954]

Neat update indeed and I must say such dedication to, and consideration for, the viewing masses. 

 

Shetland is definitely on my to go to list, as is Edinburgh actually, for this poor soul has never yet set foot in Scotland - apparently I'm not allowed to count the touch and go at Kinloss in the back of a C-130 in the early 70's 😞

 

Have a great time and chill chill chill!

 

Terry

[hendie]

Envious of both the quality of detailing, and of the Edinburgh coffee shop.

In equal measures. 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I love Shetland.  For those who have never had the pleasure of the opposite end of the Atlantic, if you know Shetland then you can easily picture the Falkland Islands; eerily similar in places.

[Fritag]

Well it was a memorable week in the Shetland Islands.  Failed to get over to the island of Foula because the haar (fog) precluded the hop over in the Islander from Tingwall; but the walking elsewhere was awesome as ever, and more than made up for it - and we’ll try for Foula again next year. 

 

On 8/20/2021 at 9:31 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

if you know Shetland then you can easily picture the Falkland Islands; eerily similar in places.

 

So - on  a walk to hermaness on Unst I half closed my eyes and imagined a young Crisp hooliganising across the Falklands landscape in his Lynx (or Sea King; I forget which you were on at that time - but to be low flying across that terrain in a Lynx in particular would be spectacular!) and opened them to find myself being hooliganised by a pair of bonxies (great skuas) in impeccable Arrow formation; must have been close to a nest 

 

Anyways.  Got back to unfinished Spittie business.

 

Painted and added the scratched gun cooling pipes:

 

 

All looks a bit clean and tidy and bland in there so out with some ochre and brown oils to use as filters and hopefully add a bit of interest:

 

 

 

 

Which of course no-one will ever really see unless they pick up the model and look at it from a funny angle 

 

 

 

 

And so it’s sort of pointless; save for the fact that it’s sort of fun to do……

 

A slightly easier-to-see small upgrade is on the elevators.

 

Photo references show that (unsurprisingly) the two elevators seem to be connected by a spar that passes through a hole in the vertical tailplane.  The kit has the ‘D’ shaped opening in the fin but the elevators don’t have the connecting spar.

 

Easy enough to add a stub to the elevators (already separated from the horizontal tailplane to be posed nose-down):

 

 

Which will look like it goes all the way through and be a small visual upgrade when fixed in place.

 

 

Back to work tomorrow 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

[perdu]

love it 

[Navy Bird]

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

Which of course no-one will ever really see unless they pick up the model and look at it from a funny angle 

 

That's true even for my big 1:32 job. But we know it's there, right?   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[hendie]

These updates though they may be small, are always worth the wait

[Terry1954]

Very nice work inside that radiator housing. It's those little touches that do the trick, multiple times in this build it seems.

 

I went to the trouble of adding much scratch detail inside the wheel wells of my 1/144 Norwegian C-47 a year or so ago. Of course, when it just sits there in the cabinet, no one knows. Even when I turn it over to show anyone remotely interested you still need sharp eyes to see it!

 

Terry

[giemme]

7 hours ago, hendie said:

These updates though they may be small, are always worth the wait

Couldn't agree more - impressive detailing, Steve    

 

Ciao

[perdu]

Everything we put in, is Steve's case in spades takes the look of the model closer to the look of seeing the actual subject.

 

I can look at the average model of something I don't know personally and almost know from the 'loaded' look of the model how 'right' it is.

 

The eye sees the added stuff without quantifying it, ship models do this perfectly an Airfix Ship Model comes along and does generally look right, until I look at a ship by Ex-FAAWAFU or some of you others and get the actual ship in miniature.

 

Quantity really is quality in the eye of the beholder.

 

I see this blinking Spitsfire and behold a Spitty.

 

(Cant wait for him to finish the Hawks and get on with building the Jagwarr!)