Frankenspit - The Return

[Max Headroom]

I have an idea. Admittedly it’s a daft one, but hear me out………….

 

A few years ago I built the rather nice AZ low back Spitfire XVI as my contribution to the Edgar tribute build. What surprised me was in the aftermath I had a spare high-back IX fuselage and sundry other bits which in effect amounted to half another Spitfire. Off to the spares box they went.

 

Since then, I have harboured the idea of getting a ‘free’ MK.IX out them somehow. I just needed a pair of wings. Then last year I ended up with an Eduard Profi Pack IX and so that idea went out of the window. Again there appear to be a lot of spares to harvest from that kit. Sadly though, no spare wings.

Frankenspit part 1 btw was my attempt at getting a 1/72 Vc from the Airfix I, using some of the AZ leftovers.

 

 

And then Aldi came to my aid. The newish Airfix I was being sold at £4.99 a pop as part of their Christmas stock. That solved the wing problem.

 

Quick sit rep this afternoon and I gathered the mortal remains in my laboratory.

 

 

The brown bits are AZ and the grey are Airfix. Top left are odds and sods. I think the canopy is Italeri, the slipper tank and pointy rudder definitely are though. The blue tailwheel is the old Airfix Vb (more refined than their current offering I think). Additionally, there’s the Eduard kit, but I have just started that, so can’t be certain what will be left over, but canopies, exhausts and cockpit furniture look possibilities to add into my mix.

 

Now what?

 

My first thought was a PR.X or XI as I have Almark stickies for an XI. But I already have the Airfix 19.

 

Idly sifting through the internet ironically led me to an old Britmodeller thread and specifically this picture 

 

 

I hope @Troy Smith doesn’t mind me repurposing his pic but it captures most of the details I need. At first glance it’s an unarmed IX, but it’s actually the first prototype III in its final form. From the back……rounded rudder, retractable tailwheel, internally armoured windscreen, elongated nose to accommodate the series 60/70 Merlin with two stage supercharger. The wings are standard ‘A’ type with 4x Brownings and original style undercarriage as found on the I to Vb before the forward rake was increased (2”?). It also has five spoke wheels. However, it also sports the larger port underwing radiator associated with the two stage Merlin Spits. Not visible in this photo is one other feature. Merlin engined Spitfires have a rear engine panel than runs straight over the top of the fuselage, as opposed to the one on Griffon engined versions which sweeps forward over the top. This example has the Griffon version and retained this throughout its life, so the kit line needs moving.

 

As a non operational type, it retained Dark Earth/Dark Green uppers, but never sported the Sky fuselage band and had yellow undersides. A type roundels and tail flash.

 

Ladies and gentlemen I have my muse!

 

No building yet, as I have the Eduard IX to finish first, following which I will pick over the mortal remains for this build. I’ll probably be doing this as my companion build to the 1/32 Revell Mosquito.

 

However, I would welcome any comments, tips or guffaws before cobbling this together 😁👍

 

 

Trevor

[Pete in Lincs]

I say go for it. She does look rather an odd beast and should stand out nicely in a collection.

[bigbadbadge]

Nice, looking forward to watch this progress. 

Chris

[Max Headroom]

Slowly, slowly does it.

 

In between juggling my  Revell Mosquito and Eduard Spitfire IX, I have also been giving some time to this project.

 

As is traditional, I started with the cockpit. Using the Airfix donor parts, I offered them up to the fuselage.

 

 

Lo and behold - a perfect fit! Wasn’t expecting it not to need any fettling at all, but I take my luck where I find it.

 

It all blends in when painted.

 

 

Moving onto the wings, I realised that for this not to look odd, I’d need to do something about the wing engravings as they are noticeably more prominent than the AZ offering. This was an easy fix with Tipp-Ex

 

 

….and here is a ‘during’ shot for comparison.

 

 

It sands easily and can be smoothed out with a worn piece of wet and dry.

 

Not looking too bad.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Trevor

 

[Max Headroom]

Small update.

 

Cockpit finished, the only other thing that needed attention was to blank off the back of the exhaust apertures, because otherwise there is nothing for the exhausts to latch onto.

 

Once that was done, it was time to glue the fuselage sides together.

 

 

Being a limited run kit, there are no locating tabs and holes and so it is a case of minor fettling until the best alignment is achieved. I think some sanding and filling will be in order afterwards.

 

Having gone through my spares box, I found a total lack of four-prop blades and so off I went to the big H. Pavla have come to the rescue with a set that also includes six stack exhausts and matching radiators.

 

Getting there!

 

Trevor

 

[Max Headroom]

…….and this is wot I got

 

 

 

Designed for the Airfix IX there are bits and pieces that will go straight to the spares box. As far as I can see, radiators, exhausts, props and rear view mirror will be utilised for this mash-up.

 

Turning to the wings,

 

 

there was some inevitable ‘fine- tuning’ with a saw 

 

Definitely not a drop-in replacement 

 

 

some shims of plasticard were required to get the wing/fuselage join to match. As you can see, this is to the detriment of the wing/nose join. Never mind. Sanding/carving/ putty will sort that out👍
 

Elsewhere though, it’s a tolerable fit

 

 

🔼 Shims of plastic (and filler!) will see to those gaps.

 

The trailing edge fairing between the wing and fuselage also needed the attention of ‘some’ filler.

 

Not too bad overall though.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Trevor

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

What a nice way to clear out your spares box! I’d never heard of the Mk III, and I like the prototype/trainer colour scheme too.

 

Coincidentally, I was musing the other day about a potential GB where you have to build your model using parts from different kits - you’ve beaten me to it!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Max Headroom]

@AdrianMF thanks 👍

 

I’m doing the Eduard Spit alongside and it’ll be interesting to have the two together to ‘compare and contrast’ as an old science teacher of mine used to say

 

Trevor

[Adam Poultney]

Now this is proper modelling!

[Johnson]

Great project! Nice choice of subject.

[Max Headroom]

4 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

Now this is proper modelling!

I’m not doing close-ups! 🤣

 

Trevor

[gingerbob]

On 3/2/2022 at 4:49 AM, AdrianMF said:

Coincidentally, I was musing the other day about a potential GB where you have to build your model using parts from different kits - you’ve beaten me to it!

 

I recently received a box with: F3F, Arado 196, and Bf 109B (somewhat mixed together, since he'd flattened the boxes to save shipping).  I was tempted to joke about the result, which gave me entertaining mind-games about how I could combine elements of the three...  (Yes, I encouraged him to do it that way.)

 

In case you don't know about it already, this one might serve as your playground:

 

And now back to this thread.  Excellent choice.  Incidentally, the "Griffon style" firewall, as you call it, was first on the Mk.III, and also found on some other prototypes and (I think) the first very few "production" Mk.VIIs.  Nevertheless, it IS mostly associated with Griffon variants.

[Max Headroom]

Hello again.

 

I suppose over the Easter break everyone has had ‘jobs’ to do. Mine (I was told) was to sort out the garage and  make room. Fair enough, I have old half built models and boxes with empty sprues that I never quite got around to throwing away. So I spent a couple of hours culling and this morning the Council recyclers took away the excess….🥺

 

One result was that it kick-started my modelling mojo again and so I unearthed the Frankenspit project.

 

However before I continue working on Franky, I’m also introducing the parallel Eduard IX build, as some of its spares will end up here.
 

 

There was something I noticed and made me wonder

 

 

That’s a massive difference in dihedral. Which one (if either) is right?

One thing I needed to do before adding the rudder and tailplane was to look at the tailwheel, as the III had a retractable assembly. A bit of cutting around got me this.

 

 

The Eduard sprues have a spare retractable tailwheel and doors which will find their way here, once I’ve bodged an anchoring point for the wheel.

 

Now before you wonder, yes there is a problem with the photos. For some reason there are ‘error’ and ‘forbidden messages cropping up. Hopefully the links will still work, albeit manually.  
 

I’m off to the admin area with a hammer to see if I can get the pix to work…..😈

 

Trevor

 

Edit - I posted elsewhere with one of the photos and it worked! I came back here and re embedded the photos and now it works!! 
 

Weird

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

4 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Weird

It's Britmodeller. Weird happens daily. The Ordinary has been Exorcised due to lack of interest.

Nice to see this one back. Dihedral? I'm far from being expert, but your Mk III looks more like it.

[Max Headroom]

58 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

It's Britmodeller. Weird happens daily. The Ordinary has been Exorcised due to lack of interest.

Nice to see this one back. Dihedral? I'm far from being expert, but your Mk III looks more like it.

Thanks.

 

I was wondering if either were right! The III looks too shallow and the IX too deep. I’d be interested to see other completed IX’s for comparison.

 

Trevor

[Max Headroom]

Progress.

 

Ive got the bit between my teeth on this one now and it seems to have overtaken the Eduard IX on my assembly line.

 

My aim today was to get her on her legs. For the purposes of engendering a mild sense of anticipation to the narrative, I won’t for now tell you for now whether this was achieved or not.

 

Don’t scroll to the end!

 

First task for the day was to separate the two radiators from their moulding blocks. To be honest, resin isn’t normally my medium of choice, but these parts looked simple enough to cut my teeth on.

 

 

A few strokes with a razor saw and I was able to get a clean break. One thing I hadn’t noticed previously was that the radiator faces were patterned. That was a bonus. Some trimming is necessary as the parts are designed for the Airfix IX. By careful reference to the relative positions on the Eduard offering, I was able to place the Pavla offerings in the right place. I ran thin cyano glue to secure them in place. Ok, not 100% correct, because there is no hollow in the wing surface but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t! 
 

and with added nose intake

 

As you can see the join is by no means seamless

 

 

A bit more cyano and Tipp Ex to fill the gaps and after a gentle rub down of the join, all should be well.

 

So now I have an A wing with later mark matching radiators! Looking a bit like a Battle of Britain film McHaddie Spit at the moment.

 

You can see in the above picture that the Pavla exhausts have also been added. Here is the before and after trimming session.

 

 

More cyano needed here. There is a seam running down each exhaust, but these were meant to be there, being representations of the weld seam, so they remained unmodded.

 

I know you’re all dying to know, so yes main gear was attached.

 

 

I’ve now started on the revised upper cowl line, but no pix yet.

 

Trevor

 

 

 

 

 

[Johnson]

On 4/18/2022 at 1:03 PM, Max Headroom said:

That’s a massive difference in dihedral. Which one (if either) is right?

 

On 4/18/2022 at 6:51 PM, Max Headroom said:

The III looks too shallow and the IX too deep.

The correct dihedral is 6°. I measured from your photo and I think you're right. But neither by much though ∼1°.

[Sturmovik]

On 18/04/2022 at 09:03, Max Headroom said:

Which one (if either) is right?

I think the upper model has the correct dihedral. I have, I think, 10 Spitfires from different marks and different brands, and all have a dihedral like the model on top.

[Max Headroom]

@Sturmovik thanks for that. Must admit I’ve not seen anyone else mention this ‘problem’ with the Eduard example. There was no contrivance on my part and it just fell together that way.

 

Trevor

[Ngantek]

My feeling is that the upper one is definitely on the shallow side. I agreed with your first assessment that they looked either side of correct, but the effect can look exaggerated in such a comparison. 

 

The recent photos of the 3 show it much clearer though I think, it definitely looks on the flat side to me. Still looks great though!

[Max Headroom]

I keep looking at this video to see if it helps

 

 

 

Trevor

[Max Headroom]

This is getting out of hand…….

 

I needed a canopy for the Frankenspit and having failed to find a suitable donor part I justified the acquisition of the new Airfix Vc (it has two canopy options)

 

 

I bought it off the Brazilian rain forest and accidentally opted for next day delivery (I’m not a Prime member) and that added another four quid! 
 

Still, it’s here now.

 

I decided the III would have the closed canopy option. Lo and behold it mostly fitted, but needs filling out at the base of the windscreen. So I fixed that and the open canopy option on the Eduard kit.

 

So now I have a spare Vc kit. Might as well build that too 👍

 

 

After this afternoon’s sesh, I have 2.5 Spitfires on the go (if you discount the ICM XVI in 1/48 that I also have too).

 

I have decided that the ‘newbie’ won’t be finished as a Vc, (Frankenspit 1 took care of that) and instead it’ll probably end up as a Seafire II.

 

My name is Trevor and I have a Spitfire problem……..🙃

 

Trevor

[AdrianMF]

Don’t see any problems, just opportunities…

Very nice!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Johnson]

1 hour ago, Max Headroom said:

My name is Trevor and I have a Spitfire problem……..🙃

 

I quite agree with Adrian, no problems that I can see........😀

[Max Headroom]

Well. That’s gone together quickly

 

 

Very impressed at the buildability of the Vc kit. Trailing edges are much thinner, so that’s one gripe solved. Engraved detail is better. I think that of the three, Eduard is head and shoulders over the other two, the Vc is next and whilst the Frankenspit is in bronze position, I’m still very happy with the way it’s turned out so far.

 

A (bad) update on the wing dihedral conundrum from before. Not very obvious, but I think Eduard and the Vc are closer to each other than to Frankie.

 

 

Let’s wait until all three are on their legs before commenting further.

 

Talking of Frankie, here is the donated canopy after grafting and with before and after blending shots

 

 

 

Not perfect (none of my builds ever come close!)but I’m there in the ball park.

 

My new plan is to get all three to the same build state, so that I can prime them together and then do the paint jobs👍
 

Watch this space.

 

Trevor