Spitfire XIV collective hysteria - FF-B on the bench

[Rob G]

2 hours ago, alt-92 said:

Wasn't that a Rebecca aerial?

It was the mount for same, yes. Ideally, there'd be a small horizontal aerial poking out rearwards from it. There's a few online walkarounds of museum Mk.XIVs and PR.XIXs that show it quite well. 

[Biggles87]

Also known as the ‘ boat’ aerial ( no idea why 😗 ).

Ditto on the gull wing area.

 

John

 

🇺🇦

[Markh-75]

On 16/08/2022 at 23:42, AdrianMF said:

I suppose a “before” picture would have been useful here. In the absence of that, here’s an “after” picture of the gull wing effect after a lot of sanding with sandpaper wrapped round a paintbrush handle and a sanding stick:

 

I promise you, it was as flat as a pancake before! Luckily, the plastic was thick enough to get away with it. There will be more sanding to refine it when it’s all glued together.

You can get little tubes for a Dremel or other rotary tool that are sleeves to go on a fitting with abrasive around them, I doubt I'll ever use one in the Dremel as they'd be too severe, but finger held they may be useful!

[Markh-75]

I have a couple of Spitfires to make yet, the latest Vc version in the desert war and a Mk. Xl PRU version, dont know when they'll be started as I'm currently building some seaplanes just now. Looking forward to seeing this finished (no hurry, just as you please).

[AdrianMF]

Canopies. Oh joy. The canopy for this kit is considerably smaller than the ‘ole for the cockpit. Before I started building up the cockpit walls to meet the canopy I decided to review my options.

I have the Airfix Mk IX ( the recent one not the 1958 one), which comes with two canopies and I have the Falcon RAF WWII Pt 4 that includes a Spit XIV canopy for the Fujimi kit (sadly, not the FROG kit). They all seem to be late model canopies with internal armoured glass, so they should all be the same, right?

 

L-R Falcon, FROG, Airfix:

 

All very different.

 

Falcon is the clearest and could probably do with a bit more trimming, but is much larger than the other two.

 

FROG is a bit blobby and a bit rough and ready but would work with a bit of shimming.

 

Airfix is much finer and probably the only one to capture the fineness of the cross section where the rear fixed part joins the fuselage (the kit is too broad there). Would need a bit more shimming and fuselage spine sanding.

 

So, the Falcon is out (disappointingly) and it’s a moderately straight fight between FROG and Airfix for the canopy spot. Haven’t decided yet…

[Graham Boak]

Many Falcon canopies are designed to fit particular kits, so they have two different Halifax 'sets', one for the Matchbox and one for the Airfix.  Could this be the case here?  Frog being long out of production would thus not justify a canopy being produced.  Clearly this can't be the case for the boxed set that deals with a wide range of Spitfire variants, but presumably (possibly/) they are all sized for some kit or another.  Quite likely the one considered as the best shaped at that time.

[Dunny]

Adrian,

 

Great progress - I am aiming to remedy my laggard status on this and my Stringbag over the weekend!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[AdrianMF]

2 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Many Falcon canopies are designed to fit particular kits

Thanks Graham, indeed this is the case; I've had a look through the complete Falcon catalogue and all their Spitfire XIV canopies are for the Fujimi kit

 

Looking at the profiles again this morning, I think my selection criterion is now turning to "not the FROG canopy"... The decider will be how well I think I can blend the respective rear sections of the canopies into the spine. The Falcon one still looks too big to me though!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[AdrianMF]

I know the Airfix 1/72 Spitfire IX has its share of issues but I don’t recall the canopy being one of them. So I used it:

 

It has taken some shim addition, a lot of sanding of the outside and some tapering of the joining surfaces to make it all blend, but I’m happy with it now.

[Markh-75]

I usually fill any little gaps between the canopy and the fuselage with some PVA, it’s great for filling gaps and stretching to fit, just give it a while to dry!

Nice fit!🙂

[heloman1]

Good start Adrian, who couldn't love a Frog kit, I think we've all been down that road? Neat work with the gullwing carving, I often use a paintbrush as a sanding stick, that slight taper helps endlessly.

 

Coin

[bigbadbadge]

Great work on the canopy Adrian . Looks good .

Chris

[AdrianMF]

I just can’t resist a bit of cockpit detailing:

 

I have an empty F-102 wheel well staring balefully at me from the other side of the bench.

 

The FROGman is shown for comparison - the chosen pilot is from an Airfix Tiger Moth. I’ve checked that there will be enough headroom under the canopy and confirmed that none of the detail will be visible when it’s all done!

[AdrianMF]

And painted:

 

The next time you see it, there will be a pilot’s head sticking out of a black hole. Still , I know it’s there…

[AdrianMF]

Told yez:

 

That’s under my super-bright daylight lamp.

 

And the rather neatly painted and shaded padded headrest is distorted by the canopy into surrealist blobs of green and brown. It’s a cruel hobby…

[Dave Slowbuild]

An afternoon well spent….?

But hey, we’ve all done it!

[Biggles87]

At least we know it’s there.

Good work n the cockpit.

 

John. 🇺🇦

[mark.au]

But you know it’s there… 😊.   And so do we.   Nice work on the cockpit detailing, it looked really good before you closed up everything 😂

[AdrianMF]

37 minutes ago, mark.au said:

it looked really good

If it looks familiar, that’s because I had the pictures of your interior open for reference when I did it!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[AdrianMF]

Here’s a bit more progress (hopefully visible in the finished model!) before I went to the pub with the family this evening;

 

I’ve put in a 5mm plastic tube so I can add the propeller at the end and have it spin. And I’ve started to modify the air intake so that it’s a separate intake rather than a bump on the fuselage.

[bigbadbadge]

Great job on the cockpit details Adrian, shanevit won't be seen, but as said already,  you know it's there. 

Your Frog builds/transformations are legendary!

Chris

[mark.au]

36 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

If it looks familiar, that’s because I had the pictures of your interior open for reference when I did it!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thank you KMC! 😊.   Enjoy the pub!

[AdrianMF]

19 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Frog builds/transformations

Thanks Chris.

 

It’s an interesting process. Sometimes they are spot on, or at least good enough for me (eg. Magister, Proctor, Wyvern), and other times I just get lured into making just one more change at a time until it looks more like the real thing (eg. Oxford, Master, hopefully this one). I’m not going to include the Beaufort in either of those categories- thank goodness Airfix took pity on us!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Dunny]

Some cracking scratch work there Adrian (shame it won't be seen!)

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[AdrianMF]

The pilot is painted, so I can add him and get the fuselage halves together:

 

Then I can get back to the F-102!