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1/32 Hasegawa Spitfire Mk VI => Mk V


Pascal

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Hello,

To commemorate the 65th birthday of D-day, I'm building the Spitfire MkVb, AB910, code AE-H, 402 Sqn RCAF flown by F/O George Lawson on june 6 1944.
I'm using this Mk VI kit as it is almost identical to the Mk Vb (apart from the wingtips, propellor and hub, and the rear canopy) :

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It's an old kit from the early seventies, but the quality is still very good. Did a dryfit, no problems there :

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The kit has recessed panellines, so I decided to rescribe them. These are the tools I use :

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Before :

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After :

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I'm looking for wartime pictures of AB910, any help is more then welcome.

Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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Thank you for the tip Edgar, I had not noticed it.

Do you know which mark of Spitfire has this little window ?

Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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Good luck with your build Pascal, re-scribing is really something I've still to get my head around!!

A word of warning, I made this kit last year and the kit decals were useless. Probably not their fault as the kit can be getting on a bit now but they just fell apart in the water before I'd even touched them. Might be worth giving them a coat of 'Klear' while they're still on the sheet, helps them stay in one piece apparently.

Edited by Doug Rogers
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Thank you for the tip Edgar, I had not noticed it.

Do you know which mark of Spitfire has this little window ?

Greetings

Pascal

I'm not absolutely certain, but maybe only the VI & VII; it was used for demisting.

Edgar

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I started work on the cockpit. First I made a new "bulkhead". I used the one from the kit to make a template from cardboard, and then made one from plasticard :

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Dryfit in the fuselage :

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Alost 99% of Spitfire kits have a flat piece of plastic for the cockpit floor. Since this is not correct, I started making a round one from scrap plastic :

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The new floor will be sandwiched between the 2 fuselage halves, and will be glued on the reinforcement strips (the bottom white strip) :

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I'm hoping that all goes well, there's still a lot of work on the cockpit.

Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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Thanks for the reply :winkgrin:

Did some more work on the "ribbing".

Before :

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After :

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Glued both halves of the wheels together, the tires have no tread. I asked a question about Spitfire tires in the 'Real aviaton' section :

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Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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I started work on the rudder pedals. This is the cockpit-floor of the Aires-set :

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Nicely detailed, but not correct. So I decided to scratch this section :

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This photo shows the pipes of the rudder-pedals, they are oversized. I will try to make new ones from brass tubes :

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Still a lot of work on the cockpit :confused:

Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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This Mk VI kit has a 4-bladed propellor and matching spinner. I also have the Mk Vb kit, that has a short and a long spinner, and De Havilland and Rotol propblades. But there's only 1 propellorhub :

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So I made a hub from a curtainrail wheel and some messing tube :

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And did a dryfit of the new hub, the short spinner and the DH blades :

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I'm pleased with the result, but it will be tricky to ge the correct angle of the blades. Does anybody know if this Spitfire had a short or a long spinner and DH or Rotol propblades ?

Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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The only photo of AB910, that I can find, is dated May, 1949, and it had a Rotol prop then. There are a couple of photos in the "Spitfire, the Canadians" books, in which the front ends of 402's Mk.Vs can be seen clearly, and they have Rotol props.

Edgar

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Great work so far , i have built this kit a few times and apart from the decals which are the wrong colour ( Red far to bright ) it goes together well.

Only things to watch out for are the seat which is a little bit too big , if you have the aires one use that , also if you run your fingers along the trailing edges of the wings ( behind the cannon buldges ) you will feel a long sink mark

this will not be apperant untill you paint it and by then it will be too late to fill , from your pics i can see your kit suffers from this. If you feel up to it the wheel wells are a little shalow and could do with cutting out and rebuilding. Hope this helps. :rolleyes:

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Thanks for the info Keith :winkgrin:

I had not noticed the sinkmark on the wings, I sanded the starboard one, and it started to show, it runs from the aileron to the wing-fuselage "connection". Did a lot of sanding, and now it's gone, because of the sanding the trailing edge it a little bit thinner, looks better. It will try to paint the roundels so I won't be using the decals.

The seat is the same size as that from the Aires kit, but it needs some extra detailing. As for the wheel wells, no idea if I will alter them.

Did some work on the frames today, a lot of dryfitting was needed to get the right shape. I hope that it looks a little more like the original :

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Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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Did some work on the seat, the one from the Aires-set is a little bit too big and the armorplate is too high :

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Since I will be using the seat from the kit, I started by making the hole at the bottom. The seat will also receive the backrest, like the seat from Aires :

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Does anybody have an idea what those 8 round things in front of the seat are ?

Greetings, Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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I think what you're asking about is the flare rack Pascal.

It is, and they've moulded the cartridges in place; these were only applicable to Seafires, since Spitfires had a one-shot identification flare set into the spine, about halfway back. The Seafire seat also had a metal "holster," into which the flare pistol fitted, on the starboard side, roughly by the pilot's elbow. It's entirely possible to see a flare rack(empty) in a Spitfire, but usually only Westland-built; as they were also building Seafires, I'd say that, almost certainly, they wouldn't have had different seats for their Spitfires.

Edgar

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A little update. The ribbing of the fuselage is ready, so it was time to do a dryfit of the bulkheads :

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I'm pleased with the result, comments are always welcome.

Greetings

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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Thanks Chris ^_^

I'm looking for scale plans of Spitfires, if anyone has a site that has them, info is more than welcome.

I've got these two books by Robert Humphreys :

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Both have scale plans, but are they accurate ? I've compared the plans with the Hasegawa 1/32 and Tamiya 1/48 kits, and there are some differences in the panellines.

So to sum up my question : where can I find accurate scale plans of Spitfires ?

Greetings

Pascal

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For the IX & XVI, I'd try Paul Monforton [email protected]. He's done his drawings from actual airframes, some of them having been taken apart. He doesn't have a secure site, for credit card orders, but phone orders are easy, and he's a perfect gentleman to deal with. His book (a snip at a mere £70-ish) has 1/48 drawings inside the front and rear covers. With those as a basis, it shouldn't be too difficult to add a Griffon nose, or cut them down to the earlier Merlin versions.

Edgar

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