1/32 Hasegawa Spitfire Mk VI => Mk V

[Pascal]

Thanks guys

@ Edgar : if I remove the little circular piece of plastic, and add a little triangle, would that be enough to make it look like a Sutton harness ?

Greetings, Pascal

[Edgar]

Not quite; the whole block needs to go, also the "tongue" on the other belt, leaving just the part with the holes, and the belts were attached to the framework under the seat, about halfway along the thighguard. As you'll see, the triangle was attached to the right shoulder strap, since it was the last strap to be placed in position. The right thighstrap came through a slot, in the right thigh guard (I believe that this was to stop it fouling the seat raising/lowering handle.) I'm not sure what these new straps are made of (PVC, perhaps?) but all of the wartime sets, that I've seen, were a light tan colour.

Edgar

[Pascal]

Thanks Edgar

Both fuselage halfs have been glued together last weekend, but I'l try to make the necessary changes to the seat belts.

Did some work on the wings, first I added a little detail to the ailerons, scribed a new "U"- shaped line for the outermost hinge (the holes that I made to simulate the rivets have been filled and sanded, only those on the ailerons will remain) :

Then made the reinforcement strips :

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Pascal]

The seat belts have been changed. I used this picture as a reference :

I cut off the little silver parts, and made a new square with a hole :

The "triangle" was made from 3 pieces of copper wire, the "rope" is also very thin copper wire :

Hope this looks more like a Sutton harness.

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Edgar]

You've left the numbers off the ends. I'm joking, I'm joking, honestly.

Edgar

[Pascal]

After seeing the pictures, I decided to make a new triangle. The previous one looks more like the harp of a Greek god

Hope the next one will look more like the "real" thing.

@ Edgar :

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 7, 2009 by Pascal

[nicholas mayhew]

awesome detailing work in this build - i am sooo impressed.

the pictures are also incredibly helpful - thanks for posting for all to see.

kind regards,

nick

[Pascal]

The new triangle for the Sutton Harness is finished, it looks better then the first one I made :

The radiator housing was removed from the wing, and the sides were bent at a 90 ° angle :

With the program paint, I drew some vertical black and grey lines to simulate the radiator and added some plastic strip :

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Pascal]

I finally decided to make the wheel wells deeper. The original Hasegawa wheel wells look like this :

Used the Dremel to cut out the bottom of the wells :

A made a new wall with plasticard :

Thanks to Edgar the hatches for the landing lights have been filled and sanded, thanks Edgar

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Edgar]

Those holes, beside/behind the wheel wells, ought really to be filled, as well. They were boxes, into which the empty 20mm shells/links went ( note there are no holes for them to come out, unlike the .303" positions.) The boxes had lids, which, when removed, allowed the empties to pour out.

Edgar

[Pascal]

Thanks for the help Edgar

I've got a question about the camo colours, I want to use Humbrol enamels and the Airfix instructions say :

Dark Green 30 (I think this looks good for a green-brown camo, but not for a green-ocean grey one)

Ocean Grey 106

Light Grey 64

Are these the right colours ? What Humbrol colours do you guys use ?

Greetings, Pascal

[Pascal]

I made the engine cowling panels fasteners by using a piece of messing tube with a diameter of 1 mm :

It took me a couple of hours to do this. Some have been done 2 or 3 times, a couple need to be filled and made again. But once it's painted, I think they will look good.

And a made the radiator flaps control lever from 2 pieces of stretched sprue :

Once installed in the cockpit, I hope it will look like this :

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Doug Rogers]

I certainly wouldn't use Humbrol 30 for the green Pascal, it's too bright. I tend to use 163 with 106, and 165 for the undersides, or I believe a lot of people use 116 for the green as well.

Edited July 24, 2009 by Doug Rogers

[keith in the uk]

Arggggggg No Pascal No Do not use Humbrol 30 for the Dark Green , Try Humbrol 116 or Hannants Extra colour RAF Dark Green.

I have seen so many well built models ballsed up with Humbrol 30

[Pascal]

Thanks for the tips guys

I've got 116 for the green and 106 for the ocean grey, and 165 for the undersides. But 165 is a satin colour, and I've never sprayerd or brushed a satin colour before. What are your experiences with Humbrol satin colours ?

Greetings, Pascal

[Doug Rogers]

I've always found Humbrol Satins to be fine when sprayed, can't speak for brushing them as I've never done it.

[Pascal]

Thanks Doug

I wish I found it earlier, here's a complete tweaks list for the Hasegawa Mk Vb Spit :

http://www.largescaleplanes.com/Marketplac...a_SpitMkVb.html

The Hasegawa kit has no canopy rail on the right side :

Made one from plastic strip, needs te be sanded, to make it flush with the fuselage :

I made a hole under the air inlet. This will be used to install a LED. With the help of this LED, the details that I added to the cockpit are better visible :

The LED will not be permantly installed in the cockpit. The air inlet will be fixed with double-sided tape, so it can be taken off :

Opened up the holes for the .303 shells. But I'm not shure if AB910 fired its guns on D-day :

The radiator has been glued in place, sides filled with putty :

Till next time

Yours sincerely

Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Pascal]

I decided to take a look at the exhausts. The Hasegawa version lacks detail, and the one from Quickboost is too short, so I tried to make some changes :

Cut the Hasegawa exhaust in 3 pieces and tried to give each piece its two pipes :

Cut the fishtails from the Quickboost and glued them to the Hasegawa pieces :

Then I did some work on the tail, there was something "strange" about the tail. This is the Hasegawa version :

And the 1/48 Tamiya :

I cut the vertical stabilizer + 2,5 mm from the tail :

Sanded the 2,5 mm off, and reshaped the top of the vertical stabilizer :

And this is the result sofar :

I think it looks better then the original :

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Nick Belbin]

Sorry to say this Pascal, but I think you've made a mistake in removing what you have from the tail. Particularly as a week ago you put the LSP link in, which contains this:

" OTHER NOTICEABLE ISSUES & MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS

General kit dimensions are nearly perfect. This is even one of the very few Spitfire kits that depict correctly the gully-shaped under fuselage."

I think that the rudder on the Tamiya kit is just a bit too 'wide' which creates a more rounded shape. In doing so, the tail might then appear too 'narrow'. To my mind, the Tamiya rudder shows how good the Hasegawa one actually is.

[Pascal]

Hi Nick,

I used these pictures as a reference :

If you look at the hole that has the operating mechanism for the horizontal stabilizer, it is much closer to the vertical stabilizer then on the Hasegawa kit. So, it was either cut off the 2,5 mm of the tail, or enlarge the horizontal tailplanes to achieve this look. I opted for the first.

Assuming that I'm correct, this means that the overall length is now some 2,5 mm less then the original Hasegawa kit, so I conclude that somewhere the hull is 2,5 mm short ?

Please feel free to post comments.

Greetings

Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[Nick Belbin]

I'm apologising again, Pascal, but I don't see how you can possibly 'scale' from photographs taken at all sorts of angles and cropped.

[Pascal]

Hi Nick,

There's no need for apologies, I find this sort of discussions very interesting and I always learn a lot from them

I started by drilling the hole for the operating mechanism in the Hasegawa fuselage, but the position of the horizontal tailplanes and horizontal stabilizers look a bit strange. Then I put the fuselage halves of the Tamiya 1/48 Spit on the 1/48 scale plans, and the fuselage halves looked very accurate. I compared the Hasegawa and Tamiya fuselages with eachother, looked at a lot of pictures of Mk Vb tails, and decided to cut off the 2,5 mm.

Of course I'm not sure if this is correct, and I don't have 1/32 scale plans to check if the dimensions are still correct. But for me, it looks a little better then the original Hasegawa fuselage.

Greetings

Pascal

[Pascal]

I've compared the length of the model with the length of a 1/1 Spit, and the fuselage length was spot on. So now I've got a model that's 2,5 mm short and that has a smaller tail. But, I will continue work on this project, and will do my best to make it as accurate as I can. I still believe that there is something wrong with the tail-rudder-horizontal stablilizer, but my method was not the right one to correct it.

The wheel wells were a nightmare to sand, after a couple of hours of sanding - without a good result - I decided to use coppertape to make the inside of the wheel wells smooth :

Brushed on some paint to see how it looks :

I also added the reinforcement strip behind the hole for the horizontal stabilizer operating mechanism :

And sanded the horizontal stabilizers, so that I can glue them in a "down" position :

Please feel free to give comments, remarks and criticism on my updates.

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal

[keith in the uk]

Hi Pascal , well from what i can see so far this is one amazing build , the work you are putting into this kit and attention to detail is simply stunning , the wheel wells in particular to my eye are a work of art.

I have four of these kits in my stash and after watching your build i have discoverd things i never knew were wrong with this kit.

Keep going Pascal i am really looking forward to seeing this one finished.

[Pascal]

Thanks Keith,

Apart from a little sanding, the first exhaust is finished. I inserted a little white circle between the 3 parts of the exhaust, and made the "gun heating tube" from electric wire. A quick dryfit gives this result :

It took about 4 hours of sanding and sawing to change the exhaust, but I think the result is well worth it.

Greetings, Pascal

Edited July 21, 2010 by Pascal