GrumpyBadger
Airman
wow talk about an adventure! That looked like a great hike. Glad to hear you made it out of the fall all in one piece, that could have gotten really ugly fast!
1:1 Spitfire K9817 Cockpit Build
- Thread starter Tony Hill
- Start date
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Cool shots!
- Thread starter
- #843
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Cheers guys!
Geo, yes, I'll get some more photos up when I've sorted out the "card".
Terry....just the jungle trying to kill ME....
Pat, the one thing I do well is fall (plenty of practice). As I am sure Terry would agree, the biggest thing in the jungle is to be able to "go with the fall" and resist the temptation to grab at things to stop you..unless the situation is becoming critical. So many people wrench or break things by grabbing trees, sticking feet out to use rocks to stop them etc etc. I take the wrist straps off my hands on downhills, so the FIRST thing I did was to let go of the poles .. the best that they will do is bend, the worst is to end up sticking diamond tip first through a femoral artery!! Then it is feet raised slightly, arms in and try to stay on your back (pack) and keep as much drag as possible on the mud/rock/roots. The really fun thing is standing up once you have stopped and then continuing down the same sort of terrain for another hour......besides, the slope was only 60 degrees or so..so I was always going to stop..eventually
Thanks Hugh!
Geo, yes, I'll get some more photos up when I've sorted out the "card".
Terry....just the jungle trying to kill ME....
Pat, the one thing I do well is fall (plenty of practice). As I am sure Terry would agree, the biggest thing in the jungle is to be able to "go with the fall" and resist the temptation to grab at things to stop you..unless the situation is becoming critical. So many people wrench or break things by grabbing trees, sticking feet out to use rocks to stop them etc etc. I take the wrist straps off my hands on downhills, so the FIRST thing I did was to let go of the poles .. the best that they will do is bend, the worst is to end up sticking diamond tip first through a femoral artery!! Then it is feet raised slightly, arms in and try to stay on your back (pack) and keep as much drag as possible on the mud/rock/roots. The really fun thing is standing up once you have stopped and then continuing down the same sort of terrain for another hour......besides, the slope was only 60 degrees or so..so I was always going to stop..eventually
Thanks Hugh!
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Blamey Darryl, a bit of jungle walking, you weren't kidding. is it the Kokoda Track per chance. Well done anyway and hope the fall hasn't cause you too much concern.
- Thread starter
- #845
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Blamey???? THAT is a dirty word......
...you are just trying to provoke me aren't you? Yes mate, Kokoda track..the full wartime trip with Abuari and Myola thrown in. The fall was "interesting". Just after that I had a "choice" of going down a dry waterfall or following the track around. Pride needed restoring, so I went down the former.
That was pretty much climbing straight down in full pack and, truth be told, had I not fallen just before, I would have happily walked around. Not the smartest decision in a semi shaky state...but I got away with it. My mate and his porter nearly had a heart attack
and followed me down to keep an eye on me. The mate was VERY quiet when we got to the bottom
I told him to "toughen up" but I was probably pretty pale by that stage myself!That was number six and probably my last trip..but then again..never say never.
I AM getting too old to carry a full pack, particularly in that terrain. I carried between 55 and 70lbs, depending on the day, food supplies and my wife's health, in Tasmania at Christmas (South Coast Track) but that is not anywhere near as steep or tough as Kokoda, even though the tour companies rate SCT as more difficult...they judge that on having a porter in PNG but having to carry your own gear on the SCT I think. I would respectfully submit that if you carry you own pack in PNG it is MUCH harder than SCT.
cheers
jeffreyjay
Airman 1st Class
that's fantastic work, any chance you can tell me the dimensions of the cockpit width and length please?
- Thread starter
- #847
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Again, many months of life getting in the way but I have finally started on the Spitfire I manual landing gear pump.
The pump obviously needed to be strong, as the handle will get quite a working. As casting iron is beyond me, something similar to the real deal was out. I also didn't fancy trying to bend 3mm aluminium and make nice, sharp square edges.
That left finding something that could be used as a "base" and building around it. I trawled building suppliers and hardware stores without any luck. Every *^*^ thing is plastic nowadays, you don't seem to be able to buy small steel or tin boxes.
Then out of the blue I found this garden light.. a well formed aluminium "U" shape with internal bracings and fittings.
It was about 3/4 the length of the real thing and slightly wider.
So after carefully emptying the "guts" I set to work planning how I was going to make it all work. The best way seemed to be to use the unit as the back part of the pump:
This would be achieved by cutting the u frame into the "tail end' shape:
Then cutting new pieces to plug the gaps and building any other detail on. Then I will make the front end which can be fit into the front of the unit with some overlap for gluing/riveting. I'll machine the axel and the fitting that holds the pump handle from steel and all that will remain is to get someone to bend the handle for me.
The raise/lower handle can be made on the lathe so that it will accept an internal spring for the "lift" function. The raise lower guard can be made and bent simply from 3mm ali.
I have made significant progress on the rear of the unit and will post pics soon.
Last but not least, the various fora recently tipped over 300,000 views for the Spitfire!!! Quite an achievement for a rank amateur and you can see the heavy contribution of THIS forum to that. By far the most replies here too!
Thanks guys!!!!!!!!!!
Darryl
The pump obviously needed to be strong, as the handle will get quite a working. As casting iron is beyond me, something similar to the real deal was out. I also didn't fancy trying to bend 3mm aluminium and make nice, sharp square edges.
That left finding something that could be used as a "base" and building around it. I trawled building suppliers and hardware stores without any luck. Every *^*^ thing is plastic nowadays, you don't seem to be able to buy small steel or tin boxes.
Then out of the blue I found this garden light.. a well formed aluminium "U" shape with internal bracings and fittings.
It was about 3/4 the length of the real thing and slightly wider.
So after carefully emptying the "guts" I set to work planning how I was going to make it all work. The best way seemed to be to use the unit as the back part of the pump:
This would be achieved by cutting the u frame into the "tail end' shape:
Then cutting new pieces to plug the gaps and building any other detail on. Then I will make the front end which can be fit into the front of the unit with some overlap for gluing/riveting. I'll machine the axel and the fitting that holds the pump handle from steel and all that will remain is to get someone to bend the handle for me.
The raise/lower handle can be made on the lathe so that it will accept an internal spring for the "lift" function. The raise lower guard can be made and bent simply from 3mm ali.
I have made significant progress on the rear of the unit and will post pics soon.
Last but not least, the various fora recently tipped over 300,000 views for the Spitfire!!! Quite an achievement for a rank amateur and you can see the heavy contribution of THIS forum to that. By far the most replies here too!
Thanks guys!!!!!!!!!!
Darryl
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- Thread starter
- #848
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
An early but successful night.
The rear end of the U/C unit is well progressed, at least the cosmetic side. The internals should not be much drama, an old, heavy Dowty cylinder push switch (bottom) will provide the resistance and I will machine a cylinder (top) that will contain a shaped piston which triggers a limit switch for some of its travel. That will be assigned one keystroke on closing and one on opening, allowing the toggle for the in-game pump to be thrown twice per cycle of the pump. This will ensure that the full 15 cycles to pull the gear up and 30 cycles to put it down will need to be made .....hello Spitfire wobble!!!
The filling plates for where the body was cut away turned out alright but will still need to have auto "bog" applied to cover the small gaps and make it look "cast". Also the side plates need the same treatment to make them look solid, not the two pieces of 3mm that I had to use for each side to get thickness.
It is rough at the moment, still needing proper sanding and polishing (and I need to grind the store codes off the bolt heads!). I will get my professional spray painter mate to spray the finished product in an all over dull zinced finish.
The rear end of the U/C unit is well progressed, at least the cosmetic side. The internals should not be much drama, an old, heavy Dowty cylinder push switch (bottom) will provide the resistance and I will machine a cylinder (top) that will contain a shaped piston which triggers a limit switch for some of its travel. That will be assigned one keystroke on closing and one on opening, allowing the toggle for the in-game pump to be thrown twice per cycle of the pump. This will ensure that the full 15 cycles to pull the gear up and 30 cycles to put it down will need to be made .....hello Spitfire wobble!!!
The filling plates for where the body was cut away turned out alright but will still need to have auto "bog" applied to cover the small gaps and make it look "cast". Also the side plates need the same treatment to make them look solid, not the two pieces of 3mm that I had to use for each side to get thickness.
It is rough at the moment, still needing proper sanding and polishing (and I need to grind the store codes off the bolt heads!). I will get my professional spray painter mate to spray the finished product in an all over dull zinced finish.
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- Thread starter
- #849
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Jeffrey,
After our discussion I see you started a Hurricane...I assume you don't want me to follow up on this?
D
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
God stuff Darryl. So it's now going to be a Spit Mk 1/IV/IX/XI ................
Excellent work so far Darryl!
- Thread starter
- #853
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Thanks Terry, Gary and Hugh.
Terry, yep, she is a bit of a bitser..... which I admit I kind of like. When you see the extant Spitfire I's (as opposed to rebuilds/restorations/replicas) they are a dazzling array of updated, mixed and truly bastardized cockpits.
"Officially" she will be an early Spitfire I fighter, converted quickly and early to PRU duties, FR, instrument panel replaced after enemy fire, better rudder pedals, up-engined to Merlin XLV along the way, no reflector sight (presumably gunsight on windscreen) and basically cobbled together before much standardisation was introduced.
I don't feel very guilty about the hotch-potch nature as I am sure something similar would have happened on occasion.
The down side is that about $2000 of the money spent on her will go into boxes : auto U/C unit, Drop tank unit (..which is a crying shame because it is a work of art) plus some other bits.
cheers guys
Terry, yep, she is a bit of a bitser..... which I admit I kind of like. When you see the extant Spitfire I's (as opposed to rebuilds/restorations/replicas) they are a dazzling array of updated, mixed and truly bastardized cockpits.
"Officially" she will be an early Spitfire I fighter, converted quickly and early to PRU duties, FR, instrument panel replaced after enemy fire, better rudder pedals, up-engined to Merlin XLV along the way, no reflector sight (presumably gunsight on windscreen) and basically cobbled together before much standardisation was introduced.
I don't feel very guilty about the hotch-potch nature as I am sure something similar would have happened on occasion.
The down side is that about $2000 of the money spent on her will go into boxes : auto U/C unit, Drop tank unit (..which is a crying shame because it is a work of art) plus some other bits.
cheers guys
Crimea_River
Marshal
Amazing stuff Darryl. Hard to tell from the real thing.
- Thread starter
- #855
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Thanks Andy!
T Bolt
Colonel
Marvelous Darryl! Don't you just love it when you find a bit of something and realize it is just what you need to make something up for the cockpit.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Great bit of improvisation and ingenuity Darryl. So when you're out hunting parts, is it a dedicated search or do you just have an idea what you're looking for and keep your eyes open while attending to other necessities.
- Thread starter
- #858
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Thanks Glenn and Vic,
Glenn, yes it is a great day. It happens once in a while if you are lucky.
Vic...depends on who is asking ..wife or interested party
Glenn, yes it is a great day. It happens once in a while if you are lucky.
Vic...depends on who is asking ..wife or interested party
fubar57
General
Nice replica Darryl. I imagine the real part, if it could be found would be quite pricey.
Geo
Geo
- Thread starter
- #860
Tony Hill
Tech Sergeant
Cheers Geo,
Yes, I only know one guy with an original...Rocketeer, and he gave me a couple of critical measurements which when put with the GA's, scaled everything nicely.
It should be almost exactly the same length as the original but just a little wider....I think I will forgive myself!
Yes, I only know one guy with an original...Rocketeer, and he gave me a couple of critical measurements which when put with the GA's, scaled everything nicely.
It should be almost exactly the same length as the original but just a little wider....I think I will forgive myself!
