1/32 Revell Spitfire MKIIa

Nice work so far!

Great to see you back Dave !
Nice work so far, and the cockpit is looking the biz. Those 'Yahu' instrument panels are fantastic - got a 1/48th scale Mossie example, and will be getting some for the Revell Mk.II and Mk.IX Spits.
I'll be watching to see how well the 'drop in' resin parts for the oil cooler etc work out, as I'll be using them when I eventually get around to doing the Mk.II kit, which I bought as soon as it was released.
I agree that the rivets are a tad 'overdone', but I feel that, once under primer, paint, and clear coats, they might not be too bad. Just a shame that the wheels, in both the Mk.II and Mk.IX kits, are a bit strange (I have suitable replacements), and the windscreen for the Mk.II Is slightly odd. I'm hoping that I still have an old Hasegawa windscreen that can be made to fit.
It's also slightly odd that Revell made the minor errors, even allowing for the fact that they modeled the kit from a Duxford example, and also omitted the back armour from this and the new Mk.IX kit, but at least we now have good, very reasonably priced kits of both Marks.
Just got to decide whether to do mine as a Mk.II, or adapt it to make George Unwin's Mk.1 .........

Wonderful to see another great project from you Dave! I'm sure I can learn plenty from your aftermarket-filled build of the Spitfire. I've got my own full-meal Dora build that'll start up in earnest very soon.

I concur with you decision to replace the rivets on the Revell Spitfire. I haven't seen it in person but the kit riveting looked a bit "too much" from photos.

I forgot to mention in my previous post, a couple of points regarding the colour profile.
Note that the radio antenna mast shows the connection tab for the antenna wire. This was not fitted, as the aircraft was fitted with VHF radio. The photo posted by Wojtek clearly shows this, with the small, triangular tab removed, leaving the 'u' shaped attachment point. The base of the small mast on the rudder looks as if it might still be in place, although this, and the small mast itself, were normally deleted.
The profile also shows the DH spinner, as fitted to the Mk.1, when it should be the Rotol prop, which I note you have as a resin accessory.
The voltage regulator, behind the pilot's head armour, should be the earlier, large canister type, as shown in the photo, and correctly depicted in the profile.
Regarding the 'presentation' name - I agree with Steve.
Although it's possible that yellow might have been, and probably was used in some instances, colour photos of other 'Presentation' or named aircraft, show the lettering in Medium Sea Grey, although this is sometimes quite light in shade. In some B&W photos, the lettering appears even lighter on some aircraft, and could be white, or an even lighter shade of grey - the quality of the original print, and variations in reproduction, make this a tricky subject to deduce accurately.
(I have seen written accounts where the author has mentioned a name being painted in white, although these instances were mainly later in the war.)
Study of B&W pics also shows a distinct difference in tone between the 'main' name, and any wording beneath this, as in your subject, and although again it's difficult to be absolutely certain, there's a very good chance the 'subsidiary' wording was in white.
It's possible that profile artists have mistaken the tonal differences (in B&W photos), and portrayed the MSG as yellow, an easy and understandable error.

Wayne, Steve, Gnomey, John,Terry thanks for the warm reception. It's good to be back and connect with you all. Life has been hectic with me trying to get my own little business going so haven't had a lot of bench time. And next week I am taking the family to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Looking forward to the beach life and all the food and liquor I can eat and drink

Right then onward and upward thanks for all the inputs on the MKII. Here are some picture of the cockpit completed and the fuselage together. The area behind the armour plate shows my attempt at the bayonet mount for safety harness. I tried to copy the drawing shown in the Spitfire Book. I couldn't tell from the drawing if the wire cable coming off the rear of the bayonet mount was a single cable or 2 cables. so I guessed it was a single cable since it's white in the centre and the main piece which is solid material is also filled in white.

The oxygen hose is some wire bent around a small pinvise drill then bent to shape.The gaps are then filled with automotive putty and while still setting scraped away till the wire is showing. After it had set I gave it a light sanding then painted it and gave it a wash.

I am now at the point of re-scribing some panel lines and filling the main joints.

Holiday in the DR eh ? It's a tough job, but someone has to do it !

No pics in your last post Dave. The Bowden cables from the harness were twin cables - running to the anchor point in the mid rear fuselage and the lock release, and passed over the cross brace of the frame behind the cockpit, at the rear end of the rear glazing.
I've got pics and factory drawings somewhere, but can't post them, as I'm running on a 'lashed-up' Internet connection at the moment, until Tuesday, when a new 'magic box' thingy should arrive from my service provider (darned UK Public holiday weekend has slowed things down !).
Andy has some clear pics of the harness cables and attachments, which I'm guessing he'll post if he sees this.

Great. Thanks Terry. I might be able to make a change in this area but I will wait for some pics to decide if I can do it. It's tougher with the fuselage together now.

Hey, with us guys the Holiday Inn would be perfect but alas that wouldn't fly with the wife and kids so we are staying at the Catalonia Royal Bavaro.

A trip south sounds pretty nice right now as I cancelled my golf game due to snow!

Looks like you have recreated the detail quite well Dave. The only other thing I see missing is a hanger cable attached to the small beam that runs just under the rear glazing. It's also shown on the drawing that you posted. The following pics come from the spitfiresite page and are actually of a MkV restoration. However, I think they detail is the same if not similar.

Pics there now since you edited the post - thanks.
It's looking great, and to be honest, once the rear glazing is in place, with the central, upper brace, the single cable won't be that noticeable, especially if the canopy is posed open. If you think you can modify it without causing damage, fine, but I think I'd be tempted to leave it as is.
One of my Spit models has a single cable, as one detached when doing the final positioning of the harness, with the fuselage halves already joined and, even though I know it's a single cable, it's extremely difficult to tell.

One thing I've just noticed though, although it's a bit late to rectify now - the 'Y' straps which are shown on the seat back -pad, should run behind the seat, and anchor on the lower cross-member. I do understand that the 'works' drawing is not that clear in this respect - larger, more clearly printed versions do show this, but need to be studied very closely !
Again, it's a tricky one to correct, but it might be possible to either remove them, or loosen the lower attachment, and push them behind the seat, possibly cutting off the 'hidden' portions if desired. They were virtually hidden from direct view, as they ran off the shoulder straps, straight over the seat back, and were mostly 'masked' by the drape of the shoulder straps.

For future reference, certainly for the Mk1 Spitfire, and probably for at least earlier MkII Spits - the oxygen hose was similar to that attached to the earlier oxygen mask of the period, in as much it was a 'plain', woven fabric, rubber- coated 'tube' type of hose, as opposed to the later-style 'corrugated' flexible hose, used on both the mask and the cockpit hose attachment. It was mainly black in colour, with a yellow and white 'weave' presenting a 'broken-striped' appearance, and around half the diameter of the later rubber and/or fabric covered, rubberized hose. (Again, I have pics, but can't get at them on my current Internet set-up !).
However, it's entirely possible that later-production MkIIs had the cockpit hose as you've modeled it, so it's not worth the hassle of trying to change it, especially after all the work involved in creating it.
Incidentally, Model Design Construction supply 'corrugated' hoses in a flexible vinyl type material, in various 'gauges' which can be used across the popular scales, and they're rather nice, and very useful - there should be pics on their web-site, as, yet again, I can't access mine at the moment.

Looks great

Thanks guys. Terry, I will have to check out MDC and their oxygen offerings.

Andy, Thanks for posting those pictures. I have those references as well. The reason I didn't follow them was these are from a restored Spitfire and the drawing I posted I believe is an original one which shows the bayonet mount just aft of the big black regulator. Given the subjective nature of some restorations my thinking at the time was the drawing might be the way to go.so I went with that. Oh well have to think on that one and decide if I want to change it to look like the photos. I have a PE part that matches more less the bracket and can use some stretched sprue to represent the cables.

.... I need treatment for my tunnel vision.

Totalize said:

....The reason I didn't follow them was these are from a restored Spitfire and the drawing I posted I believe is an original one which shows the bayonet mount just aft of the big black regulator.

Click to expand...

The hanger is in your drawing though - see circle below. Keep in mind that the whole shoulder strap assembly move back and forth to enable the pilot to lean forward without undoing his harness, much like the shoulder belts in your car. The bayonet fitting position will therefore vary.

Thanks Andy,

Yes, I should add the hanger.

On the drawing for bayonet mount (detail section A) are the two heavy lines coming off the right side cables? or is this rod?

Those are the two cables going to the back of the fuselage you see in the MkV pics. It looks like the drawing detail and the pics have the flange with the rivets 180 degrees apart.

Where's Edgar Brooks when we need him most. Too bad he passed.

An excellent start here Dave

Thanks Steph much appreciated.

Back again guys with more updates. The issue with the harness hanger remains unsorted but that's because I have moved on to getting the wing's on and completing the riveting of the fuselage. I can still come back to the harness near the end of the build.

First up here are some pics of the wings on. As you can see there is a gap between the trailing edge of the wing/flap where it meets the fuselage. This is a common issue with this kit. I fixed it with some super glue and putty.

Now for some pictures of the riveting. As you may know the area behind the cockpit had domed rivets (starting at Frame 11 me thinks) while in front they were flush. I believe at the time there was much discussion at Supermarine about the whether the domed rivets had a negative effect on the aerodynamics of the air frame but I believe the engineers came to the conclusion they did not.

For my build I used the positive rivets set from Archer (part no. AR88014) to achieve this effect. Take a look. I am not happy with the port side door vertical rivets so will be re-doing them. One thing with the Archer set is you get more than enough rivets.

Disclaimer alert! Not every rivet is perfect and place so no need to crtique that issue. The goal here is to show an improved level of accuracy on this kit.