**** DONE: 1/48 Spitfire IXc - Defense of Britain/Atlantic.

Sweet work!

Very nice work John.

Thanks for the reference pics Andy! I went to my LHS to pick up the exterior colors for this bird and I came up upon this set...



I'm primarily a Tamiya/Gunze acrylic user so this will be a test for me. I've already played with the Interior Green and it seems to work well with my thinner of choice - iso alcohol.

Lovely start John and my apologies for creating such confusion over the theme of this GB and my having missed most of the debate while being away.

I cannot recall from the mists of time the full details relating to this build theme but do remember some members current at the time wanting to cover some of the lesser publicised and less popular themes for building, like Costal Command and carrier based aircraft etc. Looking back on it and now and in hindsight, the title "Defence of Britain and the Atlantic WWII, Allied or Axis" has perhaps proven to be somewhat ambiguous. Let's hope that from the lessons of this build we can perhaps get ourselves better organise with the builds yet to come.

Thanks Vic! No apologies necessary. It was a good discussion and I learned a bit of WWII history. That's the great thing about this site... there is lots of information made available through discussion.

On to the build! I have been patiently cobbling together the complex office that Eduard has provided for the Spitfire IXc. A lot of it was just looking at the parts and trying to figure out if they were ok as is or if any details could be added. For example, the sidewalls and bulkheads have holes that can be drilled out.




The cockpit sidewalls are split between the upper sidewalls, which are molded into the fuselage sides and the lower sidewalls, which are molded as separate parts. I wanted to add a little wiring so I decided to break from the instructions and attach the sidewalls to the fuselage first. Here are the sidewalls with some wiring added.


The cockpit is comprised of lots of small parts including some PE bits. This is a lever body that sits on the floor next to the seat. It folds up accordion-style to give the part some thickness.



The other cockpit parts were stuck onto a piece of masking tape to prepare for painting. Some of the parts are subassemblies comprised of multiple parts such as the seat and the main bulkhead. Some wiring was added to the control stick and the starboard side lever. An oxygen hose was fabricated by wrapping thin wire around a piece of thicker wire.


I like to prime my cockpits in black. This preshading helps to add some depth to things after the cockpit color is added.



I used the Hataka Interior Green on the interior pieces. Details were picked out using a fine paint brush. As a finishing touch, the parts were given a light wash of brown/black pastel to dirty things up and highlight detail.




The seat was painted separately using a mixture of Tamiya Red and Red Brown. The cushioned backrest was painted dark gray. Multiple applications of black pastel wash were applied to the backrest grooves to help give it more of a cushioned look.


The P.E. seatbelts were then added along with armor plate behind the seat. The whole assembly was mounted onto the floor sub-assembly, which has been painted/weathered separately.



The office painting is pretty much complete and all that's left is to put it all together.

Great start John. How do you like that Hataka paint? The interior color looks fine on my computer and the reviews, for the most part, a very favorable. I've also read they are good for brush painter like me.




Geo

Thanks Geo! I've only used the Interior Green so far but the paint works great, from an airbrush anyway. I've been thinning it with iso alcohol at about 1:2 ratio (1 part paint: 2 parts alcohol). My brush work with the Hataka has been very limited but the green seems to lack opacity even straight from the bottle, requiring multiple coats to prevent the underlying color from showing through. It does seem to lay down nicely after it is brushed on though.

That's looking great so far John!
When you get to the seat harness shoulder straps, just check the Eduard instructions before fitting. Many manufacturers, including those making resin seats with moulded belts, have the shorter 'Y' strap attaching through the lower slot in the seat. This is incorrect - the 'Y' assembly and the tail strap should go over the seat back, with the 'Y' attaching to the lower seat cross frame. The main 'Y' shoulder straps of course, go through the slot in the head armour, then over the rear frame cross brace, being attached by two 'Bowden' cables to the hard-point and release lock at Frame 15 in the rear fuselage.

Very nice John. I'm surprised Terry did not mention the flare rack on the seat which was almost certainly no longer featured on most Mk IXs, except perhaps on early production models.

I was going to Andy !
Although some sources state that the flare rack was mounted to all Spitfire seats, from what I've seen and read over the years, it was only mounted to the earlier, metal seat.
The 'composite' seat, sometimes referred to by Supermarine as the 'plastic' seat, was available from May 1940, although not always fitted to the earlier Mk.I/II immediately, depending on production line and date. Mounting the flare rack to this seat, although not impossible, may not have been straightforward, due to the nature of the 'composite' seat, which was made from pressed fibres and phenolic resin, although I have seen the rack on this type of seat on restored aircraft.
However, many later Marques of Spitfire either reverted to, or possibly had fitted on the production line, the earlier metal seat, following some incidents where the 'plastic' seat collapsed under the higher 'g' loads often experienced by these aircraft. Whether the flare rack was retained is debatable though, as the cockpit was 'tight' enough anyway, and any saving of space, for comfort or as an aid in emergency, would have been welcomed.

I'll take Terry's explanation to mean that it was POSSIBLE that a flare rack MAY have been fitted to the Mk IXc composite seat. Also noted Terry's bit about the shoulder harnesses... the Eduard instructions follow Terry's description although there is no connection to the rear fuselage since it's probably out of view.

Yep. Unless someone can come up with definitive proof that your rig didn't have the rack, they can't prove you wrong in having it there.

Yep, I agree with that !

Very nice work John.

Thank you gentlemen! Continuing on with the Spitfire cockpit... now that all of the cockpit components have been painted and weathered, I can start putting them together. As I said previously, I broke from the Eduard instructions by gluing the sidewalls into the fuselage sides first instead of gluing the sidewalls onto the bulkheads. Dryfitting the components seemed to support this route... the fit on this Eduard kit is excellent.

I proceeded carefully, one bulkhead at a time. Using Tamiya liquid cement, I fused the IP bulkhead into the right fuselage side. The right side lever assembly has to go in after the bulkhead due to the wiring. I then dryfit the left fuselage side to make sure that the bulkhead was in the correct position. After allowing the cement to dry, I removed the left fuselage side and move on to the next bulkhead.



After the rearmost bulkhead was attached, I assembled the PE shoulder harness. It is comprised of four PE parts. I left the main harness on the PE fret to make it easier to handle and glued the other pieces onto it.


The shoulder harness was snaked into place and secured with CA glue.



The cockpit is complete and the fuselage looks ready to be buttoned up. But the gluing will have to wait... school starts tomorrow and I have to start getting up early to take my girls to high school every day.

Great looking innards John and Eduard deviation duly noted.




Geo

That's looking the biz John !
Ignore my comments about the 'smaller 'Y' strap' - I forgot this was a MkIX, which was fitted with the later Sutton QS Harness, which didn't have the 'Y' straps over the back of the seat !