**** DONE: 1/48 Spitfire Mk.Vc - Pacific Theatre of Operations II

[woody]

Real nice work Vic.

 

[Crimea_River]

Vic, here's my method of ensuring the dihedral is even. For a model with a single piece wing underside, I glue the wing to the fuselage on the underside only and then I place the model on a perfectly flat surface. For this, I use a granite tile I had left over from a bathroom reno. With an accurate carpenter or drafting square, align the fuselage seam and tail by eye to be perpendicular to the flat surface and firmly secure the fuselage with tape. Then, using shims under each wing, adjust the dihedral by measuring each side evenly until the correct dihedral is achieved. Keep checking everything as you do this to ensure the setup doesn't move around. Once you're happy with the set up, run some thin cement into the wing root seam, adding plastic card shims to close gaps if necessary.

Here are two pictures of this set-up I used with my Avenger. In this case, the wings were separate and loosely fitted into recesses in the fuselage without any glue before placing in the jig. It's hard to see at first but you can make out the stainless steel square beside the tail which was used to eyeball the tail and fuselage seam to get these perfectly perpendicular to the flat surface.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Andy, that is perfect. Thank you so much, I'll get myself sorted and give it a go tomorrow.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks for looking in folks and for the kind comments.

Not much progress today, have been out most of the day but I have managed to do something with the gun ports. The wing only provided for the 20mm cannon housings and for the machine guns one has to position and make the holes. Strange really as they do have the shell case ejection chutes moulded into the lower wing.

Anyway, having done two and a bit, I got over enthusiastic with the forth one and not only overdid the hole size but also stuffed up the upper and lower wing alignment. A hasty repair was needed with a couple bits of castoff plastic rod, a pot of glue and a couple of files and a bit of Kickstart. Problem solved and just a little tidy up needed when the two halves are glued together.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Vic.
I find it easier to drill the gun port holes after the wing has been joined. If the holes are then accidentally too large, then 'gun port' patches, added after painting the model, and made using the thin tissue which covers many kit decal sheets, hides the error. These are then opened up after painting, using a pin, and 'roughed up' slightly and discoloured, giving the appearance of shot through fabric patches.

 

[Lucky13]

Smashing work old boy, have a pint!

 

[dneid]

Beautiful work on the wing there, Vic!

 

[Catch22]

Nice work Vic, really liking your warnings about this as I have bought one. Way more thorough than any of the build reviews I've come across.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Terry, many thanks for that little gem on the gun port covers, I often wondered what you used.

Thanks also folks for the kind words and I'm afraid Cory, more little problems.

Slow and easy again today, stuck the two top wings to the bottom wing. Again not such a good fit, the wing front is quite flat for about half mil either side of the join and the back side top wing overlaps the bottom by a good mil on the outer edge where the resin elevator will sit. Not insurmountable problems, but annoying.

This kit comes with the option of a clipped wing Spit and again, sadly the wingtips do not fit very well. I've had to do a deal of cutting, filing and scraping in order to get a reasonable join and as you can see, a bit of Zap-a-Gap was required to help fill the gaps.

Also took the option to cut out the horizontal tail elevators and add the resin ones which also come with separate trim tabs.

 

[Lucky13]

Smashing work Vic!

 

[destrozas]

for the correct dihedral I do something similar to what andy says, which use copper wire for restraint, so I can store it in the box models in process, a squad in line to center the plane, a piece of tape to hold it in the middle and put the thread wingspan, I'm tightening up the caliper gives me the right size.

.

on the picture you commented though what is the end result but only explains how the process is ....

fine job my friend, fine job.

 

[Rogi]

Slow and stready wins the race great looking so far

 

[Gnomey]

Looks good so far Vic!

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Vic. The wing tip joints were covered by a thin strip of aluminium, so when filling and sanding the joint, if there is a slight imperfection, it could be made to simulate this strip, which is visible on the real aircraft, on close inspection.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks again Terry, may even try to replicate it if I can find something showing it.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Stuffed up this post, not sure why, so trying again.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks for looking in guy.

Bit of a sort out day, the wing tips came out well after some filing and scraping. Will set to doing the wing leading edges tomorrow.

Also added the tail stabilisers. Red arrow, my personal touch, a shard of skin!

Next I added a little detail to the rudder, the control rod and trim tab hinge rod

This machine is fitted with a Vokes Tropical filter. My good friend Karl was kind enough the supply me with one many moons ago when I first got the kit. Thank again Karl.
Not sure if they had a filter inside, but never the less I decided to spruce it up a tad by opening the filter intake (blue arrow not done, red arrow plastic removed) and sticking a bit of mesh behind.

 

[Wayne Little]

Good stuff Vic!

 

[fubar57]

Nice touch with the filter Vic.

Geo