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

Today's Update

Pic 1-3
Work on the undercarriage legs continues with the addition of the oleo locking rods. These are a distinctive feature on the front face of the leg and were installed between the oil fill plug and the lower gland nut. The object was to prevent anybody removing the lower gland with the strut under pressure. Risk of death and damage I suspect. I started with adding the lower connector with brass rod, and then used copper wire and CA to install them around the front face. Pic 3 is finished strut installed on the door.

Pic 4
The lower light was painted clear amber.

Pic 5
Painted the interior of the radiator scoops "Sky" prior to installation of the scoops themselves. Radiators were painted aluminium.

Pic 6
Airfix provide the decals for the cockpit door. Too small to read, but there ya go!

Pic 7
I preparation for the seatbelt wires I have added a sprue further down the fuselage.

Pic 8
This is the seat with the Sutton harness installed. These are the new type of "Superfabric" belts from Eduard installed as per their directions. The weave looks a bit over scale to be honest, but they did go in nicely. The starboard lap belt goes through a slot on the side of the seat rather than over the lip of the seat.

Pic 9 10
This is the seat installed into the cockpit tub. I've attached copper wire (painted) to the belts and taken those back to the sprue previously affixed inside the fuselage. I've also added the oxygen bottle, and it's basically ready for close up.



Thanks for dropping by. 8)

Cheers

Peter

Good work Peter!

Agree.

Agree with all - very nice indeed !
BTW, I asked one of the ground crew working on a Spit Mk1a at Duxford, about the spray nozzle in the radiator bath - it's for spraying cold water/glycol over the radiator matrix to keep it cool at low altitude or when ground running.

Thanks for the info Terry, interesting detail!

It's been a 3 day weekend here in Western Australia, so I was able to stay away from work (and the to do list) and get a bit more done on the Spitty.

Pic 1 -3
Further work on the undercarriage, this time the brake lines. This pic series is from Aero Detail 8 - Supermarine Spitfire Mk.1-V and shown on the left hand pic, is the brake lines that are routed down the inside lip of the rear of the undercarriage door. There were flexible lines both top and bottom, but they have been over painted silver in this photo. I represented these lines with thin copper wire which was CA glued into place. I'll need to repaint the legs and detail them before adding to the painted model down the track.

Pic 4 5
With the cockpit tub done, it was time to close the fuselage halves. The only issue I had with doing so was the front fuel tank cover which need a bit of wrangling to fit correctly. Mostly it appears that the instrument panel is just slightly too tall to get a good fit, and a bit wide near the join with the lower fuselage half but once sorted, the fit is perfect.

Pic 6 7
Time for the wings. I found that the hole in the bottom of the cockpit tub needs to go over the downward ID light, but Airfix either didn't put the hole in the right spot or I've got things a little out somewhere. I enlarged the hole to obtain a good fit. I also found that the gap between upper wings and the fuselage was a bit large on initial trial. I needed to widen the front a little bit to get a good fit and I did this by breaking the joint under the nose and wedging it a little bit wider. Having done this it was time to glue and the fit turned out fantastic.

Pic 8 9
Wiings glued up the wing fuselage gap is perfect. Dare I say Tamiya quality, maybe better (never thought I would say this about Airfix!). After the wings, I added the tail feathers and can now concentrate on making sure all the seams are smooth and ready for the primer undercoat.

Cheers for now. 8)

Peter

Nice work Peter. And it's reminded me - I haven't fitted the brake lines to my Spit's gear legs yet, almost forgot !

Great looking work! I like the fabric belts. Like you said, the weave might be a tad overscale but the drape is much more natural than PE belts.

Good work so far!

Very nice Peter.




Geo

Good stuff Peter

Beautiful work Peter.

Agree with all of the above!

Thanks guys!

Just having a bit of a closer look at the photo I have of X4009 to work out the camouflage pattern on this bird. It's always good to have a photo and although a rather narrow view, allowing for the yellow circle of the roundel, it does appear that X4009 had the "B" pattern camouflage. I've drawn a red line at the declamation between dark earth and dark green and it appears to run down from behind the cockpit at an angle rearwards through the roundel to the lower fuselage. B Scheme it is. 8)

Also the fin flash stripes appear to be the 7in type that extend to the top of the vertical stabilizer. Standard upper wing roundels of 56in are likely
for this aircraft. Fuselage roundels are the A type. I have no clue as to which of the variations of underside roundels this spitfire should have.

Details of X4009 are:

FF 24-7-40 37MU 28-7-40 234S 19-8-40 shot down by return fire from Do17 SE London F/Lt P C Hughes killed 7-9-40 SOC 30-9-40 FH28.25

So the above means that first flight was 24 July 1940, followed by movement to 37 Maintenance Unit for I guess current mods and then to 234 Squadron on the 19th August 1940. Shot down on the 7th September means an operational career of just less than three weeks following on from three weeks at the M.U.

X4009 should have been produced with sky undersides as it was well past the 11 June change to sky, however the underside roundels were not introduced officially until 11th August 1940 at the time X4009 was at the MU. There was lots of variation at this time. Production standard was 50in for the underside, but it's probable that if X4009 carried underside roundels these may have/would have been added at the MU, so lots of doubt here as to which type if at all.

Another interesting decision to make is the type of radio fitted, as it could either have been HF of VHF. The pic from what I see shows that it has the HF type of antennae (I think I can make out the triangle feature for the wire attachment, but maybe its the angle, however thoughts are welcome on this. I can't see a trace of the wire. I think the HF masts could be used with the VHF radios, so not sure which way to go on this yet The photo is also clear enough to establish that IFF was not fitted, as the aircraft was home defense.

If any have traveled this road before (I'm sure there is a few!) happy to take opinions. 8)


Cheers

Peter

Great analysis! Looking forward to seeing the camo applied! Will this be a hard edged scheme?

Very nice detail work Peter

JKim said:

Great analysis! Looking forward to seeing the camo applied! Will this be a hard edged scheme?

Click to expand...

Hi John - yes is the answer. There are several good pics of Spitfires in this same contract batch with serials starting x??? Hard edge would be the way to go.

Good stuff Peter, and I agree about the antenna mast. It appears to have the triangular 'prong' used for the wire for the HF radio, and the dates correspond - the VHF sets didn't start coming into general use until early to mid September, so more than likely still using HF.
Not so sure about the iFF though. Even though the lead-in terminal is not visible, and wires can't be seen, there's a very strong possibility, almost certainty, that the aircraft would be fitted with the IFF, especially at this stage in the Battle.
There are recorded cases of Squadrons coming down from the north as replacements, taking over the aircraft of the squadrons they were replacing, due to the required radio, IFF and other equipment fit. Although up to around early August, many squadrons still did not have full IFF fit, this was seen as a necessity, and the equipment was quickly fitted, at unit level if needs be.