**** DONE: Spitfire MkVIII, 136 Squadron RAF, Burma, 1944, Commonwealth GB. (1 Viewer)

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Well done Terry. Before you consider adding things to the bottom of the cockpit, I recommend you get the wings glued together first and trial fit them to the fuselage. I will post pics tonight of what I had to do but I came across some issues that required some trimming and filing in this area.
 
Thanks Wayne, Wojtek and Andy.
Looking forward to the pics Andy. I've done a trial fit, with the wings just taped together, and it looks like trying to fit a curved section between wing and cockpit will be a lot of hassle - and probably won't work! Guess I'll just paint the inner surface of the bottom wing in a slightly darker (i.e. normal) shade of Cockpit Green.
I noticed there is a ridge on the inner face of the wing roots, which I thought was flash at first. Having checked it, I think it's supposed to assist with alignment of the wing halves - soon find out!
 
That's exactly the approach I took Terry. I painted everything a dark olive colour. I recommend that you actually begin gluing the wing halves together. Trial fitting with tape won't give you a full accounting of the issues at the wing roots. I found that the fuselage is too wide at the wing roots and that without addressing this, the fuselage pushes the upper wing halves out so much that the wings lose all dihedral. I ended up removing the "flash" on the fuselage and filing the edges back maybe .5mm on each side to maintain the wing dihedral. As I say, pics and more details tonight.
 
Thanks Andy. That explains a lot - I very recently saw a build of the ICM kit on one of the web-sites somewhere, and it looked like it had no dihedral at all !
 
Beautiful work on the cockpit Terry, and good luck on fitting the wings. Sounds like there are 'issues' with the ICM kits fit.
 
Thanks Glenn. I don't think it'll be a major problem (he said hopefully!), and the ICM kits aren't as bad as some reviews make out. They are in fact excellent kits overall, and at very reasonable prices - but for those used only to 'shake and bake, build themselves' kits, they can be a little tricky in parts. Just makes things more interesting ....hm...yes ...interesting!
Been out of circulation this past couple of days, due to my left knee locking solid, leading to 36 hours of the screaming habdabs and a whole new vocabulary of swear words! It's eased off a bit now, so I hope to get back to things by tomorrow.
 
Like Andy I was beginning to wonder where you were with all that snow about. Hope the knee improves and like your Mum would say, stay in out of that cold.
 
Thanks guys. I'm still a bit stiff, so haven't done any more on the model, apart from b*gg*ring about with the wing fitting checks. I'm busy doing the background story, which I hope to have posted, in the opening post of this thread, by tonight or tomorrow.
 
I've just posted the background story in the opening post of this thread, in PDF form for ease of viewing. Apologies for the delay, but I lost Internet (and 'phone) connection for some time, apparently due to an iced-up repeater station not far from where I live.
As Penguins are now skiing down my street, and brass monkeys are looking for welders, I don't think I'll be going for a jog around the block over the next couple of days (Jog?! I can only just hobble!), so I hope to get quite a bit done on the model.
I'm not 100% happy with the lower fuselage joint, so I'm going to 'pop' that open and start again, before moving on to fitting the wings. I'll post some pics as soon as there's something worth showing. Meanwhile, thanks again to you all for your continued interest.
 

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