Warbird Replicas Spitfire LF mk IXc

[RICHARD WILLS]

Moderator !!!  Crutch Whittling ?

I cant believe I started this thread . 

Could be in prison by the end of the week ......

 

[RICHARD WILLS]

Now here is an amusing little detail to add that doesnt take very long at all . 

You may have noticed that on the full sized Spitfire , the additionally thick skin over the fuel tank in front of the cockpit is quite prominent . As is the fuel filler cap and surround . And yet these features are ignored in most models . 

You can see in this image how the cover is actually sitting on top of the natural skin line . 

[RICHARD WILLS]

So here is a quick way to get that look . All you need is white board marker and a piece of roughly .75 to 1mm plastic sheet . You could probably use a plastic drink bottle too . 

The tools needed are -sharp knife to cut the plastic . Hot glue gun and cheap compass cutter to make the hole . 

Make a card template first which will cover the existing balsa front deck . Make it tuck under the windscreen by 10mm.  

On the centre starting from the front draw two touching circles , the size of your big marker . Ignore the first as that just provides the correct spacing . Cut a neat hole for the second one which will only just take the pen. 

Once the card template looks ok, replicate the shape into plastic . 

Cut a hole slightly bigger to accommodate the pen in your balsa top deck . It will go through the balsa spine but that doesnt matter as the cover will reinforce it later .

Now cut the bottom 20mm off of your pen . Push it in to the plastic and put a thin smear of hot glue around the underside only . Dont leave big blobs because the skin wont sit nicely . 

Now , using the hole as a guide , put a bead of hot glue down the centre line and add the armour plate . Let it go off , then repeat for each lower side . You can pack little shims under your cowl rear edge to get the gap about right . The new armour  should be slightly proud . 

It will look a little the top till you paint it . The Fuel cap should be painter shiney silver .

Nice trick for little money , plus you can have a little knock of anyone else's Spitfire pointing out that they couldnt fill it up !

[Ron Gray]

46 minutes ago, RICHARD WILLS said:

Now cut the bottom 20mm off of your pen

How do you stop it leaking?

[Eric Robson]

1 hour ago, Ron Gray said:

How do you stop it leaking?

Stick the circle of plastic card over it that you have just cut out.

[David Hazell 1]

When I was building, the fuel tank cowling bit of curved balsa sat proud. Had I left it as is, and not smoothed and filled the gaps it would have looked perfect! I have learned some valuable lessons about scale building, most obvious to me now, but not at the time. The main takeaway being "Study lots of photo's before commencing the build!"

 

[Ron Gray]

1 hour ago, Eric Robson said:

Stick the circle of plastic card over it that you have just cut out.

Ah, good job you said that coz I was going to stick it on the open end of the pen offcut that I've just glued into the fuse. Have I glued the offcut in the wrong way round?

[Eric Robson]

You could put spare cowl screws in it, as it is about on the C of G but you would not have to glue the cap on.

[RICHARD WILLS]

Its fine . It was my wife's pen .....

I mumbled something about "The Greater Good".

[RICHARD WILLS]

This is actually my friend Alan's Spitfire and a jolly nice job he has made of it . He generally makes boats and trains , so this is his first wooden kit . I test flew it this week and it need no alleron trim and two clicks of up . So you can be sure he built a pretty straight model .

Anyway , as I have a virtually no workshop at the moment , I decided to paint it without airbrushes etc . 

So here we have a mostly Band Q painted model with hand painted "decals " . 

The trick here is to work backward. So you paint the model white . mask off the white . paint the yellow on the white , then mask off . paint the grey on the white , then mask off . Finally , paint the underside with B and Q roller touch ups at £2 each . 

Then the big outlay - Humbrol Dark earth aerosol and dark green of the same . Didnt bother with templates , just went for it . 

It does take patience and decals do always look perfect , but it is a challenge to have a go at . 

The finish will be for the Alan Deere Spitfire based at my old school site in Hornchurch Essex . 

Alan Deere was a real character and supposedly , the scene in the Battle of Britain film , where the seasoned squadron leader teaches "Simon " the rookie is based on a true event . Sadly, in real life,  "Simon " got too close and chopped Alan's tail off !!

Al still survived , because that's what hero's are really made of ....

[Eric Robson]

Humbrol aerosols! the heat must have gone to your head Richard, what is wrong with the tester pots from B&Q which you advise people to use. And don't say your spray equipment is in Essex as you can pick up a compressor at the local scrapyard, if your  car does not  have a spare wheel. 

[David Hazell 1]

I got our amazing pilot Toby Black to maiden my spit for me today. He was full of praise for how she handled and he was really pleasantly surprised at the way the stall could be so easily predicted. Spot on. My undercarriage on one side wouldn't fully retract but I know why - there's a bit of space between the leg and where it would bottom out against the retract mechanism; I thought I had tightened up the grub screws enough to keep it in place but clearly not. I just need to stick something like maybe a small ball bearing into the retract mechanism to keep the leg from pushing in any further.

 

Link to the maiden here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/c3wq3bU8hroZVCmy6

 

Oh and the nose over at the end? We've got resident moles at our strip and there was a bit of a hole right there! Had the runway been nicely even, that would not have happened!

Edited May 22, 2022 by David Hazell 1
explain nose over!

[stevan Lewis 1]

Very nice Richard,  Alan showed me the video last week.  ?

[RICHARD WILLS]

Bit more finishing on my friend, Alan's Spitfire . He turned up some bezels for the instrument panels and I added a few hundred rivets....

[Paul Johnson 4]

Nice work old bean...

[David Hazell 1]

OK, that's some next level detail right there, Sir @RICHARD WILLS. How do you do those rivets? Do you have a dotted stencil? Also, I've been pondering how to transpose the panel lines onto my model but I haven't had a eureka moment - I can't find any 1/8th scale drawings with panel lines to trace through. I'm thinking I will have to end up using my 1/32 plastic model to measure and multiply by 4?

 

That work just brings it to life so so well.

[RICHARD WILLS]

Its actually quite relaxing David . I just google a scale drawing on the internet , print it off A4 size. Then guess the rest. 

You can look at a line of rivets near an aileron or roundel for positioning and that is pretty much good enough . 

Generally I use a white gel pen from WH smiths  (£2.50)  and any fine black indelible black pen . 

The basic concept for a rivet is to draw a small appropriate sized circle (free hand ) , but make the bottom half black and the top half white . That is to fool your eye into thinking the rivet is catching the sun from above and casting a shadow below . 

Start by having a look at some aviation art like Nicholas Trudgeon . They are two dimensional but look like three dimensional . 

I would like people to have more of a go at this type of stuff , because this is where we can grab a real advantage on the toy like ready builds . Plus , like I say , it is very rewarding . If you wizz back to the P51 thread , you can see that Glynn was offering transparent templates for rivets , fuel caps and panel lines . If anyone wants one I can see if he will do some more . But to get started , why not attack an old model first ? 

Any questions people have , please keep asking , because I do feel that this "black art " is far easier to learn than building and covering and yet the end result always produces lots of "Oohs and Ahhs" !

Believe me . I can get anyone to do it . Ive done club nights to prove it . 

[Ron Gray]

4 minutes ago, RICHARD WILLS said:

But to get started , why not attack an old model first ?

Who would you suggest?

[David Hazell 1]

13 minutes ago, RICHARD WILLS said:

Its actually quite relaxing David . I just google a scale drawing on the internet , print it off A4 size. Then guess the rest. 

You can look at a line of rivets near an aileron or roundel for positioning and that is pretty much good enough . 

Generally I use a white gel pen from WH smiths  (£2.50)  and any fine black indelible black pen . 

The basic concept for a rivet is to draw a small appropriate sized circle (free hand ) , but make the bottom half black and the top half white . That is to fool your eye into thinking the rivet is catching the sun from above and casting a shadow below . 

Start by having a look at some aviation art like Nicholas Trudgeon . They are two dimensional but look like three dimensional . 

I would like people to have more of a go at this type of stuff , because this is where we can grab a real advantage on the toy like ready builds . Plus , like I say , it is very rewarding . If you wizz back to the P51 thread , you can see that Glynn was offering transparent templates for rivets , fuel caps and panel lines . If anyone wants one I can see if he will do some more . But to get started , why not attack an old model first ? 

Any questions people have , please keep asking , because I do feel that this "black art " is far easier to learn than building and covering and yet the end result always produces lots of "Oohs and Ahhs" !

Believe me . I can get anyone to do it . Ive done club nights to prove it . 

 

I'd be very interested in obtaining one of those transparent rivets-n-things templates.

[Paul Johnson 4]

Depends on how much free time you have....

[David Hazell 1]

@Paul Johnson 4 I love your wheel struts... Where are they from?

[Paul Johnson 4]

Hobbyking but with 7mm spacers to get the required length, you would have to make the spacers depending on whichever legs are available. With the "availability" as of the moment I'm not sure what you can get ? 

[RICHARD WILLS]

A bit more dirtying up here . A friend of mine back in Hornchurch went to see Alan  Deere's mechanic who was still alive back in 1998 . He took with him a similarly weathered version of my Spitfire and asked the mechanic if he had gone too far ?

The chap said the the actual KLB was in a far worse state with lots of the paint missing , particularly the cowls which were just slung on the floor on a regular basis . 

This shows that you dont need to spend lots of time rubbing down and applying the basic colour . 

There is so much distraction later , that you just dont see it .  All done with a paint brush too . So no excuse . 

The exhausts are painted a dark brown brick colour and then, with a very dry soft brush you paint (dust) pale grey on from the back to the front . I put the light grey on a card first and spread it out to get it semi dry . Then pick up a little bit on the dry brush and sweep backward . As its emulsion from b and q , you can wipe it off promptly with a damp tissue . 

So there is no pressure on you . 

[RICHARD WILLS]

So here is this evening's little tutorial . (I am good to you chaps are'nt I ?) 

For this little exercise, you will need a white chalk and a black chalk . (art shop ) . 

We are going to make out flat plate tail surfaces look much more sophisticated than they are . 

You may have seen top notch modellers , applying tiny ribs to their elevators and rudders and carefully ironing on fabric type tapes to gives the impression of fabric , open structure moving surfaces . This is dead accurate . But can you really see it ?

Well here is the quick option . I decided that rib spacings would be about the width of my ruler ....(handy eh?)

Then I draw on the rib locations very lightly with my white pen (you could just use a pencil ). 

I decide which way my fictitious sun is coming from and then place a piece of masking tape on the line . By rubbing the black chalk in circles on the tape I create a pile of little black specs . With my middle finger I start a circular motion that now is half on and half off the tape . This results in darker black in the middle and lighter toward the edge . 

Peal the tape off and you have a shadow that suggests a dip in fabric as it would between ribs . 

You can emphasize this by doing the other side of each semi circle in white chalk . That side would catch the light . 

It is important , that both elevators have "light " coming from the same side . 

The camera makes these look a bit over the top . In real life they look correct . Many times , people have reached out to touch the ribs and then laughed ! Finally I went mad with the silver wear and tear . The pilots used to throw their parachutes on this side of the tail complete with all the buckles . That combined with grit from props made the tail plane a sorry sight . 

 

[RICHARD WILLS]

I'm having so much fun with this beaten up Spitfire that I'm going to force feed you with some more pictures till you start  having a go at it !?  You really can just muck about because most of what I'm using is water soluble , so you can immediately delete it . So - no excuse chaps . Now, I do appreciate that the level of wear is a matter of taste . 

On these pictures you can see the neat little blisters just above the exhaust stacks on the cowl . They don't actually exist ....

All I do is cut  a tear drop negative with masking tape then rub black chalk into the bottom half and white into the top half . You can emphasize the bottom curve with a black pen only its lowest perimeter . 

The next thing I wanted to share is the 3mm Letra set letters for the "100 Octane "  . A whole sheet costs £6 on amazon and gives us the same detail that you see on the very best Artfs . They just rub on with a pencil .