DB Spitfire Build

[Tim Flyer]

Cheers Danny. It’s a nice kit and the bits provided fit well. 

[Tim Flyer]

Hi all . I’m doing a bit of tidying up and finishing on the fuselage before covering 

 

I have also started to prepare the fuselage for fuel tank fitting and engine mounting. My chosen power plant, a  Laser 180 with its low carb requires me to lower the tank to reach a satisfactory fuel tank/carb level . This will help to avoid ground level siphoning and over lean running when the plane is inverted . 
I’m using a Dubro 16oz tank which is plenty large enough. It’s advantage is it is wide rather than tall so doesn’t raise the fuel level as much as the SLEC tank I had initially chosen. I will also need to cut a slot in the wing to give the rear of the tank clearance. 
 

I have also been fitting the cowl. This required plenty of fuselage sanding and I’m pleased I hadn’t fitted the front wing fairings first. 
The cowl is constructed of cheap super coarse glass sheeting as used in DIY canoeing and full sized watercraft and bonded with polyester resin. Polyester resin is quite brittle as is the course matting. 
 

I’m quite surprised that quality kit manufacturers haven’t switched to finer matting and epoxy as bonding agent. That has been the quality way of glassing for a couple of decades now and is far stronger more flexible and actually lighter ( although cowl weight  isn’t important here). 

 

Having said all that the cowl does the job fine even if a little unwieldy. 

[Nigel R]

Those fairings look like a work of art. Interesting technique to form the concave shapes and curves.

 

Did they need building up with filler, around the rear of the fairing, to just blend in the very edges?

 

Are you going to go with brown paper all over?

[Tim Flyer]

Hi Nigel. Thank you for your interest.

 

The fairings are formed of extremely thin ply.

I think the key to it working was gluing in the central fairing reinforcer correctly as per the template. This acts as a guide and centre line for the “crease”.

 

I then stitched the upper and lower fairings to that through the pre drilled holes in the ply. Believe me I’m no great sewing person but that didn’t matter as once it’s all in place nicely I ran the wood glue into all the edges and drill holes. Once dry I just sanded it lightly with 240 grit and all the threads disappear. 
 The Glue is only applied with a brush when the fairing was all in place . The very rear end of the ply required light dremmel sanding where it overlapped slightly. The rest had only very light filler as the thickish brown paper softened any line where it meets the fuselage. 
 

I am now veering towards generally glassing all over just for ease in some of the tight areas plus the durability as the cowl scrapes the surface. I also already have a fair bit of glass and epoxy already in my workshop ?

[Jon H]

Have you selected a paint job yet Tim? I tend to choose a paint job long before i even start the build and i already have schemes chosen for my 2 Spitfires, P40 and P51. None of them will see the sky for some years yet but i already know what colour to do them. 

 

I usually try and find something different from the norm in some way but also a real aircraft if possible.

 

In the case of my DB Spit i have made a composite scheme using elements taken from Spits of 92sqn. 92sqn use QJ as their code and as i cannot find a photo of QJ-C (i use C as its the first letter of my 'gamer' screen name in my combat flight sims) i took all the elements i liked from all the documentary photos and 'made up' a composite scheme. I even found a serial number of a Spitfire MkIa assigned to 92sqn but who's identity on the sqn is unknown, but is the same batch as a known Spitfire MkIa, QJ-D. 

 

As there are no photos of a spitfire with the serial i found on google, and there are no photos of a spitfire QJ-C beyond generic colour profiles, there is no way anyone can tell me for sure that i am wrong and the colour scheme, while sort of fictional, is completely plausible.  

 

No doubt a full on rivet counter will take offence, but its not like i did in lime green and pink so they can go and critique someone else! ? 

[Danny Fenton]

As a resident rivet counter, it certainly wouldnt offend me, fictional scale allows you to use features that appeal to you.

Cheers

Danny

[Tim Flyer]

Hi chaps must admit I haven’t yet although for me the painting bit is my least favourite plus I’m a total painting novice for spray camouflage. I’m planning to use Guild Enamel enamel spray cans after the usual primer grey.
 I just wanted to do the classic green and brown I think it is ? With duck egg blue underneath I think? I guess the cockpit and wheel should be primer grey or duck egg blue ? Advice on which Guild paint colours would be appreciated. I haven’t ever sprayed camouflage before! I have bought the DB decals, although expensive I didn’t fancy trying to do them myself.  
 

Doing fictional scale is a good idea . I’m sure my final effort will be a long way from proper scale, but if it flies well I will be very happy ?

[Jon H]

looking at their range the dark earth/dark green and duck egg blue are the ones to go for and they should work well. 

 

What style roundel did you get from DB? Depending on what it is you could try and find a photo of a spit with the same style roundels and just copy that

[alan p]

You Will find the early spitfire paint underneath was black port wing and white starboard starboard as was the fusalage also. 

If you want something different

[Tim Flyer]

Thank you Jon that sounds perfect . The decals I bought were the standard DB ones “ZDB”

https://www.dbsportandscale.com/spitfire-mk-1a-kit-6502-p.asp

 

Hi Alan I do remember that scheme as I have it on an Airfix mk 1 assembled for my son some time ago. Having one wing black and the other white obviously is great for scale but I don’t think it would  good for orientation in the sky as it might confuse and to be honest I’m happy just having if looking like the one on the box. 

[Jon H]

Technically, the specific decal set you have is for MH434 which is a MkIX Spit. I dont know why DB are selling MkIX decals for a MkI but they must have a reason. 

 

But, with those decals you could do it green/grey as they are the later style. if you slap some cannons on it you can call it a MkV if you like. Same airframe as a MkI but more power from the Merlin and some 20mm cannon for good measure. 

 

Many late MkV's had the clipped wings but you dont have to do that. You could leave the cannons off too if you are worried about damage. 

 

Shuttleworth used to fly their MkV in this configuration and it looked dead smart. 

 

 

If you really wanted to get fancy you could look into the Seafire MkII. Basically a MkV Spit with wet feet. Nice paint scheme options available there. 

 

 

No6 on that list would be easy as you could modify your existing decals to match it. 

 

No shortage of choices that is for sure ? 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Jon - Laser Engines

[Tim Flyer]

Wow thanks...some great looking schemes there . I don’t think I will put the cannons on as I’m in the “keep it simple camp” this being my first full Spitfire build. The Spitfire shape is such a classic and so many of those options look great ? 

[Jon H]

As we discussed on the phone the other day, anything that pokes out is just begging to be knocked off so i can understand your reluctance to put the cannons on. 

 

Anyway i have always liked the green/grey/grey camo as the yellow highlights on the wings, red flashes from the gun tape and the roundels all add up to make the model actually rather colourful. When i eventually build my MkXVI Spitfire it will use the green/grey using SL614 as a template. It will look a little like the picture below, just with different topside roundels, red spinner and different codes. Oh, and normal wings ? 

 

 

 

[Jonathan S]

When I make plastic I use these paint masks.

  http://www.yolo.net/~jeaton/mymodels/spitfire/templates/SpitTemp.html

 

You could look to scale them up. Paint the base colour attach the mask using white tack (blue, leaves marks) then spray the darker camo colour.  

It makes getting the right shapes and positions look right even if you have to adapt them.  Using whit tack also lifts the mask off the surface so gives you a more feathered edge.  

 

[Jon H]

Thats a nice idea. I tend to freehand my camo patterns using my airbrush but i do need to take care to prevent excessive overspray and that can be a pain. 

 

Having brush painted the insignia on my DB Hurricane i think i will be painting them more often as the somewhat rough and ready finish looks very authentic when compared to photos of aircraft in service.

 

Also, painted insignia never peel off ? 

[Jonathan S]

Jon you can use a compass cutter to make masks for insignia.  I use a one of the rulers with holes for graphic design on small models but a big sheet of paper with a circle cut will enable you to make off the plane then cut circles to mask off the bits as you spray the colours. You can then chip weather etc. 

[Jon H]

i modified my compass cutter to make it long enough for the size of roundel on the hurricane. I then brush painted the colour as i couldnt be bothered to get the airbrush all dirty for such a small amount of painting. Also the full size i was copying was a rough as a badgers backside so my less than perfect paint finish was in keeping with what i was trying to reproduce. 

[Tim Flyer]

Progress has been a little slow while I’m distracted with household jobs but I have now drilled the engine mounting holes and cut the front wing brace to allow a lower fuel tank. I also added another layer of Birch ply to reinforce it the brace. I also added the throttle servo mounts .  More front end reinforcement will go in a bit later. 
The Engine will be offset from the firewall on its nylon mount with laminated ply beams. 
 

I have also cut the tank slots in the wings which will need tidying and filling with some extra wood. Luckily the wing slots just cleared the wing front spars as I also moved the tank a bit further forward and cut a slot for the tank cap in the firewall . 
 

[leccyflyer]

Those wing fillets are superb Tim - they are the thing that really make all the difference to a Spitfire and that sewing technique looks the business - great job.

[Jon H]

Is it my imagination or is the tank at a pretty steep angle? If so that needs a tweak as your fuel head change will be significant as the length of the tank now contributes to its overall height. Mr Pythagoras knows all about it. 

 

What i recommend is you trim away a bit more of the wing, right down to the dowels and 1/4 inch outboard of them. You can then make some 1/4 ply ribs and glue to the outside edge of the dowels, the main spar box, leading edge and the skin. You then install a 1/8 ply tank bay floor on top of the dowels on the inside edge of these new ribs and sitting on top of a further modified wing centre rib. See here in my super high quality drawing and a photo of the same thing on my DB hurricane. I used 1/8 for my ribs on the DB as i had the cooling tunnel below offering more support. I recommend you go for 1/4 to give the added strength.  

 

 

 

 

While it seems brutal to hack away that centre rib you are replacing that lost material with the two outer ribs. Instead of the dowels transmitting their loads to the leading edge, the skin, and centre rib before making it to the spar, the dowels now transmit the load directly to their own support rib which is tied to the spar. Hope that makes sense. 

 

 

I would also swap the tank for a radio active jobby as the dubro tanks tend to be really long for their size and this makes installation more difficult. Your dubro is 60x68x150 but the radio active 16 oz is 61x75x121.  Another good tank is the sullivan SLN390 V tank at 44x98x148. Its designed for boats and is very thin but wide so you still get good capacity and a minimum of fuel head change though a flight. I have one of these in my acrowot xl as it was the only way to the get the tank and fuel level low enough for the OS240 

 

https://www.probuild-uk.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=1590&product_id=5912

[Tim Flyer]

Hi Jon thanks for photos and great comments. The tank angle looks strange partly due to photo plus it was unsupported as I was holding phone to take the pictures . The tank is actually in line with thrust line when pushed in . I will eventually fix it in but plenty of other work first as I haven’t even  fitted engine and throttle cable etc. Your thick ply idea is very good and I will be lining the whole cutout as you suggest. 

[Tim Flyer]

By the way I bought the 16oz  Dubro specially for this model as it fits perfectly with the engine . The extra “length” in the tank is actually taken in its protruding “lower nose” . I cut the bottom of the firewall to allow the nose through and a small disk for the filler cap . This means I could actually take the tank closer to the engine without worries of the filler /vent getting too close to the engine. The further forward tank also reduced wing cutting. It’s a perfect fit?

[Tim Flyer]

Hi all I thought it about time I updated this build log. I haven’t had much time to do modelling recently due to a number of family commitments but managed the odd few minutes in the workshop.

 

Regarding the fuel tank.  I got the Dubro fitted but later on decided against it due to lack of room for an exhaust system. With the laser’s rear facing exhaust and close to engine tank there wasn’t enough room for the bendy pipe system I was going to use. 
 

Jon was right in his earlier suggestion of a slightly wider but shorter Radio Active brand 16oz tank . That is what I have now fitted. It also enables me to use the standard laser exhaust.  I added an extra sheet of ply to the back of the firewall to support it.

 

I have also added some wood reinforcement in the firewall area, and added supports and an upper floor in the tank bay which will be secured with servo screws to enable access to the tank and throttle servo below. This upper tank bay floor will support the receiver and  Rx batteries will be fitted at the front, and probably the retract servo and operating valve switch along the side  Positioning the retract operating system at the front should also help to keep the weight forward. 

The fuselage is also glassed now with 25 gm /sqM cloth . I used a roller and cloth from Bucks Composites and the roller was excellent plus very fast and easy to use and enabled me to minimise resin use. I added small balsa cheeks with a bit of light filler next to the lower vertical cowl edges to obtain a decent rebate. I will simply taped the horizontal lower cowl edge later on to blend that into the fuselage. 
 

I’m also sanding the wings and next job will be glassing them . I also have the pull pill rudder wire and cockpit to install before more hardware goes in .

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Tim Flyer
Typos

[Ron Gray]

Some more nice work there Tim.

[Tim Flyer]

Cheers Ron. There is always plenty to be getting on with on this build. I can finally see the end . I will be pleased once I finally get the retract system in.