Spitfire Mk IX Diary, page 4
Sunday, 8th October, 2017
I have documented my technique for ‘riveting’ the metal skin panels of my 1:5 scale models so often here and elsewhere that it needs no...
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Wing undersurfaces: Gun covers
Monday, 24th July, 2017
The remainder of the wing skinning process is a pleasure to do. The panels are all strictly rectilinear and arrayed chord wise, perpendicular to the...
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Wing undersurfaces: Leading edge
Monday, 24th July, 2017
As with the upper surfaces previously described, skinning the underside of the wing starts with the leading edge panel. At more than 34 Inches long,...
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Friday, 21st July, 2017
By the start of June the skinning and riveting the upper wing surfaces was complete, which was just as well since I found myself forced...
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Thursday, 20th July, 2017
By way of a break from work on the litho plate skin of the model, I took time off during the spring-summer period to consider...
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Sunday, 30th April, 2017
I made brief mention in my last blog of the glaring omission of an access door in the newly installed port side upper wing fillet...
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Wednesday, 26th April, 2017
After a winter of inactivity, the model has progressed during the past month or so, my reward for a period of sustained work on it,...
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Tuesday, 25th April, 2017
By the latter part of March I had skinned with litho plate very nearly all of upper surfaces of both wings. At long last I...
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Monday, 24th April, 2017
Before moving on to complete the skinning of the wing upper surfaces, two more blisters per wing are needed in the area above the wheel...
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Sunday, 23rd April, 2017
The big, elongated tear-shaped blisters above the cannons help define the C-wing of a Spitfire, and they present a challenge for the model maker. Their...
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Stories 31 to 40 of 125
Archive
- The sliding canopy frame
- Vac-forming the canopy
- Sliding canopy – the vac-form tool
- Installing the pilot's seat
- The pilot's seat completed
- Painting the rudder and elevators
- Empennage fixtures and fittings
- Rib stringing and taping
- Failed fabric
- 'Printed' pilot's seat
- Compass graphics assemblage
- Custom laser-cut rib tapes
- Empennage: The final details
- Warpaint: The squadron crest
- Warpaint: The 601 Sqn livery
- The Spitfire's tyres
- Machining the main landing wheels
- Fitting the exhaust stacks
- Leading edge wing root fillets
- Assembling the airscrew
- Skinning and fitting the ailerons
- Painting the exhaust stacks
- Undercarriage doors
- Rad cores and farings installed
- The radiator fairing doors
- Navigation lights installed
- A milestone – the wings completed!
- Return to action – the pitot tube
- Radiator fairings resumed
- Wing undersurfaces: Rad 'ramps'
- Wing undersurfaces: Riveting
- Wing undersurfaces: Gun covers
- Wing undersurfaces: Leading edge
- Top wing skin complete
- Some expert help
- Glaring error rectified
- Wing root fillets (upperside)
- Wing root fillets (underside)
- Wheel bay blisters
- Cannon blisters
- Blisters and cam-lock fasteners
- Finishing the flaps
- The wing tip skin
- Frog-eye nav light fairings
- Leading edge wing skin
- The gear strut channels
- Time to fit the wings
- The windscreen - Part 2
- The windscreen - Part 1
- The pilot's door
- Forgotten flaps – a remeidial task
- Lining and detailing the wheel wells
- The Spitfire's armament
- Horizontal stabiliser fillets
- Cladding the fin
- Cladding the stern section
- Installing the empennage
- Stabiliser Skin
- A second near disaster
- Cladding the fuselage
- Fuel tank cover
- The Spitfire's side cowls
- Top cowl and a major setback
- Belly skin and ident light
- An experiment in panel beating
- Finishing the Vokes air intake
- Installing the upper sidewalls
- Assembling the instrument faces
- Grapics for instrument faces
- Fitting out the instrument panel
- Fitting out the stbd upper sidewall
- Fitting out the port upper sidewall
- The chassis selector control
- The throttle quadrant
- Control column - Part 2
- Control column - Part 1
- Near disaster! A cautionary tale
- Fuse boxes and air filter control
- Magnetic compass and tray
- The instrument panel
- Upper cockpit walls
- Switch boxes and buttons
- Exhaust stack
- Oleo strut - Part 3
- Oleo strut - Part 2
- Oleo strut - Part 1
- The Spitfire's spinner
- Fitting out the port sidewall
- Filling gaps in the fuselage shell
- The seat support structure
- Head armour and volt regulator
- Fuel tank jettison controls
- The IFF switch assembly
- Oxygen and carbon dioxide
- Windscreen de-icing system
- Pneumatics 2: some ancillaries
- The rudder pedals
- The devil in the detail
- Rudder and elevator cables
- Pneumatic system 1: Air tanks
- Radiator fairings
- Empennage 2: The rudder
- Empennage 1: The elevators
- Casting the Vokes filter fairing
- Installing the nose section
- 'Sculpting' the wing root fairings
- Oleo strut supports
- Installing the wing centre section
- Wooden wing 2: underside
- Unexpected setback
- Wooden wing 1: topside
- Tail wheel and yoke
- Tail Strut
- An unsought interlude
- The built-up cockpit
- Plumbing preliminaries
- First internal skin panels
- Nose and fuselage balsa blocking
- Heel boards and rudder bars
- The visible fuselage frames
- Engineering or 'sleight of hand'?
- Fire bulkhead - first finished detail
- First cuts
- The planning stage
- Introduction
