Spitfire Mk IX Diary, page 9
Tuesday, 2nd June, 2015
With the not insignificant exceptions of the engine and undercarriage control quadrants, joy stick, compass and pilot’s seat, the long process of fitting out the...
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Thursday, 21st May, 2015
A conspicuous feature in the Spitfire Mk IX cockpit is the switch box cluster located low down on the port side just below and forward...
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Thursday, 21st May, 2015
I referred in my last diary entry to the advantages to be gained from being able to analyse subtle and complex shapes with the help...
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Monday, 18th May, 2015
Reductionism is a term frequently applied to science. It means describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituent parts. Making the...
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Thursday, 7th May, 2015
Door lugs
I began the detailed work on the oleos by making the two sets of four landing gear door-retaining lugs. These differ from the scissor...
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Tuesday, 5th May, 2015
Back in May 2014 I described making and installing the ‘oleo strut supports’ – a pair of primitive but sturdy tubular brass legs that support...
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Tuesday, 28th April, 2015
Mid-March and the first tentative signs of spring finally brought me out of a winter-long hibernation during which I had abandoned my workshop totally. Yet...
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Saturday, 30th August, 2014
In this and my next web logs I shift the focus to fitting out the port sidewall of the cockpit, with a series of brief...
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Filling gaps in the fuselage shell
Friday, 29th August, 2014
The detached but otherwise completed top half of fuselage frame 11 has been gathering dust in my workshop for almost a year, so its permanent...
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Saturday, 16th August, 2014
As far as I know, the seat support varied very little through the Spitfire’s evolution, so what I have arrived at for my Mk IX...
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Stories 81 to 90 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
