Aftermarket sets used in this build:
■ BarracudaCast - 32001 Spitfire Seat with Leather Backpad
■ BarracudaCast - 32002 Spitfire Cockpit Door with Separate Crowbar
■ BarracudaCast - 32003 Spitfire Cockpit Upgrade Set
■ Maketar Paint Masks - 32040 RAF Supermarine Spitfire MK.IX
Tools and materials:
■ Cyanoacrylate glue
■ Tamiya cement
■ Tamiya extra thin cement
■ Scalpel and tweezers
■ Drilling pin vise
■ Masking tape in various widths
■ BluTack
■ Sanding sticks and files
■ Mr. Surfacer 500 and/or Mr. Surfacer 1000
■ Pacer Formula 560 - Canopy Glue
■ Styrene sheet in various size and thickness
■ Lead, copper and flexible wire
Paints used:
■ LifeColor LC27 Matt Clear
■ UA207 Schwarzgrau
■ UA205 Rotbraun
■ LC06 Matt Red
■ LC03 Matt Yellow
■ UA511 Hellgrun
■ UA208 Anthrazitgrau
■ UA046 Neutral Grey
■ UA028 Grey
■ LC01 Matt White
■ UA524 US Neutral Grey
■ UA605 Dunkelgrau
■ UA095 Sky Tamiya acrylic paints:
■ X-1 Gloss Black
■ XF-2 Flat White
■ XF-3 Flat Yellow
■ XF-7 Flat Red
■ XF-8 Flat Blue
■ XF-53 Neutral Grey
■ XF-58 Olive green
■ XF-60 Dark Yellow
■ XF-62 Olive Drab
■ XF-63 German Grey
■ XF-65 Field Grey Humbrol acrylic paints:
■ Matt clear cote - aerosol
Unimat wood turning chisel is simply the best tool for thinning out plastic parts thanks to its curved sharp tip.
Radio access door frame ready to be glued to the fuselage. Slightly rounded corners will help to get tighter fit without any gaps between the frame and fuselage.
Rib sections and radio receiver holder glued in place.
THE BUILD
It is not a strict rule to start working from the cockpit but i find it rather logical as this way we can mate the two fuselage halves together as soon as the interior is done and continue working on the exterior assembly.
Apart from the kit parts, we are going to add some wiring to the cockpit walls, scratchbuild the back section of instrument panel, open up the radio hatch and add radio receiver.
We will start with opening the radio hatch to avoid too much handling of
We have made just the sections which would be visible once the radio is in.
the fuselage halves once we start adding the wires. As the fuselage wall is rather thick we need to thin it first and the best tool to do so is modellers chisel or in this case, Unimat MetalLine woodturning chisel.
Start by scraping inside section of the wall roughly 10mm around the hatch to get large enough flat surface to accommodate hatch frame.
Extra care must be taken here as we do not want to thin the wall too much and to ruin
and cutting our way outward which is rather easier way.
Once we drill a couple of holes it is easy to connect them with sharp pointed knife and then carefully continue by cutting small amounts of plastic at a time and once you come to the panel line continue with fine grain sanding paper to smooth corners and edges of the hatch opening. Steel rod wrapped with fine sanding paper is the best tool for rounded corners. Next thing
piece of tape on 0.25mm styrene sheet. If we cut the opening on the styrene sheet now by scoring marked line on the tape with sharp pointed knife, we would get the access door and to get the frame we actually need to make the opening smaller than the door. First, we will lay some masking tape on the cutting surface and by using ruler and sharp knife cut 1mm strips.
Masking strip is now carefully laid inside of the marked panel line on the piece of tape we placed on styrene sheet earlier.
Be patient and careful to get a neat bend of the masking strip as that strip is actually width of our hatch frame. Once masking strip is on, sharp
of the opening just like on the real Spitfire, once done it will look busier and more realistic.
The same 0.25mm styrene sheets is used to cut the rough shape of the fuselage and then sanded and dry-fitted a couple of times until we get a nice fit. Here again, 3mm wide masking strip is laid to follow the curve of newly made part and to help us get consistent width of the rib section.
Before we cut the section out, a couple of 2mm holes are drilled to along the rib part.
Since the cross section of fuselage is slightly different on each side of the opening, we will repeat the process to make second rib part instead of just copying the first one. To
Basically just a few details will make a lot of difference and your model to stand out.
This view shows more of the radio holder
‘L’ section.
move to the cockpit walls.
Since the kit parts for the cockpit are detailed and crisp enough we will only be adding a few wires here and there and a few resin bits from Barracuda Studios. Kit instructions are suggesting that we should paint and assemble the cockpit wall sections separately that is, lower wall section should be first mated with the rest of cockpit elements before finally being glued to the fuselage.
In our case, when we want to add more details and wiring to the walls this is not the best or easiest way to go, instead we will glue the wall sections to the fuselage before doing the rest. It is a good idea to have your reference photos and books at hand at this stage to help position all the wires and lines at the right places. Copper wire and various gauges of plastic wrapped wires are used for
the job. There is no too much philosophy here, small holes drilled to accommodate and better hold the wires when appropriate, CA glue applied sparingly with the toothpick and we are pretty much done.
When the glue is cured, gently press the wires with fine pointed tweezers co conform them on the wall bumps. A few dry-fit tests are necessary when adding wires to the cockpit as the fit without them is perfect and we want to avoid mess-ups later. Oxygen hose is missing in the kit so we must make one. Plastic wrapped wire is first stretched between two fingers and the lead wire is wrapped around it tightly to simulate flexible hose surface.
When we get desired length of the hose, both ends will be glued with CA glue and cut
to measure. Small pieces of copper wire are now inserted on both ends and will help us secure the hose to the wall and oxygen bottle.
By the time i have finished adding all the wiring to the cockpit walls an idea of exposing upper fuel tank seemed more and more tempting and interesting so i have decided to go with it.
Removing sections of fuselage halves should be, indeed, done before anything has been done on the cockpit walls simply to avoid any mess but it should not be a problem either way. Upper fuel tank cover is slightly raised from the rest of the airframe and it is actually very easy to cut it out.
Sharp pointed curved blade is used for the job, first make a few light pressure passes
Chapter III
BUILDING THE AIRCRAFT - SPITFIRE MK. IXc
Level and quality of the details out of the box is amazing, however, a few wires and cables are necessary to make it complete.
Copper, lead and plastic wrapped wires are used to make the cockpit wall busy and realistic.
Thin lead wire wrapped around a flexible wire makes a perfect oxygen hose.
along the line where the fuel tank cover meets the fuselage to make a good guide and then a few passes of the knife with a little pressure applied will do it.
Once the fuel cover section is removed a fine sanding paper is used to smooth the cut line.
With everything done on the fuselage halves we will move to the cockpit interior. Since we are now making the aircraft with fuel tank cover removed, some further amends of the kit parts are needed. First thing that will be visible behind upper fuel tank is the back of instrument panel with all the wires, cables and gauges, none of it present in the kit so we will have to make it.
Also, since we are introducing a fuel tank, some of the parts will have to be removed to accommodate the tank in that space. Kit instrument panel and if just perfect but we have to remove everything behind it and make new back panel which will then hold the instrument panel. We will use the kit part to outline its shape on styrene sheet and cut a new one out of it, basically we will have the lower section with rudder pedals and instrument panel separated.
New instrument panel backside which we have made from the styrene sheets will now get all the gauges made from various radius styrene rod sections.
Each gauge will then get a small extension made from a lot smaller radius styrene rod, which is where the wires and cables will go into. To better position and secure the wires, we will drill a hole in each gauge extension.
Copper, lead as well as plastic wrapped wires are used here
The best tool for accurate and clean cuts and the fuel tank cover cut out from the fuselage. Note the red line marking the point up to which the fuel tank goes.
New instrument panel backside which we have made from the styrene sheets with gauges and all the wiring in place.