Supermarine Spitfire LF.IX by Dan Vadas - FINISHED - Halinski - 1:33 scale - CARD

[Dan Vadas]

Hi all,

 

Here's my next Card project, once again "off-topic" in a Model Ship Forum . It's a WWII Mk. IV Spitfire, or should I say TWO Spitfires. Halinski supply two aircraft in this kit - a green/grey version and and all-grey one. I didn't realise that until I was doing my Parts Spreadsheet and found a couple of identical pages which got me wondering . At this stage I'm only going to do the green/grey Post D-Day version, but I may change my mind later.

 

Here's a pic of the Cover Art :

 

Here's a pic of the first thing built, the Dashboard. There are 2 versions in the kit - a simplified one-piece dash and a 3-piece one that needs the holes for the gauges punched out and a thin sheet of cellophane (from a cigarette packet) inserted between them to simulate glass. No prizes for guessing which way I chose :

 

Danny

[vossiewulf]

Danny, you might want to change the title of the thread as the box says those are one LF and one FR Mk.IXs, not Mk.IVs. Mk.IVs would have been interesting as there weren't many, and in fact there were two Mk.IVs, one was the original R.R. Griffon-engined Spitfire, replacing the Merlin engine used in most Spitfires, it was basically a test aircraft and was later redesignated the Mk.XX to avoid confusion with the photo-reconnaissance Merlin-engined PR Mk.IV. 

 

The LF Mk.IX was by far the most common Mk.IX, being a dedicated fighter using a Merlin 61 with a two-stage supercharger and increased horsepower that gave it a considerable boost in performance over the previous primary fighter version, the Mk.Vb, which was clearly coming out on the short end in combat with the German's newly-released early FW-190As in 1942.

 

The LF indicated an aircraft rated for low and medium altitudes, only a fairly small number of HF versions were built with a different Merlin with superchargers designed for best performance at higher altitudes.

 

By the time of the Mk.IX, basically all aircraft came with the C or Universal wing, which allowed armaments of 8 .303" Brownings, 2 Hispano-Suiza 20mm cannon and 4 .303" Brownings, or 4 Hispano 20mms. This was opposed to the early A wing that just allowed the 8 Brownings, and the B wing which just allowed four Hispano cannon. However, the majority of LF Mk.IXs flew with an armament of 2 x 20mm Hispanos and 4 x .303" Brownings.

 

The Brownings were obsolete at the beginning of the war, and were almost useless in combat unless you were at very close range against a fighter target. Using them against say a Ju-88 was like trying to take down an NFL running back by throwing gravel at him.

 

The Hispanos on the other hand, like all other good 20mm guns in the war (best is a tie between the Hispano and the Mauser MG151/20) was devastatingly effective. Whereas those four Brownings put .303" holes in aircraft, a typical 20mm hit would blow a hole 18" across in aircraft structures, since they were explosive rounds. You don't have to blow many 18" holes in airplanes before important bits start breaking and falling off. The downside was ammo, whereas it was easy to carry 500 rounds per gun of .303" ammo, the early Spitfires flew with only 60rpg for the cannons, later increased to 120rpg when they converted the Hispano from drum to belt feed.

 

Also we know the front aircraft is after D-Day, because the black and white stripes on the wings and fuselage were added to all low-flying allied aircraft prior to the invasion to help ground gunners distinguish friend from foe.

 

There were two photo recon versions, the PR and the FR, the latter is the all-gray version you have. The PR was a dedicated recon aircraft, with all armament removed and two cameras shooting straight down added, it was mostly used from higher altitudes. The FR version retained its armament and had a single oblique-shooting camera in the rear fuselage, these were used for very low altitude high speed recon flights that I'm absolutely sure that I wouldn't have enjoyed at all had I been chosen to fly them.

[Dan Vadas]

Thank you for the very interesting info Vossy . I changed the title - it was actually a typo on my part .

[popeye the sailor]

look'in forward in seeing your progress........is the kit detailed?......engine and all?

[Canute]

Vossie, sure you would. I once escorted an RF4C over Hanoi; we called it the" run for the roses" . We were quite happy to head out of the Gulf after that ride.

[vossiewulf]

11 hours ago, Canute said:

Vossie, sure you would. I once escorted an RF4C over Hanoi; we called it the" run for the roses" . We were quite happy to head out of the Gulf after that ride.

Yeah those and the RF-101Cs, as I recall their real motto was "Alone, Unarmed, and Scared S***less."

[lmagna]

I still think the real crazies were the Wild Weasel F4s. "Here I am, shoot at me so if you miss I can take you out." But then what do I know we spent almost all of our time at 75-80 KTS a few hundred feet above the walking area. You can hardly call that flying at all.

[gjdale]

Great to see the start of another of your builds Danny. I’m in “for the duration”. 😊

[Canute]

Lou, that was me most of the time over the North.

[Louie da fly]

I have a very fond memory (and a photo) of sitting in the cockpit of a Mark IX under reconstruction (if that's the right word) about 30 years ago. It wasn't in running order, let alone flying order, but it's very nice to be able to say I once sat in a Spitfire.

 

Steven

[lmagna]

Like I said Ken! Crazy way to make a living!

[Canute]

Well, it seemed like fun, at the time. The old "Catch me if you can".

[lmagna]

35 minutes ago, Canute said:

"Catch me if you can"

You are probably right, as the practice of avoiding high speed telephone poles was not only practiced, but refined and I think they even carried the practice into the present day using much more capable aircraft. As far as I know survival rate was acceptable for damage inflicted. Just seems crazy at face value of letting someone shoot first, or try to shoot first.

 

I read somewhere that the Iranians were so frightened of the tactic that often times they just fired their missiles ballistically rather than turn their tracking radar on.

[Canute]

Lou, they weren't the first to do that.

[Dan Vadas]

On 4/7/2019 at 10:04 AM, popeye the sailor said:

look'in forward in seeing your progress........is the kit detailed?......engine and all?

It's very detailed Popeye, but no engine unfortunately. The cockpit more than makes up for that however, the thinking behind this kit is that all actually VISIBLE details (without removing covers) are included. Here are pics of the first section to build, the cockpit, under construction. Halinski's method of building this kit is really great - there would be no way of including this amount of detail if the outside of the plane was built first :

 

 

The Oxygen cylinders were tightly rolled from thin paper and the ends sanded round. The smaller one hasn't been sanded yet :

 

Some of the ridiculously small pieces. This lever assembly is only 4mm across and consists of 10 pieces. The knob is 0.6mm diameter :

 

The Gunsight has 15 parts and took me 4 hours to make. It is 2mm at it's widest measurement :

 

The seat was quite a lot of fun to build. Here's another 1 1/2 day's work :

The scrap of white card under the seat is purely a  support for the pic, not part of the seat .

 

As I've come to expect from Halinski the parts fit is excellent. The two halves of the cockpit were very complex, with a lot of areas of possible problems, but they virtually snapped together seamlessly when it came to gluing them together :

 

Danny

[Old Collingwood]

Amazing work again .

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

Besides magnificaton, Danny, what are you using for tools?  Microsurgical type???   Those are some serously small parts.

[pontiachedmark]

Gidday Dan.

Impressive work. The level of detail is amazing.

I am also impressed by you being able to assemble these miniscule items.

Wishing you all the best.

Mark.

[Canute]

Excellent work, Danny. And yes, Halinski kits are worth the cost.

[popeye the sailor]

really nice detail in the cockpit......I built the Guillow's Spitfire MK 1.  of course, there is no comparison to the level of detail your doing,  but I've had thoughts of trying to detail one of those bad boys out     seeing what tiny parts your dealing with........I'd definitely have my work cut out for me   

[maaaslo]

I might still have a Merlin with the engine mount somewhere in my computer. I could have a look if you want me to...

[Dan Vadas]

On 4/14/2019 at 7:28 AM, maaaslo said:

I might still have a Merlin with the engine mount somewhere in my computer. I could have a look if you want me to...

I wouldn't have room to fit it Pav, but it would make a nice "stand alone" model to display alongside this one . Thanks for the offer.

 

And these pics show what I mean - here's the engine compartment sub-assembly :

 

Start of the outer covering of the fuselage :

 

The tail fin is the next stage :

 

I'm building my kit a bit differently to Halinski's method, I don't know yet whether that is a good idea or not . The kit says to glue all the fuselage sections together as a unit before attaching to the cabin section. Due to the use of the tiny tabs on the joining strips I thought it might be a better idea to build a couple of sections of inner framing for support instead, as this would strengthen the model significantly and help prevent any possibility of accidental crushing. This method is not without it's own problems - accuracy is vital :

 

The Rudder is probably easier to fit to the tail fin before attaching to the rest of the model :

 

The skinned fuselage :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

I made the horizontal fins and elevators next so I could fit them together. I'm leaving them off the fuselage until I have finished with the wings :

 

Some of the parts are tiny, but there are smaller ones coming up later :

 

I started the wings by gluing the widest pieces to the central brace :

 

More pics of the wing framing :

 

Skinning the wings starts with the middle piece :

 

Followed by the upper skins :

 

The fuselage with the wings temporarily in place. They aren't glued together yet :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

The landing flaps have a lot of bracing ribs attached. This is the half that goes under the wings themselves :

 

Next step is to make and attach the wheel wells. The smallest parts on this model are the gussets inside them (27j), they took some careful handling :

 

The wheel wells ready to glue to the wing. This must be done before the lower skin is glued in as there is a bit of trimming to be done to some of the framing - they are a very tight fit :

 

Before gluing the wells in I thought it might be a good idea to make the wheel struts in case there were any problems with fitting them later. They actually fitted perfectly  :

 

The legs have a number of different diameter steps. A 0.8mm wire in the centre gives added strength to them. The larger wire is for the axle :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

The wheels are laminated together from various diameters of card. Resin wheels are available for this model, but I didn't find that out until after I'd ordered the kit, so I'm going to have a go at making these ones. No real instructions on how to go about the process were with the kit :

 

Cutting the outer edge using a scalpel with a chopping motion, one small piece at a time :

 

The inner edge was cut out using a modified flat blade Xacto chisel. I have 3 of these - 2.0mm, 1.0mm an 0.2mm which are used depending on the radius of the cut. I used the 1.0mm for this part :

 

The axle cover is 2.0mm in diameter. I could have simply punched it out of the sheet, but instead I decided to show a bit of a trick on how I handle small parts when cutting them. Note the "handle" I've left to make it easier to hold :

 

The sidewall has a pronounced curve. I shaped it into the printed part using a 8mm washer which has a rounded inner edge and a piece of 2.5mm brass rod :

 

Rounding off the "tread" area starts by trimming with a scalpel to get most of the waste off. This is followed by sanding using 150 grit paper on a sanding stick, and finishing with 400 grit :

 

A coat of Sanding Sealer was applied and sanded down again with a 1000-grit flexible pad, then a mix of dark grey acrylic paint finishes the job. This pic was taken just after the paint was applied - the roughness disappeared when the paint dried :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

I've finished skinning the wings. They turned out very well, even around the wheel wells  :

 

I had to do a little bit of painting on the seams where some white card was showing. I used Acrylic paint mixed up on a palette to get the right shades :

 

Next I fitted the radiators which I'd made earlier. They were a very tight fit, but after some minor trimming to the framing they fitted very well. After looking at this pic I see I will need to do a bit of minor touching up on a couple of edges :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

There are a few small details under the wings that are best fitted now before I attach the wings to the fuselage. The kit gives you the option of either gluing a flat piece on or making and fitting a rounded one :

 

Naturally I opted for the rounded ones  :

 

I also made the intake scoop, even though it gets fitted after the wings are on. This uses a very small framework, which would have been nice to have as laser-cut but I had to make it from laminated card - lots of rather difficult cutting :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

Now came the time to fit the wings and fuselage together. This looked rather scary when I first dry-fitted them, as the fit looked WAY off. However there are fillets to be added later between them which will cover the gaps perfectly. I cut these out and tried them before applying any glue to make sure everything was in fact OK - which it should be (we'll see ):

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

The air scoop took me most of a day to make. Some of those joins look bad in the pics, but a lot better in real life. I'll touch them up a bit when I've finished everything else :

 

The wing fillets did fit perfectly  . They were also not too difficult to fit. I used toothpicks to hold them out from the fuselage while I applied glue :

 

There is a small fillet on the leading edge of the right wing which has a tube fitted (I don't know what it's actually for). Here's how I fitted it. The brass wire locates it in the panel while gluing :

 

It's time to fit the first half of the exhaust pipes. The outer ones will be fitted later to avoid damage :

 

Danny

[Dan Vadas]

There are quite a few small details left to make. A lot of these will be left off until they are safe to fit. The radio aerial :

 

The wing cannons. These are rolled around a 0.5mm wire for strength :

 

The propellor and spinner took nearly two days to make :

 

The blades are reinforced with a paper tube wrapped around a wire and shaped to fit :

 

Danny