Spitfire Mk IX Diary, page 12
Tuesday, 1st April, 2014
By mid-March, and with the tail wheel assembly complete, I began work on the wings, resurrecting from storage the two plywood sheets marked out and...
Read more
Wednesday, 12th March, 2014
With the strut complete I began on the U-shaped tail wheel yoke: Starting with some 1/8-in. thick sheet copper, I cut a blank roughly 5...
Read more
Tuesday, 11th March, 2014
After one of the wettest, most demoralising winters I can remember, March dawned with a glimmer of sun. I heeded the cue and, for the...
Read more
Monday, 2nd December, 2013
I am sure all model makers, even the professionals among us, have their barren periods, those unwelcome interludes in which for no apparent reason zeal...
Read more
Wednesday, 13th November, 2013
Construction of the cockpit sidewalls followed closely that of the underbelly, departing only in detail. Each rectangular panel supports three intercostals of either top-hat or...
Read more
Tuesday, 12th November, 2013
With the successful addition of skin panels to the fuselage underside, I was keen to press on with building up the sides of the cockpit...
Read more
Wednesday, 23rd October, 2013
By July-August I began installing the fuselage belly skin between Frames 7 and 13, relieved that I had reached the first stage in the process...
Read more
Nose and fuselage balsa blocking
Saturday, 12th October, 2013
By about mid-summer of this year (2013) and by way of diversion from preliminary work inside the incipient cockpit, I returned to the model’s nose...
Read more
Thursday, 10th October, 2013
A conspicuous feature within the lower fuselage is the substantive sub-assembly supporting rudder pedals, heel boards, control column, aileron cable drum and other less obvious...
Read more
Sunday, 15th September, 2013
Fuselage Frames 7 to 12 are all prominent within the Spitfire’s cockpit, so they needed to be uncompromisingly accurate. However, they also had to double...
Read more
Stories 111 to 120 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
