Spitfire Mk IX Diary, page 3
Skinning and fitting the ailerons
Saturday, 14th July, 2018
By June this year the wings of my model were complete in almost every detail; by contrast the ailerons remained in a raw state, having...
Read more
Friday, 13th July, 2018
In May 2015 (Can it really be that long ago?) I described how I built the Spitfire’s exhaust stacks. Now, with the model about to...
Read more
Monday, 9th July, 2018
Building the undercarriage doors evoked a sense of deja vu, so similar are they to those I made almost two decades ago for my Mk...
Read more
Rad cores and farings installed
Monday, 30th April, 2018
With the radiator fairings and their flaps almost ready to install, one final hurdle remained: the matrices for the radiator and oil cooler blocks. I...
Read more
Monday, 30th April, 2018
It is five months since my last progress report on the model’s challenging twin radiator fairings. In it I described the litho-plate skinning and surface...
Read more
Saturday, 28th April, 2018
According to my last diary entry, I should be taking about radiator fairings, but in haste I omitted from my report a small but attractive...
Read more
A milestone – the wings completed!
Saturday, 28th April, 2018
After a tentative return to the fray in chilly early April (described in my previous blog), I threw myself wholeheartedly back into the work, such...
Read more
Return to action – the pitot tube
Sunday, 8th April, 2018
It’s been a long winter that has ended with a cold, wet spring. I have neglected my workshop since October last year, a full six...
Read more
Friday, 27th October, 2017
With most of the wing undersurfaces finished, I turned during the late summer just gone to the box-like radiator fairing shells built and set aside...
Read more
Wing undersurfaces: Rad 'ramps'
Thursday, 12th October, 2017
The radiator blocks of a full-size Spitfire are set deep into the wing, almost to the top skin; and the wing ribs immediately fore and...
Read more
Stories 21 to 30 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
