Supermarine Spitfire Mk I, 1:33 [Inwald/Alin]

[Lex]

Thank you all. It took me some time to export and resize the photos and I will try to be as quick as possible from now on. I like how the model came out, although not nearly as perfect as Inwald's cover photo where he obviously nails the build himself.

>MichaelS: Sorry the canopy won't be a lot to talk about, as I lack vacforming facilities in my current residence. So I used a spare GPM canopy that is apparently universal for all early-mark spitfires. (I have another Seafang in progress and there no escaping vacforming that one)

>alzictorini: A small apology about the thread title. Yes Baders was flying the Mk V and I had clearly not taken my history lessons seriously at all.



Model and Design Overview

The model was laser printed in a local print shop. I did not like the gloss finish typical of laser prints and thought about using a matt varnish, as the glossiness covers all printed details and leaves only the seams visible. Then I realised I could score the parts on the panel lines and those will remain visible even under high reflection.

Inwald's Spitfire Vb comes as 8 pages of 200g A4 card (with reverse-side details on 4 of them) and 2 pages of office A4 paper. The parts were quite space out so the part count was not very high. Alin's Merlin engine has only one sheet, but probably as many parts as the Spitfire it is supposed to be mounted on, as will be seen later.

To me there is something that sets Inwald apart from other designers. He does not concentrate on every single detail, but instead cherry-picks them like an artist (not that this is the best, but interesting). For those things he does decide to include, it's almost always a breeze to build. The model is designed with ease of construction in mind, often using unorthodox assembly sequences.

Cockpit

The model does lack a lot of detail on the cockpit interior, especially left and right side panels. What was included are the instrument panel, stick and pedals. Not in the mood to complete any detailing outside what's provided here, I made very short work of the cockpit, saving my energy for later.

[Lex]

Fuselage and firewall

The rear fuselage section was mostly issue-free. What is shown here is as of yet a dry-fit and no mismatch was encountered.

On the front section, I located the panel line corresponding to the engine firewall (is that what it's called?). Halinski's kit probably divides parts along that line but not on this model, so I ended up slicing along this panel line and retaining only the rear half. From that point forward I decided to remove the top, left, and right panels around the engine while keeping the bottom panel. This setup reduced the dangers of unrecoverable fitting issues between the aircraft and engine, as neither of which was designed with the other in mind.

Alin's Merlin engine is designed to fit Halinski's Spitfire Vb. While being of the same aircraft, different designers naturally have different sources of references (and accuracy) when designing their models. The issue became apparent in here that right behind the firewall, Inwald has a roughly oval-shaped former, while the firewall that came with the Merlin engine (and presumably the former on Halinski's model as well) is more of a rounded square shape. As the firewall will be exposed, I opted to use the latter as authority here, trimmed the bulkhead behind it to the same shape, and coaxed the fuselage skin to fit the new shape. Fortunately nothing went wrong in this process. Although this same area would later be another source of grief.

Vertical fin

I think the geometry here is not perfect, as the Spitfire has a very smooth transition from fuselage to vertical tail, unlike what is presented here. Unfortunately there is no room to modify the shape in this instance, and I also botched the leading edge of the fin. Thinking that it will be a great idea to put a former inside the edge for extra strength, I instead sagged the leading edge. Lesson was taken and the horizontal fins later did not suffer from similar issues.

The rudder was also not an easy thing to make. It is designed as a sheet of thin paper covering a wedge-shaped internal support made of regular card. Great concept in principle, but difficult to pull off, especially around edges. I would rather have preferred a rudder made entirely from card. As evident from his own photo, Inwald himself has of course mastered the art of building it this way.

[Lex]

Engine Block, Part 1

I think a fellow member on this forum built an up-scaled version of this engine (1:16, double the original size). I couldn't quite recall who, will ask the search engine to find out.

In stark contrast to Inwald, Alin's engine was almost of the extreme opposite style. It is designed as a series of boxes. While effective in breaking apart the complex shape of the engine block, the construction of which is nonetheless demanding.

On all the pumps and valves, struts and braces, meticulous attention has been paid to compensate the effect of paper thickness. It is extremely satisfying to know that when you finish rolling a part onto another, the seam will close perfectly, no gaps, no overlaps.

The same can not be said for all these box structures. These are unfolded without considering how they might be built. I guess the best way is to make 45-degree cuts on all edges, so they fit exactly as the computer says how they should fit. For me, the accumulation of paper thickness led to errors that required me trimming an entire mm from a particular part. Surely that can't be part of the original plan... For the entire duration I was worried that the engine will end up too long to fit between the firewall and propeller base

Adding to this, the cylinders are designed as one whole wavy part for an entire row of 6 cylinders. These attach, at an angle, without any structural support, to the box containing the crankshaft at the bottom. I think this is one of the most difficult parts of the entire build, for those who are also intending to build one.

[ricleite]

Thanks for taking your time to show the pictures
The engine is pretty! You mention difficulties regarding paper thickness. Maybe they could be overcome by printing on thinner paper. Choosing the paper is an advantage of downloaded kits. To get the same effect, I often delaminate GPM's thick and Halinski's not so thick paper. Both cope well with delamination.

[romanmodels]

good work Lex

[Lex]

@ricleite

I agree, I realised the same along the way. The best option for this model would have been printing two thicknesses and use whichever was the most appropriate for the part, but delaminating does the trick too. Personally though I prefer paper that does not delaminate, so they don't do so when I least want them.

Engine Block, Part 2

Those four paper strips in the photo simulate the effect of a clamshell seam with riveting through it. Although far removed from what really happens in reality, they do make a convincing effort at mimicking how the thing looked - all that mattered on a model. Cutting them was a sure nightmare given my skills with a knife, but the assembly was actually smooth, again showing that this is a well-designed kit.

Rear Cockpit

The Spitfire model completely lacks any detail behind the pilot seat (although the fuselage skin is to be printed with a coloured interior). On retrospect this is a reasonable choice, little of what's inside remained visible after closing up the fuselage. (Those interior details typically enjoy their days of glory in construction threads like this one.) But on the safe side, I added a floor and rolled up two gas cylinders painted yellow.

The rear glass canopy is formed from a flat transparency sheet. The construction method provided in the model does a great job covering any potential glue stains. I tried a viscous CA glue for the canopy and although the fogging issue isn't completely gone, it is at least much easier to manage than the fluid-type CA glue.

[Lex]

Wings

The wing is designed as an isolated unit. For the wing, I opened up the gun ports, cartridge openings and four additional ports under the engine. Then I lined their inside with dark paper. This was because laserjet black is extremely reflective and is the last thing one wants for places that's supposed to be dark from all angles.

The three sections of the wing are first attached together to make sure they fit into the right shape. Then the landing gear bays are constructed and attached. The gear bays caused minimal issues, I only had to make sure that the landing gears themselves are attached firmly to the wingbox, thus fuselage. Therefore I had to build the landing gears themselves at this stage.

Only now are the internal formers added. Unusually they come in three detached sections and the point is using the wing skin resist any bending. I had reservations about this construction, but it works, period. Inwald has again persuaded me using results.

(Never mind the open wingtips, they were closed much later.)

When attaching the wing to the fuselage, a problem emerges: there is no alignment marks available. The fuselage left ample wriggle room for the wing spar so that can't serve as a guide. Normally the leading edge serve as the most accurate alignment check on the fuselage, but since I opened up the engine, the front section is already out of commission. Neither is there any indication of where the rear end of the wing should be attached. In the end I settled for dry-fitting the wing fillets and matching their panel lines. Not a very wieldy solution as the fillets are normally the last to go on, and one can never be too suspicious about how well the fillet will fit at all. Note that at this stage, despite all their hard work, the fillets are not actually attached yet...

The wing as-built lacks the two grooves on the ventral surface on the wingroot. (In essence, like a little gull wing. Many spitfire kits omits this feature but Halinski has them, check photos of the real thing if you aren't sure what I am typing here). This detail was forced onto the model with a few rounds of (very strong) fingernail treatment.

[Lex]

Engine Block, Part 3

Various pumps and valves (sorry for not knowing much more about engines) are gradually added to the engine body. Most were delaminated during construction, except those that relies on paper thickness for effect.

Then comes the metal parts. I used silver-coated copper wires of various thickness (0.4-0.8), for lack of a better material to get my hands on. This is a job cut out for CA glue. A little repetitive but not very difficult. The larger rods on the 'tray' are rolled with paper (1-1.2mm) to make them easier to glue. The rod templates provided by Alin's model are very accurate.

[Lex]

Wing Details

After attaching the fillets, I was finally able to complete the firewall details. Inwald's wing is markedly thinner than Halinski's, so some trimming of the exposed wing section, provided with the Merlin engine, was needed. Overall the fit here isn't perfect due to the two kits not designed for each other, but the mismatch is manageable.

I didn't quite like the initial green interior colour I painted there, this was painted into a darker olive colour later.

Now a test fit was finally possible for the engine. I think it ended up longer than intended by about 1mm, which was solved by trimming a reinforcement flange on the firewall so the turbocharger could fit.

The horizontal tail follows similarly to the wing construction and is internally supported by a single spar. No issue there apart from having to trim the root filleting. I am not sure if this is my problem or a design issue.

By now, the details under the wing is built. The elevator follows a similar construction to the rudder, and required extra caution. The wing flaps though are much easier.

[Rata]

Just plain AMAZING work there. Dedication AND skill you have in spades.