About ten years ago I decided that the only way I was going to get a Mk IX Spit in 1/32 scale would be to convert Hasegawa's Mk Vb...

...so that's what I did. See if you can spot the inexcusable mistake!

I did get rather excited at the prospect of getting my greedy little fingers on the PCM kit...but no, not a sign of it appearing here in little old Perth! But it doesn't matter now anyway, because I'm pretty sure both the forthcoming Eduard and Tamiya kits will make it to these shores...and you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be waiting with open arms and wallet!

Cheers all!

Tim.

Hi Tim

That is incredible! You really are going to have to do a start-to-finish Feature on one of your builds and how you set up the following photo session!

The "inexcusable mistake"? All I can spot (or rather, not spot) is that the pilot doesn't have a padded headrest where I'd normally expect to see one.

All the best

Rowan

Tim looks great to me. I've never been one to make sure that my subjects are exact in historical detail so I'd be no good in spotting a mistake from that aspect. I'm really liking your backdrop for the photos though.

Thanks gents. No, it's not the padded headrest...that item had largely disappeared some time during production of the Mk V and not seen again on subsequent marks, although there are always exceptions. Why was it deleted? I've no idea!

please show us how you shoot your great images! Ive read your description in the past and would like to see if my mental image is correct or not...also going to second a box to finish build thread request from you..marvelous work

Allegedly, the headrest was deleted when his fellow Squadron pilots reported seeing Paddy Finucane being dragged under the surface, and drowned, because his parachute harness snagged on the headrest.
Edgar

Hi again

If the story's true, I wonder why they didn't modify the headrest - the Hellcat had an angled flap which (I presume) was to prevent anything getting snagged umder the headrest in an emergency.

Back to the guessing game... is the pitot mount a bit long? You can tell I'm clutching at straws!

All the best

Rowan

Ah...thanks Edgar! I didn't know that about poor young Mr Finucane...a rotten way to go.

Actually, I had thought that the 'squab' (as it was apparently called) may have just been generally a bit of a nuisance by getting in the way of normal ingress and egress in full flying kit, and possibly interfering with full 'head swivelling' in combat manoeuvring. Yes, getting out in a hurry, certainly if having to bale out, could easily be hampered by it. In Paddy Finucane's case, he probably just wasn't quick enough with the quick release box to get out of his 'chute harness...or likely just didn't have time. I understand from what I have read about it, the aircraft sank like a stone within seconds.

Shawn, yes the time is coming when all will be revealed...but it'll be a while yet. The photography is done outdoors and, although it's officially Spring here now, we're still in for a good deal of wintry weather as it tails off over the next month or so. Even then there'll still be a lot of cloud about for a fair while and that tends to interfere with the lighting and a lot of time is wasted by waiting for brief bursts of sunshine. Sometimes it can work to advantage though, depending on what atmosphere I'm interested in creating with the backdrop I've chosen. Which reminds me...I've got to make time to paint some new ones.

As for a 'build blog'...well, that'll happen too. I'm still weighing up possibilities. At the moment a 1/72 Hawker Hunter is looking good, but there are others under consideration as well. We'll see! In the meantime I've got domestic things to do - new fridge to buy, a computer wizard to find and get this damned computer behaving itself, and a major house reorganisation after getting shot of my lodger next weekend (Yippee!).

Rowan, no the pitot's just fine...but instead of thinking ' too long', think 'too short!'

Thanks for the comments gentlemen...Cheers!

Tim.

Thanks Bryan! Actually, the thing that bothers me is that it's a pretty fundamental error that I just shouldn't have made...it's a Spitfire, for goodness' sake! I take my Spitfires pretty seriously and I'm still kicking myself for unintentionally, but certainly negligently, spoiling this one. I forgot the rule 'measure twice, cut once'.

Once you know about it, it'll be so obvious...but I 'aint tellin' ! Well, not just yet anyway.

Cheers,

Tim.

Strips over the upper surface where the wheel well is?
Six stack exhausts should'nt have been fitted?
Round rear view mirror?

Ok that is three guesses.

I hate to do this, i like a quiz sure.
but your picture is so emotive is it hard to
want to look at it to find a flaw.

Keep these coming Tim, I'm in a modelling fug right now and your stuff is
great therapy.

im no expert, but lookign at some other IXc's , they have a number underneath the invasion stripes, and over the DEB Ring on the rear fuselage, (the serial numbers)??

good bird too!!

I'm glad you like 'em, John-Paul...just wait until I get my hands on a Tamiya 1/32 Spit IX!

No, all the points you mention are correct, except for the strips (did you mean the two parallel reinforcing strips?) over the wheel-wells...there aren't any. No, this is a dimensional problem. Compare the nose area on both models (the other being a slightly converted Otaki 1/48 Mk VIII) and you might suddenly get it!

Yes, I'm in a bit of a slump too. No modelling done for the best part of four years, but my time is coming. Usually there's no stopping me when 'the mood' takes me. I'll be churning them out one after the other...or even two or three at a time...but not this week!

You'll get back in the groove too. We always seem to somehow, don't we?

All the best,

Tim.

Hey James, any man who admires Les Paul is alright with me! I've got a pretty good collection of Les Paul and Mary Ford records here...

Bird? No...no birds here, just a couple of the the most exquisitely designed British fighter aircraft (in model form, of course) of the early 1940s...and I blew it with the bigger of the two!

What really gets me is that this is the second time I've made the same mistake, albeit many years apart. I've actually done this conversion three times all up. The first one I got right, and the second one I got wrong...probably because I got a bit too cocky and didn't think I needed to check things properly a second time around. Well, both those first two models have long since been 'reduced to components', but I still have the fuselages....and with so many years past, I forgot about the mistake and used the wrong one as reference for the fuselage of this third one. What a prize goose!

Still, from certain angles it doesn't look too bad, so I can sort of get away with it!

Someone's bound to pick it out sooner or later. Actually, I thought someone would have done ages ago! I didn't really mean this to turn into a quiz...oh well, I've given away a few clues, so let's see how well you all know your Spitfires.... Roll up, roll up ladies and gents!

Cheers!

Tim.

You've not missed the slight bulge atop the cowling and the blisters of a mk9, quart in pint pot?

Is that right? To be honest I can't see that from the photo.

Tonight I'll start something constructive get over this negativity.
Even if the closest I get to painting is only painting the fence.

Hi Tim,

Just came across this thread. Very nice photography - as usual.

Looking at the photo, the nose looks slightly too short making the exhausts look too far aft; the rear edge of the last exhaust stub should be forward of the root LE on Mk IXs.

If that is right then it just shows what you can get away with without it being too obvious - maybe because the great photography makes it look so realistic that the brain thinks it can't be wrong.

Iain

Trust a fellow artist to pick it! How are you Iain?

Yes, although I lengthened the nose, it's still too short by about six inches in scale. That doesn't sound a lot, but it makes all the difference and really is an inexcusable mistake on my part.

Back in 1981I got it right on this first conversion from the Hasegawa kit...



...and then somehow got it wrong on the second a year or so later...

All I can think of is that something must have distracted me at the time and I didn't even notice that it was wrong. The model even took a first prize at an IPMS competition!

Why, oh why did I copy the same mistake on the THIRD model? By the time I realised it, it was too late...I'd done all the filling and sanding and all the Dzuz cowling fasteners, and I wasn't prepared to cut it apart and start again. I've thought about doing it since then, but with new kits coming from both Eduard and Tamiya, I don't think the job will be high on the agenda. Oh well...





Still, the pilot looks good anyway...even if he is a little overscale!




Cheers all,

Tim.

I'm still struggling along, Tim ! You still doing the cryptics?

Yes, it puzzled me why it wasn't quite one or the other, not short enough to be a single stage and not long enough to be a two stage. Call it the Goldilocks version, neither too long or too short but just right, that'll fool 'em.

I liked the pilot too, I was going to ask you if it is scratch built or an upgrade of a kit version - you've got good eyes and a steady hand to do that sort of detail; Even blown up that much it still passes muster. I'm taking more of an impressionist approach these days. At least, that's my excuse.

Good to hear from you Iain. Yes, still doing the cryptic crosswords every day...it helps keep the brainbox working. Are you still painting?

That pilot figure is from the kit, but with drastic alterations. I once owned a large collection of wartime flying kit, so am very familiar with the various types of helmets and oxygen masks, parachute harnesses, etcetera. The Type 'G' oxygen mask on this bloke was built up with putty, scrap plastic and paper....very useful stuff, paper, for straps and webbing, pocket flaps and epaulettes etc.

The goggles as moulded by Hasegawa are a pretty good representation of the Mk VIII, although I think they are intended to portray the earlier (and cumbersome) Mk IV type. They only required a bit of minor detailing. The Type 'C' helmet just got a bit of re-shaping and some added detail from, again, paper strip and scrap plastic.

The entire head was removed from the body, given a neck (because for some reason kit manufacturers don't think that's important!) and made to swivel....so that as I tilt the model, the pilot's head also turns from left to right and vice versa.

Given the inaccuracy of the model (through nobody's fault but my own) it won't really bother me to 'reduce it to components' at some time in the future...and the pilot will be used in something else. He may very well find himself flying a Revell Mosquito...or a Matchbox Lysander. We shall see!

All the best to you !ain,

Tim.

I'm still doing them too and faster than ever - trouble is, the grey cells are not much interested in doing anything else! No, I haven't picked up a brush yet and the paint tubes have gone hard so even if I get the urge, I'll need to buy new paint. I spent several months on the Matchbox Lysander last year, scratchbuilt the whole interior and did a lot of replacing of the exterior fuselage detail. It is stalled at the moment until Sergey brings out a 1/32 Mercury engine which he has promised.

I like the swivelling head idea - did you use a wire in the head and a tube in the body? Only trouble is that he would be looking behind him like an owl when in a vertical climb !! Knowing you, I'm sure you have stops to prevent him wringing his own neck.

Must try using paper more - Radu Brinzan uses it for his seat harnesses. I have some pastel paper in a variety of suitable colours and the texture is about right. The bonus of manning your aircraft means less effort with hidden cockpit detail - I like that.

You still have the same email address? I'll send you some shots of the Lizzie.

Best,

Iain

And I find the cryptics so much easier than the so-called 'quick' crosswords....although I hate it when they're TOO easy!

The pilot's head (or rather, his neck) is simply left loose inside the hole in the top of the torso. It can't fall out with the canopy closed and the oxygen tube, plus the R/T wiring (microphone and earphones) prevents it from swivelling too far rearward. I'd love to be able to do this in 1/72 scale!

Shame about your paint tubes all dried up....my oils are still pretty good, and there are some I've had for about twenty-five years. Not that they've had much use for a good few years now! I may have to start painting again, though, as several people have asked if I'll do it again....and I could certainly do with making some money!

Trouble is, though, as I get older the eyesight gets worse and the arthritic fingers aren't quite as dextrous...and above all I'm beginning to realise that time is no longer on my side. I really need two or three clones of myself to get done all the things I want to get done before I'm too old...or, er...not around any more!

Yes, still the same e-mail address. As already alluded to, I have Matchbox's big Lizzie in my stash, so yes, I'd love to have a look at yours!

Well, I think you did a great job on the Spit, but if it bothers you sooooo much, you can just box that sucker up and send it to me!! I won't mind at all.....

Again, great job and the photography is spot on!

Thanks Harry, but I think I'll hang onto it for a bit longer. It lives on top of the fridge and impresses visitors who don't know much about Spitfires!

Thanks for the comments and all the best to you,

Tim.