I picked up a mostly completed top flite spit that I plan to make into a mkV trop version.
Still not sure on the trop due to the cowl build. Has different exhaust stubbs and large chin scoop. Not sure if I cut up the fiberglass cowl, or try and make my own.
First thing was to finish glassing the tail. One side of the bottom was not done but controls were epoxied in already.
The bottom halves of the cannon covers were glued onto the top so they were removed and will be added to the bottom soon.
Mk5 has a torpedo shaped cooler on the bottom in place of one of the square coolers. I am just getting ready to make that.

Marc

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TWO Spitfire aficionados in the mix - super....

Great choice of subject material.  It will present a striking profile.

Do whatever you can to keep the tail light.  Mine needed about 8 oz on the engine bearers to balance it out.

Good to know about being tail heavy.
I will be using my Evolution 15cc gasser and I just ordered a Jtec wrap around muffle that should fit under the hood. So hope that helps with balance.

I committed to a US spitfire scheme. The picture referenced it as 'the only ugly spit'  ;D
Ordered the graphics from Callie Graphics and should be here late next week.  :)

Took a look at the plans and what I need to do to finish the build.
I see why the 2nd cannon bulge was added to the top of the wing... plans show it. don't know why they did that. All info I've seen the early marks had single large bulges to cover both cannons when fitted. The late spits had the small separate cannon covers.

I made the 'round' cooler and while looking at pics noticed the 'square oil cooler' was rounded on the sides. So i made a new one for that too.

I will make new ailerons as the spit5 and later had aluminium skinned, not fabric.

I have a fiberglass cowl but adding the scoop and changing the exhaust pipes means too much hacking.
Going to try and build a 2 part cowl. Top will be fixed to fuse and the chin will be removable. (that is the plan at least)

. [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

Hi Mark,
It's so nice to see someone working on a classic scale subject.

Be different...........

This is the scheme I am going with.

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North Africa scheme?

Sicily theatre

nice

Mark, which airfield ere the Yanks flying out of, I presume after taking Sicily?

Would have to look in my books to be sure. 52nd FG flew out of Borgo and Calvie airfields on Corsica island.

Corsica, that makes sense, NATO has a missile range there now.

Finally got back to this project.
Decided to use the existing cowl and build up the chin scoop. Still fine tuning and filling but I think it looks the part. When done shaping I will glass and hollow.
Spit5 had 3 large exhaust stacks so spent the afternoon making them. Need to fill and glass them before attempting to install over the existing stacks.

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very nice Mark

Great job Mark.

If it is at all helpful, I have attached a copy of a pic I took of a Mk 1 Spitfire with the same exhaust ejectors as were on the Mk V.  As far as I can tell your replicas are a good representation of the real thing.

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Found another one :)

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Thanks Mike,
I was going to cheat and go with the mk2 staight pipes but I decided to give a go at the fluted exhaust pipes.

The ones I did up are a bit too sharp on the curve but I can live with them. Did a test fit and I am happy so they are ready for glassing.

Little more shaping to do on the chin scoop but it's coming along.

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Great work, Mark! Way better than store bought. Gonna look great at the field.

You, Sandy and Al are inspiring not quite enough to get me scratch building, but inspiring anyway  ;)

Well Steve, look on the bright side. Both Al and Mark will have flown their planes till they're worn out and I will be still hacking the Hurri   >:(

Need some advice.
I  need to remove the foam from inside the mold i made for the chin scoop. I recall an old article where they made the male plug and used gas to disolve the foam.
Has anyone tried this?
I need to re-inforce the form with heavier fiberglass from the inside. Not sure how the gas will affect the laying and binding of the new epoxy to the outer shell.
Inwant this to be able to withstand a few nose overs as we all know they are going to happen.

M

Go outside with a bit of gas and a rag, pour a little in and wipe it out after all the foam melts.
Give it a few minutes to flash off and give it a rub with an acetone moistened rag, and lay your glass.

Glen wrote on Jan 21^st, 2017 at 9:42am:

Go outside with a bit of gas and a rag, pour a little in and wipe it out after all the foam melts. Give it a few minutes to flash off and give it a rub with an acetone moistened rag, and lay your glass.

yupper! Works a treat. just not indoors...

Thanks for the info.

Cans of expanding foam are not affected by gas but does absorbe it.   :'(
Had to dig the foam out wighout ripping my outer shell. Put a few small nicks in it but easily patched. Laid some thick fb inside and hopefully this works.
Need a lot more practise doing fb.

Glassed the ailerons and am working on the wing filets.
Then a lot of sanding will becdone next.

Mark, for glassing surfaces, West products are pretty good. 3/4 oz cloth, some West and a credit card to smooth it out. There are lots of good tutorials on the net...

The cowl seem to be coming along. Need to sand and smooth it a bit. Test fitted the glassed exhaust stacks. Still fit  :)
Added the new coolers to the wing bottom and shaping the wing fillets.

Looking like a spit now  ;)

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really like the stacks Mark. Pic too large to see much of the cowl inlet. Wish the Hurricane had the flared stack end. Most are just round tubes.....

Mark; your mods are looking great; the large Vokes filter really makes a statement.  It's gonna be a serious looking airplane.

Looking at the asymmetrical radiator configuration of your moddel made me realize that I don't know exactly what cooled what in the earlier variants.  I'm pretty sure that the circular rad under the port wing just cooled the oil, and the rectangular one under the stbd wing  cooled the glycol, but I don't know if there was a second core under the stbd wing to cool oil as well.  I see another trivia chase in my future.

Keep posting pics of your progress.

Mike, seem to recall reading somewhere that early marks had that setup, while later marks went to the two square style.

I do think the small around one was for the oil. My cutaways show the mk9 so don't know if the large oval had some in it.
Kinda funny, I have a picture book on late marks 7-24 and another one on early marks  1-2. Somehow i missed the mk5. My spitfire book (Alfred Price) has low res pics so not the best for referencing specific details.

Been  slow but steady progress.
Added the underside blisters and ailerons, servos are mounted now.

Since the mk5 was the first to main the 20mm armament I gave it a shot.  :D
I wanted them removable for tranport and hangar damage avoidance. I mounted short carbon tube into the leadjng edge for the base. Used magnets to hold the barrels in place. Mounted another short carbon tube into pine and turned to shape. I will add tiny carbon tube for the protrouding barrels once painting starts.
The Eflight retracts were next but I need new gear legs. The legs are too long and worse, the leg coil of the stock gear sits right at the formers and support for the lg blocks. I will buy some 5mm music wire to make new legs...or buy some small oleo legs.
The 15cc engine was installed so I could mount the cowl and finish forming/shaping the nose blisters. I cut a disc to help align the cowl to the spinner that is still on order.  ::)
Next was to get the pilot into the office. I discovered the existing vac formed headrest and "office" that was installed were way too low. Since I only had a bust figure to man the office, I decided to rip out the cockpit and sealed it over.
The canopy is badly frosted. Thought it was caked on saw dust and such but after soaking in water and trying to clean it made no difference in the look. A stop at wally world for some future floor polish has helped. Still not great but better than before.

Need to mount gas tank, fuselage electronics and this will be ready for painting.  :)

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Mark, take a look around the sites - I've seen instructions on clearing up canopies by polishing with tooth paste, jewellers rouge, and other esoteric stuff that is reported to work well....never tried it myself.

All your hard work is paying off Mark.
Very impressive !!

Hey Mark:

I'd be really interested in seeing a few pics of the carbon fibre and magnet arrangement that you designed to allow the 20 mm canon to be detachable.  It sounds like a great approach, one that I may be able to retrofit on my Mk XVI.

The latest pic of your Mk V is awesome, you are making real progress.

The 20mm cannons are a simple setup. I keep magnets from old foamies and most are round and I think 8mm. These are my retainers. I used two carbon tubes that i plug with balsa. Once I have the depth of the plug to my liking i ca it into the rod. I find that magnets flip while going down the tube so I mark the "up" side. Once it land properly i ca it to the balsa plug.
The rod for the cannon is too small for the magnet to slid into but they are the same outer diameter. I glued the magnet onto the end of the rod. I next drill some wood to fit over the carbon rod. From there it is just shaping.
The pics are of the failed pieces but show the process.

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Made more progress but not much to show. I pained the exhaust stacks  and they look ok so need to seal them before installing on the cowl.
Spent most of the week trying to figure out how/where to install the electronics. Tight fit in there.

While working hard at work yesterday  ::) it dawned on me that the spit has landing gear angled back and that my 85° retracts would not work. Quick sesrch and yup, need 90°. A quick call to Mighty Small Cars and new retracts will be here next friday.
I also noticed thst my 4in wheels are too thick to sit in the wing with the angle of the retracts, so put an order in for some thinner wheels.

The only thing that can be done was to prime and sand so I can paint. Since my shop is in the basement I went looking for some water based primer to try out. Tomorrow should be the start of sandfest :-*.

Spent the morning sanding. Not one of my favourite tasks. :(
And then started painting. I wanted a worn, dirty look but over did it and my attempts to fix just over did it more.  :-[ not quite the look I was going for. Hope i can fix it up later when the decals are on and weathered.

I do like how the exhaust stacks came out.

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No problem with that look Mark!
Rode hard and put away wet    [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

I like it!  Stacks look very nice.

This was a work from home day. Nice part is on lunchbreak I started applying the Callie Decals. They are not cheap to get here but are worth it in my opinion.
I am waiting for the landing gear and spinner to show up then balance and it should be airworthy.

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Mark, very nice!
The scheme/markings make it a very different spitfire. That's what makes it so interesting.
Again, very nice.

Got toys in the mail Friday  :)
I painted the spinner and installed. Looks little too long.
Retracts were in and started on that. Found the retracts sit too deep within the wing. I tried building up the rails a little but that is not enough  :-/ gear legs still sit too deep. Looks like i need to make 'z' bends to the legs so they sit closer to the skin. Then there would be room for the wheels. :-/
Going to have to think more on this.
Any good ideas out there for top flight spit retracts?

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I find that the spinner looks just fine, although I'll acknowledge that most Mk V Trop variants had stubbier spinners.

Here's a pic that can arguably support the spinner on your model.  It also shows the relatively rare four 20 mm cannon configuration.  The four cannon config. apparently wasn't that popular as it was heavy and adversely affected performance.

WRT retracts, I used Robart air on mine; they sorta work and they fit reasonably well.  I'd put Robart electrics if I were to build another...something like the 550 series.  The biggest issue I have with the gear on the Top Flite kit is that each strut is too far outwards on the wing, and the standard config has each strut too short.  I didn't bother fixing it on mine...too lazy I guess.

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Here's a few more pics. 

I'm thinking that the longer spinner was fitted to Mk Vs that were equipped with the Rotol Jablo propeller as opposed to the normal Hamilton Standard.

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Marc, Mike, I'm not sure how "standard" spinners were. I have pics of a Hurricane with a Spit spinner, and the comment indicates it was common because of a shortage of the De Havilland spinner and props. Maybe Spits swapped spinners according to what was available?
Your Spit Marc is a US version, who knows what THEY did to it...