Single Seat Navy Firefly

[Gondor]

Spent five minuites just after midnight Saturday/Sunday cutting up and sticking bits of plastic to the cut outs for the wheel wells. Later today, Sunday, I should manage to cut out the recesses for the wheel wells which the plastic card filled in. Its wasteful of plastic but I hope that this should make the job easier because I can use my mini drill with a grinding bit to speed up the process so that a smear of filler will make the recess look far better than a miss matches layer cake as it does now. Only after this stage is finished can I put the upper surface onto the wheel well roof. I should also complete the cockpit which should allow the build to move on quickly once the wheel wells are sorted out.

Gondor

[KiwiZac]

Lovely! Looking forward to the next update.

[Gondor]

Lovely! Looking forward to the next update.

Took a couple of weeks but here it is!

The fuselage is now together, the original fuselage and the Spitfire fuselage, but separately so far. The wheel wells are just about finished and just need tidying up, but I will let the pictures speak for themselves, mostly....

Here is a view of the undercarriage bays, shows a big difference to what was there before. No other detail will be added as I don't feel it will be worth it with the aircraft going to be sitting on its wheels no one should be able to see the improved bay. You may ask "Why go to all that work then?" to which my reply is "Because I could not live with what was there".


Inside the Firefly fuselage. The white plastic needs painted black to go with the interior of the replacement cockpit or it will show through.


Side view of the modified Firefly fuselage. The step above the wings was made last night when I realised that the fuselage of the Spitfire was not going to squeeze into the Firefly fuselage at that point so it was better to cut the Firefly fuselage back further than I had already and make good the join with filler.


Here the Spitfire fuselage has been pun inside the Firefly fuselage. With the cut out mentioned above I can do this relatively easily which allows me to work on the two fuselages separately as required. Smoothing the joint between then will be fun 


Work to do: The cockpit still needs the seat and control column installed and I am thinking of making the rudder metal skinned so I will need to remove the ribbing with a mix of sanding/filling and of course the two fuselages need to be put together and the fuselage sides blended together. There is a step at the front between the fuselages which I intend to have taper all the way to the nose although that might get left until after the sides have been dealt with.

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

It's gonna be work but it's also going to look great !

[Gondor]

Got to the point of no return. Finished the cockpit: Note to self, install all the parts before inserting ALL the cockpit into the fuselage, it helps keep the blood pressure down 


The finished Spitfire fuselage has been glued into position. Yes there are gaps in several places but with plastic card and filler they will be eliminated.



A camera's eye view of the seat in the cockpit complete with representative seat belts.



So this weekend its out with the plastic card and filler to get rid of the gaps and to smooth everything together 

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Nice. Can't wait to see more of this. Such a cool aeroplane as it were, so this will make it even badder !

[sideshowbob9]

Very cool approach! Looking forward to seeing this completed.

[Gondor]

Did about five minutes work on her a short while ago, not going to touch her until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest to make sure that the filler in the second picture is cured. I know that not everyone leaves filler for so long to set but its the way I do it as I like to be absolutely sure that its fully cured.

Anyway, pictures....



A little bit of planking to reduce the amount of filler required and to give the basic shape to the fuselage in front of the cockpit before the filler goes on which left this mess as I applied the filler directly from the tube as if it were toothpaste.



Its going to be messy to clean up but I doubt that I will have to add any more filler he said hopefully

Gondor

[TimJ]

That's coming along well. I look forward to seeing how it looks when the filler is sanded down.

[NARSES2]

Coming along well.

I tend to leave filler over night at least and Miliput even longer if I've used a lot of it. Only exception is when I use very small amounts of PPP in seams which can just be smoothed over with a cotton bud almost immediately after application. Still need to let it cure before paint however.

[Gondor]

The first coarse of PSR has been done, Monday I will shoot some primer over the areas I have been working on to see exactly where I need to make adjustments. In the meantime here are some pictures of where I have gotten so far.









Gondor

[KiwiZac]

That looks sharp!

[Old Wombat]

Nice job!

[Gondor]

First coat of primer is on and I have also decided to do some work on the rudder to change it, not much but enough to make it a bit different from the usual.

First up the Port side of the aircraft



Now the Starboard side



Now views from above for each side




The Port side looks better than the Starboard side, pity that the folded wing will be on the Port side. Still obviously a lot of work to do but its a reasonable amount of progress. Next thing this evening prior to going to work is to add filler where needed so it will be ready for a quick sanding secession when I get home in the morning.

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

That's blended in far better than I thought....looks good !