Wingco57

What about the elevators, ailerons and rudder structures. Do you have to twist the ribs and they the're done?

Good to see your backside relieved to show us some amazing workmanship.

That's some amazing attention to detail.

Hi Frank, Thank looks very nice. I would have thought Airfix would unveil this at Telford. Good timing. Looking forward to see your build. Nice bubble top builds too.

Wonderfully executed, love the weathered rocket rails.

So everybody thinks the control surfaces are fine then?

Indeed and the fun part of restarting an old build is that you have a headstart regarding the cockpit.

More hacking, in order to fit the previously scratchbuilt wheelwells into the PCM Spit I had to dismantle it completely (again). The inside of the wing will need some heavy thinning and scraping. The well openings are also different and I used the Matchbox ones as a template which worked fine. Both wells are roughly ready, next trying to fit the interiors.

Ik like the cutaway top wingsurface. Very nice.

Thanks Jimbo. Very nice kit although the control surfaces are suffering from the starved cow syndrome in my humble opinion.

Time to ressurect a dead topic. How time flies. Today was the annual modellers exhibition at the museum. Always fun and spent the whole day torturing plastic. I had a PCM Spitfire IX with me and the remains of the Spitfire 21 failure. I thought why not graft the XIV nose and tail to the IX? That was done and the wingtips of the Matchbox 22/24 were glued on the IX wings. Should have done that before as this is exactly how Supermarine modified the Spitfire design with the newer and stronger wing. The IX ailerons were cut away and the wing modified to accept the 22/24 ailerons. The fuselage is together and the wing has made a quantum leap regarding progress. Only major bit is to insert the scratchbuilt wheelbays into the IX wings and suddenly the basic 21 airframe suts on my workbench. Modelling is fun.

Who am I not to? Although the Spitfire 21 got a jumpstart today.

Marking out the port undersurface lines. Trying not to lean too hard to prevent the wing cracking

Sorry, I took the liberty to repair the link for the photo. Any background information about your project you wish to share?

Both upper wings have the panellines now marked out. The A3 cutting mat shows the size. With the curvature of the wings it is difficult to get the chordwise lines straight. Some Dymo tape will sort that out.

Working on the panellines. With pencil the lines are marked out. When everything is neat and square they will be scribed. The join between the centre section and outer wing was covered with a metal strip. I will represent this with aluminium tape. Cees

And Milliput white being the correct colour too so would make a huge improvement on those intakes.

That looks good already. I confess never having build a Soviet model ever, but this one will be on my list as it's such a great looking machine and I always liked the French Normandie-Niemen liveries. Cees

Will you be using Milliput or a similar filler to smooth out those huge steps? Cees

It does Tom. I am quite relieved that I have abandoned that that hurdle. The Manchester is interesting already with closed doors. As soon as the Lanc will be out I will do that one with the doors open. Cees

Amazing progress everytime you post some. That radome really looks great. I also see you have run a rivetting wheel along the tape and it looks good too. Something I haven't tried yet but you have done the work for me heheh. Good luck with the housemove, and the resulting decorating. Hope you get everthing back on track soon as we cannot wait too long for another great Shack fix! Cees

Checking for the correct width on the fuselage.

As mentioned before the Manchester will have a closed fuselage. To attempt building a full interior bombay nearly cost me my motivation. The doors have been joined again for final shaping including glueing a small section back on after the first attempt at removing the doors was too short.

That is indeed a better looking Shack with the radome and the smaller bombbay. That planking method is a very nice way to get large subassemblies done. Didn't Alan Clark use that same technique? Are you going to include the strenghtening strakes on the sides too using plastic strip? I can imagine with your recent family growth as well as expanding model collection you have outgrown your new house already. Cees

Nothing wrong with those Frank.