March 2025

Let's see if I can get a post finished before the end of the month - he says at the start of the month. But now it's the 27th so technically I made it.

The living room and the dining area were painted by the end of the first week of March. A short section of wall in the dining room was added and was painted by the 18th. Pictures show before with cabinets moved out; primer applied; and finished paint with cabinets moved back. I thought the cabinets would be a bear to move, but once emptied out, a dolly fit under the front and they were wheeled out and back with no problem.   The lighter paint colour definitely makes the room much brighter.

I made an unplanned trip to Edmonton on March 11 to move Nicholas. He had been laid off the previous week and decided there was nothing to keep him in Edmonton. He accepted our offer to move into our spare room, so we packed his stuff up and moved him to Calgary. He had previously booked a trip to see Jill in Wichita, leaving on the 14th, and decided the trip would do him good. His original plan was to work remotely during the week, but that changed to getting his resume tided up and begin applying for work. He has had some early success, with an interview scheduled with Stantec this coming Friday. Fingers crossed!

Daniel bought a car! No surprise that its a Tesla. A new, red Model Y. I have never actually been in one so I can't wait to see it in person. He took delivery on the 26th, and is so proud. He has a business trip to Italy, leaving on the 28th, so he won‘t get much time to enjoy it before he heads off.

Marie was back in McMurray March 12-18 for a quilting guild retreat. Lots of quilting, chatting and food. The last day, she went back to the old neighbourhood for a fire pit party.

Riley hasn’t eaten any clothing this month so we will take that as a win.

RCAF 707

A gloss coat was applied to provide a smooth surface for the decals.

The primary decals will be a set from CanMilAir. Unfortunately, these have some colour streaking issues, requiring some careful touch up. I also have a set of detail decals from Nazca, and some photo real window decals from 8A Decals.

The CanMilAir decals are done in stages. The lightning flash is applied first, then the separate window decals, and finally the door decals.. It takes some care but worked out well.

It was planned to use the photo real fuselage window decals but they lack the the silver window outlines used by the RCAF. The Nazca fuselage window decals also lacked it. Seems like a small detail but its quite apparent in photos. That was enough reason to stick with the CanMilAir windows. Unfortunately, The CanMilAir cockpit decals seemed undersized once applied. They were carefully removed and placed back on the decal paper. The Nazca cockpit decals are visually larger, but the printed “glass” effect they used doesn’t match the CanMilAir fuselage windows. The best match turned out to be the old kit decals, which looked better but still seem a little undersized. They will have to do.

Photo 1 - Antiglare, windshield and four piece lightning flash stripe decals in place.

Photo 2 - Three piece window decals in place

Photo 3 - Door decals in place

Photo 4 - Tail and fuselage decals in place

The Nazca decal sheet includes a lot of small decals for the engines. Most importantly, it includes the distinct openings around the front of the intake, as well as various small access panels on the pylon. These areas were either damaged or eliminated by all the sanding, and were too difficult to rescribe. There are likely 50 decals across the four engines, meaning it will take a while to add them all.

Fokker Super Universal

The damaged fuselage registration letters, chipped when the masks were removed, need to be repaired. Two options make sense - remask and repaint or cut decals and apply over top. It’s mainly the blue paint that has chipped, which is outside the lettering, making it the first repair step. The path forward was inadvertently settled after a light sanding, intended to knock down any paint ridges remaining from the masks, caused the blue paint to thin out and lighten. With a much more extensive blue repaint now needed, it was decided that cutting and applying decals would be simpler.

The cut decals proved more challenging to apply than the masks had been. Decals cut from white decal paper aren't very strong, bend in unpredictable ways, and are very difficult to get aligned and straight. But they look pretty good once finally on. (Photo 1 below)

The kit includes float struts cast in a harder black resin. This black resin seems stronger than the grey resin used on the rest of the kit. The fuselage to float struts seemed strong enough to support the load. The stuts connecting the floats together were much thinner, and I wasn’t sure they would be up to the task. It was decided to replace them with brass tube to strengthen the joint. (Photo 2 below)

Then the next disaster. This kit seems cursed! (Photo 3 below). So many things have gone wrong. This time, the nose cowling snapped off while trying to remove the painting support. The support had been attached to the cowling with a little hot glue, and had been removed twice already without issue. In fact, it had fallen off all by itself a couple times. Third time wasn't a charm, as the cowling snapped cleanly off. It will be an easy repair but..... (Photo 4 below)

With the cowling back on, it was time to attached the floats. A plan had slowly been developing on the best way to tackle the float installation. The brass tubing was sufficiently rigid to allow the floats to be safely handled. Earlier test fitting of the plane to float struts showed they stayed in place when dry fit to the plane. With the plane flipped upside down, the connecting struts were put into place and the floats dry fit. Amazingly, it all fit and seemed to be mostly aligned. (Photo 5 below).

Most Super Universals seemed to use cabling to reinforce the plane to float struts. G-CASK instead used V-shaped hard supports, attached between the float brace centerlines and the underside of the plane. Styrene struts were fabricated from 0.004” sheet, shaped to a mostly airfoil like profile, and then carefully fit through trial and error. With the plane upside down and the floats in place, the styrene struts went throught a series of measure, cut, and test fit. The struts were intentionally cut long so as to sneak up on the correct length by fitting, trimming and then fitting, until the correct length was found. This might have been one of the most challenging modelling experiences I have ever had. The process took almost three hours before all four struts were glued in place. (Photo 6)

Photo 1 - Cut decals applied.

Photo 2 - Floats almost ready. Just a little paint touch up needed

Photo 3 - This kit is cursed

Photo 4 - Cowling fixed, windows unmasked and engine installed

Photo 5 - A major milestone! On floats for the first time

Photo 6 - Diagonal float braces (white styrene) installed after much effort

With the V braces in place, the plane was flipped over and sat upright on its floats for the first time. Everything looked okay from the sides but the floats were twisted slightly when viewed from the front. An attempt was made to gently bend the entire float assembly but it refused to budge. It proved necessary to cut the port side front plane to float supports, just above the float, and trim off about 1 mm, before reattaching the support to the float. The surgery made a noticeable difference but the plane still leans a little. Some gentle force, applied in an effort to correct the lean, resulting in a sharp crack sound, but the plane now sits more or less level. I am not quite sure what cracked but everything seems to still be attached and the assembly remains surprisingly strong. Time to leave well enough alone.

Next up was the engine and exhaust system. The engine is a single casting, but the exhaust consists of an collector ring and muffler extensions on both ends. (Photo 3 above). G-CASK used a short muffler on the starboard side but an extended exhaust/muffler on the port side. This is included in the kit, but it took some tinkering to figure out where to cut the collector and attach the extension. Try as I might, I could not get the kit’s exhaust collector to line up with all the engine cylinder heads, and still have the engine sit properly when mounted to the plane. You really have to stare to see where it doesn’t fit, so it was decided to leave it.

European Universals have a cowling, but North America planes tended to have the engine exposed with only a small, partial shroud at the front of the engine. Kit version seems to consist of three pieces but I couldn’t figure out how to fit the the pieces together. After a half hour of trying various options, it was finally decided to leave the two spacer(?) pieces off and attached the shroud directly to the engine. With the shroud in place, the engine casting was dry brushed with gunmetal to give it a bit of shine and pick out the details.

The prop was carefully cut from its pour stub, painted silver, and put into place. The fuselage door was attached partially open, and the horizontal stabilizers were attached in a slightly deflected position.

Onto the home stretch now. The tips of the floats were painted black to represent rubber bumpers. A diluted wash was applied to the top of the floats to pick out details and try to dull down the overly bright metal shine. And with that, the build was declared finished!

I am certainly very happy to be finished this kit. It was one of the most challenging builds I have done, and almost went into the garbage on several occasions. The kit seemed well cast, with nice details, when viewed in the box. But nothing fit, or fit squarely, once things started to be joined together. In particular, the fuselage to wing alignment stalled progress for several weeks before a mostly square joint was achieved. Even though reinforcement tabs were added to the fuselage, I lost track of the number of times the fuselage joints cracked while being handled and had to be repaired. Similarly, the wing’s panel lines took forever to repair and clean up. I am sure it would have been easier to fill them all in and completely rescribe them. Finally, the kit decals used the wrong font, requiring masks to be cut and the registration letters to be sprayed. It isn’t my best work, and won’t stand close examination, but it looks pretty good from normal viewing distances, and I am happy to finally have a model of this significant airplane in my collection.

The Fokker Super Universal is finished!

Big Scale Spitfire Mk.IX

The only picture found of the intended plane is what's visible in the colourized photo below. It shows the plane in standard day fighter scheme colours of dark green and medium sea grey. The KH part of the squadron code is lowered to fit under the canopy, while the Z is slightly higher. A type C1 roundel, with the thin yellow surround, is used. The tail fin flash is the shorter type. What's interesting is that the upper fuselage paint appears quite dull, while the green portion of the horizonal stabilizer is clearly reflecting Lane's shadow. The red of the fin flash, and the lower blue of the roundel both appear to be semi gloss. Not sure what to make of that other than it's interesting to note.

The Caspir website contains the following information on the plane itself:

Spitfire BR986, Mk IX

s/n BR986

c/n 3118

VA (Supermarine)

BR 986

Merlin 61

Walker:

To No. 401 (F) Squadron, RCAF on 27 July 1942. Category B damage on operations on 28 August 1942, repaired on site. To No. 403 (F) Squadron, RCAF on 22 March 1943. Lost on operations near Dieppe and Caen on 15 May 1943, during combat with Fw190s. Flying Officer W. T. Lane killed. Had 100:25 logged time when struck off.

airhistory.org.uk/spitfire

FF 04-07-194239MU 05-07-194272S 24-07-1942401S 27-07-1942CB ops 28-08-1942ros GAL 18-09-1942403S 22-03-1943AST 05-04-1943mods Shot down by fighters nr Senaipont 15-05-1943FH100.25 Pilot Officer W T Lane killed

The above gives first flight as April 7, 1942. The plane was transferred to operational squadron service on July 24, 1942 with 401 Squadron, then transferred to 403 Squadron on September 18, 1942.

Lane joined 403 Squadron on August 10, 1942, or shortly after BR986 arrived. It appears he was the primary pilot of this plane.

The Spitfire Mk.IX was a stop gap measure, created to address the appearance of the German Fw-190. The Fw-190 caused immediate problems for the RAF, as it proved superior to the Spitfire Mk.V model then in service. The new Mk VIII was in development but still several months away from operational service. As a stop gap, a larger Merlin 61 engine was fitted to a Mk.V airframe. The process required the nose to be extended to balance the new, heavier engine. The converted airframe was an immediate success, with a substantial increase in speed and performance. Spitfire production immediately converted to the new Mk.IX, with conversion of existing Mk.V airframes and builds of new Mk.IX airframes. Squadrons began to receive the new Mk.IX aircraft in mid-1942, with first deliveries going to RCAF 401 and 402 squadrons. That would make BR896 an early delivery model. likely similar to the Ian Keltie aircraft option included in the kit.

That is enough research for now. With the Fokker finished, it is time to start this kit.

The kit’s size and complexity are impressive. The seat alone is fourteen parts and nine steps in the instructions. In total, the instruction book - and it is literally a book - has 243 steps. There are are total of 443 parts over fourteen sprue runners. The decal sheet is larger than a sheet of loose leaf paper, with options for five different planes.

Work started by converting the colour callouts into paint colours through the instructions steps. Construction started with the cockpit. Interior green is the dominant colour, so appropriate pieces were identified and airbrushed while on the sprues. They were then sprayed with Aqua Gloss to protect the paint, before oil and enamel washes were applied to highlight details.

With main components painted, work began on the seat. The real seat is a cast resin, reported to range in colour from orange to a dark red brown. Hull Red was used as the base colour, then modified by scrubbing orange, red and brown oil paints into it. The seat belts were given a base coat of Buff before brown and sienna oil paint washes were used to add texture. The belts are injected plastic, and are thick when viewed from the side, but are convincing when applied to the seat. The interior green parts were given a dark grey oil wash to bring out the details and add depth. It finished seat looks pretty good in the picture, but I see I missed painting a section of the seat adjustment lever.

This is going to be a fun kit to build.

That’s it for another blog. Stay safe everyone.