Now this is great stuff here David ! Thanks buddy, you just made my day... 🙂

This "Iron Werks" style of building things is probably the only way I will ever come close to building the "stash" before it's my time to go hang out with Bernie...

Hey did I tell you that Revell has a new Beaufighter in 1/48 coming out really soon ?

It's a sickness I tell ya. And they keep coming out with new and improved kits... 🙂

Life is good.

Hey, Louis, I know just the sort of place they could put you to make that Beaufighter...the problem being you'd have to give up the exacto knife. Good luck my friend. I'll be there for you, even if it is just to pick up the pieces.

Louis, I refer you to this drawing I did for 'the doc is in...'

You hereby have permission to print this (large) and position it in a prominent place over your preferred workspace. A cautionary tale, if you will...

Today was an "OK" to a "Good" day at the "Iron Werks". I was rather busy with other chores, so not much time was had at the bench... I didn't get anything done on the Heinkel 111, as I concentrated instead on the propellers for these Spitfires.

It started out with sanding down the filler on the FR 46/47 individual blades.

Then I started removing parts from the plastic trees and prepping them for paint.
These are the Tamiya props. The two on the right side are for the Mk V's, while the two on the left side are for the Mk 1's.

Here's the Airfix lineup in this next picture below. Starting from left to right.
The six individual blades are for the FR 46/47. There are three right hand blades and three left handed ones since this version had a contra rotating propeller assembly to counter act the massive torque from the engine.

Next is the five bladed prop for the PR Mk XIX.

The two next to this are the two propellers for the Mk V. There are two different types of propellers in this kit. I decided to get both ready to use, just in case I need a different style of prop depending on what plane I build.

Finally on the extreme right side are the three different types of propellers that are provided with the Mk 1 kit. There's a wooden two blade Watts, a De Havilland and a Rotol. Too bad these Mk 1 kits aren't available at the moment. They're sold out everywhere I looked. Maybe they will release them again soon... as they really look good, and offer a lot of options for anyone who wishes to build an early Spit...

Here's how they all looked after a coat of flat black sprayed on... I used clothes pins to hold the individual blades for the FR 46/47, and tweezers to hold the Tamiya Mk1 parts.

Here's a close up of the Tamiya parts...

and the Airfix bits... If possible, I may end up using one of these De Havilland or Rotol style props on one of the Tamiya builds. Here again it will be determined by the markings I chose to use on the builds. I'm definitely building one of the Tamiya Mk 1's as "LO * G", and I'll build up the Airfix Mk 1as the early Munich Crisis plane with the two blade Watts prop, and black / white / silver dope undersides...

Speaking of the Watts prop... here's a close up.

Believe it or not, this was a lot of work getting all of these propeller parts ready to paint. I had to clean up the attachment stubs and a slight amount of mold seams on each part. The sanding of the filler on the FR 46/47 blades took some time too. Then the actual painting process was a little time consuming as I wanted to make sure that no places were missed with paint and that the coverage was good on all parts.

Calling it an early night, I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow evening I can start building up some of the cockpits... Time will tell.

As usual,
"Comments are encouraged"...

Amazing work, Louis. Wouldn't expect anything less. In terms of the Spitfire fuselage interior colo(u)rs, I understand (from the Vicker's Ledgers) that ALL Spitfire interiors were still painted green throughout the war, with the exception being the Mk IX, which was left bare metal from September 1943. I think many restorations are not 'authentic' due to the sheer amount of overhauls and inspections they need to be airworthy. Many of the fixed display aircraft are probably just wrong.

Here's a (possibly the most boring/geeky) link to Edgar Brooks 'Spitfire Notes' - he was (sadly left us) a foremost researcher on Spits. You'll find possibly every question you could ever ask about this beautiful aircraft (and more) here...

https://www.jonbius.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Spitfire-Notes-from-Edgar-Brooks-version-201804031428.pdf

Louis:

You. Are. Insane. Keep it up! 🙂

Tonight I made some progress with filling up some more plastic cups with Spitfire parts.
To begin with, I cut the cockpit parts for the Airfix FR 46/47 off the plastic trees and prepped them for assembly.

The parts for the Airfix PR XIX were up next...

After studying the instructions, it became apparent that I didn't have a Humbrol color conversion chart handy, so I went online and "decoded" the color call outs for the PR XIX.

Once this was done, I started gluing parts together for the PR XIX Spitfire that would be painted with R.A.F. "Interior Green".

I am very impressed with how these parts fit together, and how nice they look with all the details cast into them. I must say, Airfix has definitely improved recently. I was equally impressed with the BP Defiant...
Here's a few photos of the cockpit parts for the PR XIX Spitfire. I like to assemble things before painting if possible, as it makes for a stronger glue joint.

Instrument panel...

with the rudder troughs and control stick assembly placed next to it...

The seat. The instructions would have you paint it in a reddish brown color which leads me to believe it was a "plastic" seat.

I'll read the information you posted again David on the PR XIX Marks. I'm fairly sure this could be a correct color call out, as they apparently used several colors on these Spitfire seats depending on what materials they were made from.

The metal seats could have been found painted black, aluminum color, or interior green. The plastic seats were almost always left in the reddish brown color. The row of holes on the front edge were used to hold flares from what I have read.

This next picture shows the pilot's armor installed with the "Number 12" bulkhead and seat mount.

The compressed air bottle shelving has been added too, and can be seen in the next photo as well.

Next up is the camera installation frame work. One camera has been installed here, and the lens is facing me as I snapped the picture.

Speaking of cameras... here are the other two downward facing ones...

Here's a better photo that shows off some more of the details engineered into the camera installation.

That's it for tonight... calling it a day.

As usual,
"Comments are encouraged".