Spitfire Simulator man building metal spit.

WOW looks fantastic..

Robert your spit looks fantastic!!:eagerness:

We’re a little bit behind…

originally I made my wing booms out of steel, (on a cost basis) very strong but you can barely carry two spars on their own! I’m now in the process of making new ones from alloy, it is unfortunate but my then metal supplier told me that the 2 1/2″ box was unavailable in either steel or alloy which isn’t actually the case; I reckon what with all of the reverse engineering and repair work, I will have done nearly twice the work!

That looks excellent Robert; I don’t think that using wooden formers is an issue, it all depends on what you want to do with it when it’s finished, does have a tendancy to make it heavy though.

You are quite correct a wooden fuselage frame is a lot heavier than an aluminium one. My tail section is difficult to move already without the tailplane. I will need to make another trolly for it.

That looks excellent Robert; I don’t think that using wooden formers is an issue, it all depends on what you want to do with it when it’s finished, does have a tendancy to make it heavy though.

Hi Robert ,have you any up to date photos of your own project, that you could share here?

My fuselage is not in the same league as yours. I have used wooden fuselage frames with aluminium stringers and sheeting. Working on a tail section, but its slow progress due to the weather. Cold wet weather means its too bad to work in the garage. Good sunny weather with no wind means its too good to be at home so I need to go flying!

You get those high back/low back drawings mixed up, there’s gonna be trouble!

Didn’t it start off as a Hurricane 🙂

Hi Robert ,have you any up to date photos of your own project, that you could share here?

indeed the same with our A58-27….

Although I have never seen Stuart’s Spitfire “in the Flesh” it has been an inspiration for my FSM.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]224161[/ATTACH]Thankyou guys, and a happy new year to you both.

I do seriously wonder where the last ten years have gone, but then again, the two years I spent in Suffolk yielded one weeks work, ironic considering one of the primary reasons for moving there, was a building big enough to complete the build!

Seen loaded (yet again) onto the trailer for the return journey to the promised land (Essex) you can still see the accident damage on the fuel tank cover and cockpit side, the extent of which required a new tank cover to be made.

Very nice Stuart!

Seconded – top work Stu! Happy New Year by the way chaps!

ATB

Ben

Very nice Stuart!

Have to say I have been mightily impressed with the work of Terry Arlow and his reproduction Mk IX MK805 – taken him over 25 years to build.

Here’s a picture of Terry’s Spitfire, towards the end of the build; (not sure if I took the photo or not, but the engine in the foreground was one I assembled from all the non serviceable parts that I couldn’t use in mine).

Gaawd isn,t every Spitfire a cast off from something else these days?Mate its a Spitfire and a damn nice one.To me each one is a hand built masterpiece.
LOL yep a decent cannon spadey would be great 🙂

Did they include the tail parts that you once mentioned to me?[ATTACH=CONFIG]224143[/ATTACH] One thing that has eluded me for ten years is a decent spade grip, might have to bite the bullet this year!

Very true; I once viewed a big collection of parts that had been manufactured to drawing, that the owner was looking to sell on. Although they were made to drawing, they didn’t fit anything very well, so it went no further. Probably still there!

Bruce

Thanks Bruce, the term is slightly misleading, as much of that which isn’t used by the industry, is because of the huge variation in fit and tolerance, cowlings being a prime example of this, but also steel fittings that have been jig drilled, because there was more than one jig, in more than one factory, and they weren’t the same!

Here’s one from ten years ago; scary!

Yes, nice to see you here again Stuart.

There’s nothing wrong with industry cast off’s – I once thought about doing the same thing – indeed I spirited away most of a rear fuselage not so long ago, only for it to be scrapped by the person storing it! Ten years ago, I reckoned one could easily build an ‘original’ Spitfire fuselage, just using parts rejected by the main players. Not so easy now!!

Keep plugging away..!

Bruce

Cheers Ross, here’s a couple more taken today now the light has returned![ATTACH=CONFIG]224139[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]224140[/ATTACH]

Once slightly uncharitably described as ” a collection of industry cast-offs, with the bare bones of a Merlin” by our resident spitfire expert, it now incorporates a substantial amount from one single A/C that force landed (not crashed) in Germany in ’44, and as such now uses that identity.