Mighty Mini Master Series Spitfire

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
You are the one designing and building the prototype man, you are the one goin through all the trials and tribulations, you post as long as you want. any piece of info helps others.

Hey have you ever thought of doing a build vid like @MiniacRC or @nerdnic. If you have already I apologize because I just haven't seen one before, but you really know what you are doing and I would enjoy seeing one.
I would like to try a build video, I tried it on the L-39 V2 and the audio was terrible, maybe if I can get a better microphone and a darker table because all the foam pieces were washed out on the L-39.
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
Alright so I got all the pieces for the clear canopy tested out, I haven't done any laminating because I don't really need them to test any of the parts.
I started by covering the hatch piece in a basic piece of posterboard, I cut out the little square so that it would be easier to work with.
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Then I taped on the rear window piece followed by the main canopy.
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With the main canopy still taped in place I marked the outline where it sat on the hatch, after I removed the canopy I redrew the canopy outline about 3 mm in, and cut along the line. I left the 3 mm gap so that the canopy will have a surface to get glued to.
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The exposed area will be the cockpit, I did a quick test with snoopy and it looks like he'll have shrink a bit.
It's funny to see how the pictures got worse and worse as the day went on because there was less sunlight so I had to start using artificial lights:LOL:

Now all that remains for me to do is design the wing fairings and I should be ready to finalize the plans!!
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
I've got some good news and some bad news, the good news is that I can start work on finalizing the plans. The bad news is that I have to start finalizing the plans...which I find quite boring:LOL:

To design the wing fillets, I started by glueing the wing from the first prototype onto the fuse that I used to test the opaque canopy, because that fuse has the belly sheeting on it.
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Originally I was going to remove the paper from both sides of the foam to make the fillets, but after talking to @Splinter189 at FF he showed me how to curve foam while keeping paper on the inside of the curve, so I used his method, although I changed it a little bit by removing a lot more foam than what he did when he showed me.
I started by trying to make the fillet that goes on top of the wing one piece, but at this size I couldn't manage it. So I elected to make it out of two pieces. It took me a little bit but I was able to get the first section designed and taped to the plane.
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From a top view it looks great,
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But I couldn't get the side profile correct. The tip is supposed to be lower on the fuse but I couldn't get it any lower because the foam would have to go from a sharp concave curve to a convex curve, and foam isn't very good at that...
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It's close enough for me and still looks good.
Then I moved onto the front piece the two little tabs at the front still have to be glued down.
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Here is the little bottom piece, this will have to oversized in the plans and get trimmed by the builder to ensure a tight fit.
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There won't be any updates until I start work on the build guide which won't happen until I finalize the plans...
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
Hey everyone, quick update
The plans are coming along nicely, but the wing fillets were pretty bad and I wasn't happy with them, and I thought I could do better. Turns out I was right:D
The new fillet only uses one piece of foam compared to the old one using two. It doesn't curve in as much as the old one, so it loses some scale appeal in that regard but everywhere else it's much more realistic. I started by removing the old fillet, this is why it is important to hold everything together with tape when you are prototyping something. I could remove the old fillet with two quick swipes of razor blade without damaging anything.
Here's the new one!!
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The front of it now wraps around the wing all the way to the belly, the old one stopped short of the LE.
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The TE shape is less curved now, but the side profile is much, much better
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(I had to hold it down with my thumb because the tape was coming loose)

I still have to make the bottom piece, but I probably won't post pictures of that...
Okay, now there won't be any updates until the plans are finalized:p
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
Beautiful work! It's a masterpiece! :)
By the way are there final plans for your mini p39?
Thanks!!
No plans for the P-39 yet, I got a little irritated with the P-39 because nothing was fitting correctly so I put it up on the shelf and worked on other projects. I'm going to get back to it eventually, but not in the near future. I'll probably pick it back up late winter when I can't fly. Plus I've learned a lot from the Spitfire, so if I had released the P-39 before starting work on the Spit it wouldn't have been as good as it could be.

By the way, how's the 190 coming along?
 

Robyle3

Active member
This was a fun read! I love watching design threads. Seeing as building (and repairing) is 60% of the hobby, I like seeing the passion for it shine through in how much care we all put into our builds.
How do you go about drawing a wing fillet? I've thought hard about it, but the best I could come up with is making some small formers and running strips of cardstock down them.
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
This was a fun read! I love watching design threads. Seeing as building (and repairing) is 60% of the hobby, I like seeing the passion for it shine through in how much care we all put into our builds.
How do you go about drawing a wing fillet? I've thought hard about it, but the best I could come up with is making some small formers and running strips of cardstock down them.

Well, it's probably not the most efficient method, but I what I do is: I'll start by tracing a general outline of where the fillet sits on the fuse and wing. Then I'll get an oversized piece of foam that I pre curve and bevel, and just start cutting away foam until the edges of the fillet lines up with the line I drew on the fuse and wing. Once the fillet sits nicely I'll take it off the plane, take a picture of it all flattened out, and then use the picture to draw a template for the plans.

Does that make sense?