YouTubed!!!

In keeping up with the trend we have made a quick video of some action in the hangar.
Youtube
The young guy is John Mark our resident coke fueled volunteer who is learning the ropes doing everything from sheetmetal work to restoring or dissasembling old parts.Also good for getting bored quickly and finding him doing things we didn,t know existed.Anyway he is young and special thanks to his dad Steve for bringing up such a great lad.He also is a great volunteer and although a lot quieter does great work and his attention to detail is a great inspiration to us all..

More hammering

yep another frame and a half done..Frame 13 done and half of frame 12.Unfortunately some of the frames that were waterjet cut are done in T3 temper which means they are bloody difficult to work around the formers and lead to cracking issues.So making up the easy ones first..only one more weekend for us till we break for a much needed rest over the new year.Will keep up updates as we go..

hammerforming

A quick one as it,s late.Had a big day by getting the frames started to be cleaned up,meaning all edges polished with fine wet and dry to prevent stress raisers.Then set out the formers,assemble and start hammering..

MERLIN ARRIVES

Well the fly In flew past with a pace that took my breath away.will take me a while to get over it...BIG NEWS!!! Is that our Rolls Royce Merlin has arrived from down south.It is on long term loan and will be a big feature for the project.Big thanks to Ross Pay for lending of part of his late fathers collection.Also the long awaited arrival of all our Spit frames from the waterjet cutters.These will now be cleaned up and hammerformed to put on the jig.Any problems will be logged and corrected in CAD to be updated in the waterjet production files.

Countdown to FlyIn

Only two days to go till our annual FlyIn.Have been working feverishly to have something on display as with the jig all levelled up we are very hesitant to move it.So instead we will have a some of our more easily moved pieces on display and a nice write up on our aircrafts history.We will also be having sheetmetal demonstrations throughout the weekend to entice the handymen.
Fuselage wise we are in the process of pulling things apart ready for priming and assembly and the goal is to have the forward fuselage together in one piece soon.
Also the waterjetters have cut most of our frames so we can get our frames started finally.With the rivet holes already in position the fuselage will come together very quickly.
Also a Merlin 25 has been greatfully loaned to the project and will create much interest in time.
So if you are here for the Fly In please drop in and say hello...Till next time...

Researching our history

One part of the reproduction not many people know about is the history of the aircraft.We only know bits and pieces from RAAF movement cards,British records and other bits and pieces.We found the Squadron (54 Sqd RAF) the pilot who caused (directly or indirectly)the aircraft to come down from Darwin to 6AD oakey but one thing eluded us.Well two things.First was the aircrafts Radio Code.Second was the camouflage she served with.
A mate I am helping with other research swapped some info with one of his contacts and now we know that the code was DL-V and the paint she wore was most likely to have been British Dark Earth and Foliage Green uppers, with Sky or Azure lowers,and at that time she still wore the British code Br484..
Thank you to Buzz and to Mr.G,Birkett for the hard work in helping us out.

Lonely ole night.....

A very quiet weekend with very little happening.Scored a few more designs off one of our drafties,and started sandblasting a few of our original parts for restoration...Just a little bit left to do...Anyone like to sandblast???

Quick update

A quick mini update to say there are more pics added to the 3D and Workshop folders in the gallery.

Welcome to my nightmare

Well hopefully this will make it easier to view what we have been up to week to week.Plus it will give everyone on our team to interact with questions etc on the scratchbuilding of our Spitfire.
Yes this is no restoration,well a large part of our parts haul are original but the main aircraft structure is all new material,designed off the original plans as closely as we can to factory for a MkVc Trop.
Ok time to let you on what we have been up to scince our last update.Our webbie has been on holiday,a working holiday as part of the team recovering fallen Australian soldiers from WW1 Belgium battlefields.See his webpage in the links section.
Our crew have been pretty slack with real life commitments taking priority (no passion to the cause) but small gains have been made.The rollers have been working overtime churning out the remaining channels for Frames 8 and 10 and a great degree of skill is needed to make sure they fit tight to the frames.We are using 2024-0 for ease of shaping as the forces involved work harden T3 very quicly so cracks etc form ruining the part.
Lower front longerons are being drilled off so the frames at the front can be situated.
With so many jobs started we decided it was time to start finishing them off so we are going through the parts manual to see where we are going.A flow chart can then be made to see
Design wise the fuselage is pretty much complete with just the coaming and canopy rails causing us some dramas.Also all the intercostal brackets have been designed up and what a mongrel of a job that was.Also the top fuel tank is being reversed engineered off a welded MkVIII and a Riveted MkXIV tank to hopefuly give us a correct MkV tropical one.
The waterjet company (Thanks Ross and Murray) have the updated final set of Cad drawings off us and awaiting a free stretch in their work commitments.The set we have on the jig are a test set done in commercial grade to check the lines and longeron cutouts for position.The set we are getting is in 2024-0 and will have all lightening,intercostal bracket,buttstrap and longeron bracket rivet holes centred.Also some heavier shapes for castings are being cut to ease the machining process.Our formers are back from the Lazer cutters (thanks Mick from Dalby sheetmetalworks) and just need to radius the forming edges to give a nice neat hammerformed fold.
Lathewise our mad machinest has been finishing off the odd jobs we seem to find to make him crazier.As a drafty as well he does pretty good work and has a good attention to achieve the highest finish.When he needs a break he gets on the miller abd plays around and the current job is the dimmer screen for the Gunsite that bolts off the back of the Gunsite mount.
Anyway more stuff to get on with so welcome to the updates page,blog,questionair nightmare that is this project..
Cheers...
Ross

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