How to correct the Hasegawa Spit IX fuselage?
Tue Sep 2 17:20:13 2003
I recall seeing somewhere on the ‘net an image of the Hasegawa Spitfire fuselage halves that had been cut up and shimmed out to the correct dimensions.
Does anyone out there know what I’m on about and, better yet, remember what the URL might be?
Roy Sutherland
Don’t bother… IT’S UNDERSCALE!!!
Wed Sep 3 11:52:58 2003
This subject keeps coming up. The problem is not that the fuselage is short. It’s underscale. That is; too short, too slim, too narrow, cockpit opening and canopy too small.
To the Spitfire aficionado, the Hasegawa Spit IX looks like a kid with really big ears (I should know!). Lengthening the fuselage will just create a overly sleek looking fuselage.
If you really want a good Mark IX, do the minor fixes to the ICM fuselage, add a vacu-formed canopy and stick it all on Hasegawa’s very nice C wing. Also, highly recommended are all the add on bits from Ultracast, as neither kit has a prop and spinner or exhausts that are worth a damn.
If you aren’t that fussy, build the Hasegawa kit and be happy with it.
Bruce Archer
Correcting the Hasegawa Fuselage
Wed Sep 3 07:49:32 2003
The problem with just adding a plug is the Spitfire rear fuselage is subtlety curved along the upper edge. Just adding a plug gives a “stepped” effect. The 4 mm ( it is actually 3.9 mm, not the 3 mentioned) is all along the rear fuselage. So a series of cuts would have to be made and the upper fuselage re-shaped.
Adding the ICM rear fuselage would do it (as per Jim Kiker) at a lot less money than the Loon fuselage.
Check out my comparison here on Hyperscale Hyperscale Regardless of what is said here, or what is told to you as the gospel, remember you should please you. Build what YOU want to build the way YOU want to build it.
Jim Kiker
One more thought…
Tue Sep 2 21:24:08 2003
I’m currently working on a Hasegawa Mk IX. While the fit is terrific, there are a number of minor things I would have preferred to have been done differently. Nonetheless, I have come up with one more way to partially solve the length problem that seems to be working. I compared the Hasegawa fuselage with the ICM one, and sure enough, you can see the differences. Wanting to be rid of most of the Hasegawa shortage but with a less invasive procedure than the one you asked about, I noticed that if I held the two different kit’s fuselages so that they match, in height, about 1 & 1/4″ behind the rear of the cockpits, that the ICM kit gave me about 1/8″ extra length.
What I have done is to cut all four kit fuselage pieces at that point, then matched the two Hasegawa front halves with the two ICM rear halves. I’ll use the ICM kit horizontal tails, and the Hasegawa rudder fits with only a little fuss. The fuselage panel lines on the ICM pieces that run front to back will need to be filled and rescribed, but that’s just four straight lines. Of course, this really only cures the length from the wing back, but it is an easy though incomplete cure. I had a couple of early ICM’s available which I will not use owing to their other problems, so I had a couple of excess kits to play with. On the other hand, the later production ICM kits have cured most of the sink mark problems, and they really do make excellent models. But I had this Hasegawa kit, see, and I wanted to try one, so this was my attempt to fix most of the problem with one shot. I also found I had to recontour the Hasegawa kit pieces just at the rear edge of the wing fairings, but again, it’s a simple thing to do.
By the way, the beautiful Ultracast resin under cowling pieces for the ICM kit will not fit the Hasegawa kit; it’s “too short” (by about .030″). I’ll replace the exhausts and reshape the kit’s spinner (the resin piece looks too small to my eyes, but your mileage may vary) and call it a Spitfire.
All in all, I agree with the Boffins; using a late production ICM kit is really the best way to go, but if you want to try the Hasegawa kit and you’d rather not totally hack up the fuselage, this is a workable intermediate method. I’ll post pics in due course.
Toby Nelson
Loon Models has a resin fuselage
Tue Sep 2 19:51:19 2003
…that corrects the kit; it directly replaces the kit’s fuselage. Check it out at Loonmodels
I saw it at OK City and it looked really nice–scribing matches the kit’s very well, and the casting was very clean. Can’t comment on the accuracy. It’s up to you if a “correct” fuselage is worth almost $20!
Bob Perry
I have that one
Tue Sep 2 21:33:41 2003
Bought it in an unaccustomed fit of extravagance. It’s a lovely piece of work and it certainly looks the part. It does include cannon bulges (drop fit is excellent) and different tailplanes.
I haven’t compared it to drawings, nor do I have a real Spitfire IX handy to compare. I don’t own a micrometer, either.
The kicker is, as you suggest, the price. That $20 US price turns into $30 Canadian, plus the bounty paid to the postman for importing it, and that took it to near $50 – against $30 for the original kit.
I’m not telling my wife about that part!
G. Boyd
Mix and match is my solution
Tue Sep 2 18:27:08 2003
I bought some Airfix Mk Vs which I will use rear of the firewall. Get the Ultracast nose, and use some of the wonderful sets out there for seats and cockpits–although the Hasegawa kit is very nice inside. Or just go OOB with a new spinner–I couldn’t really tell how far off the Mk IX was myself until some of the experts here pointed it out. Bob Swaddling and Derek certainly know the Spit by touch and by smell, so one must really respect their judgment on the matter. The spinner is a bit weird even to my eye. Still it is so much better than the early Monogram, Starfix or first-edition Occidental kit. I really love Hasegawa’s scribing on this one.
ICM kits are a tad cruder but correct in outline. I have seem some great builds of that one and some Dr. Moreau builds (get me off the island!).
The Airfix thing has been a dream of mine for sometime. Maybe I’ll do that next instead of one of the terrific 1/32 scale aircraft I have in the queue.
Bob Perry
Here you go
Tue Sep 2 17:30:43 2003
http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/ correctingspitfireix_1.htm
Derek Pennington
Tony, why bother. The total inaccuracy of the kit
Tue Sep 2 17:27:23 2003
is about 3mm, spread along its entire length. But if you are really concerned about the length inaccuracy, get yourself an ICM kit.
(thanks to Brett Green for permission)
