Building a spitfire

When we were asked by a local circus/theatre producer to build the skeleton of the front half of a plane we were pretty excited.

The project was for ‘The Little Prince’ a family fun circus musical at the Taunton brew house Will from Metta theatre approached us about making the plane part of the set , he wanted a sustainable but practical piece of set which could be moved around the stage, used to hold circus props and that the performers could interact with.

In order to make something light weight and of course within the budget of the small theatre production we started work on a 3d sketchup model. This was a very involved process, the initial sketches that we’d been given to work on resembled a spitfire so we decided that was the right direction to take the design. Sam contacted the vintage model company who were really helpful and shared drawings of a spitfire skeleton that they had used to produce a ‘make your own spitfire model’. Working with the show producer we came up with lots of designs and there was a lot of back and forth to try and get something that would work for the performers as well as keep the right style and look of a WW2 plane. Above you can see one of the later renders of the design.

The next step was to convert the 3d SketchUp model into CNC files, Over the years we have had plenty of experience with this type of work, We have worked on a similar project CNCing some dinosaur skeletons for a music festival called Standon calling. The process of drawing the parts with the correct slots so that it would all fit together nicely took some time, we used ‘dog-bones’ so that the CNC cutter takes a little more out of any corners in the slots allowing the pieces to fit together more precisely.

Once we had the files it was time to get cutting. The CNC machine (Collin) had a busy week that week. We had lot of offcuts from previous jobs and so most of the pieces we cut were from ply which we already had. Will wanted to keep to as many re-used materials as possible or wastage from previous jobs, This takes more time but obviously its great to use up all those weird shaped pieces of ply that have been sat in the offcuts rack for months and stops them ending up in the bin. The longer parts of the plane had to be cut from fresh sheets as we didn’t have anything long enough, we use FSC products so that we know our wood has been sustainably sourced.

After the pieces were cnc cut we then sanded them and cut the tabs which hold them in place during the cutting process. The first part cut was the main body of the plane so using glue, screws and nails we fixed it together, and we were pleasantly surprised that it all fitted together really nicely. We repeated the process for the cockpit sections and the wing. This was probably the quickest part of the project and before long we were admiring something that resembled the 3D model!

The wings and cockpit windshield required a little bit of work with a few extra supports being manually cut and added. The windshield would need to be lifted off by the performers along with the top half of the cockpit to allow room for handstands and other feats of strength and dexterity. This meant adding in some extra pieces of timber. We used quick release latches to hold everything together which would be strong and help the pieces to locate together properly but easily come apart when needed during the show.

Image taken from the Metta Theatre website

We also had to add the circus elements to the plane. The nose cone was actually made from a fruit bowl which we adapted so it could hold three lethal juggling knives, the wing had a cutout to hold a hula hoop, this was designed as a nod to the circular logo found on RAF wings during WW2. The landing gear of the plane was a unicycle which would be taken out and used during the show.

This was a really fun project to work on and we love the creative aspects of our job, working alongside nice independent companies to help realise something that looks good and works well for our clients is always something we strive to do. It was a pleasure! thanks for reading our first blog post.

here’s sam taking the plane for a test drive around the workshop