A group of Eight various 1/48 Spitfires………. Four Airfix and Four Tamiya, Mk 1 to the FR 46 / 47

Started by Louis Gardner · 332 ≡ · ↻ 4 years ago
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    Matt Minnichsoffer said 5 years, 12 months ago:

    Louis,
    This is an incredible WIP. Love all the research. I’ve found I have learned a great deal about war birds, operations, engineering just prepping to build a kit. Thanks for sharing.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    Thanks Matt for the compliments. This has been a great learning experience for me along the way too. I enjoy the research process of the building as much as I do the building. Luckily for me I have had several friends help me out along the way. So in the "helpful" spirit of things I have tried to pass along this new found information along during the build. Hopefully this will help someone else along the way in the future.

    I have managed to get some more work done on the Airfix Mk. V over the last few days. I just now have the time to post it.

    Please stand by for the next installment. It's coming up in a few minutes.

    Thanks again.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    As mentioned above I have made progress with the Airfix Mk. V

    Please follow along and I'll explain what I did and why.

    I started out by painting the area where the serial number is on the Airfix Mk V.


    I made a rookie mistake and failed to mask this area off before I started painting the gray over the top of the desert scheme.

    I used dry transfer letters and numbers to depict the serial number of a machine that was flown by George Beurling on the Airfix kit.

    I used these dry transfers for serial numbers on the Tamiya clipped wing plane too.

    The Tamiya plane now looks like this:

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    The next step was to somehow fabricate a set of letters "T L" since this is reportedly the fuselage codes used on EP 706.

    I scrounged the decals spares and found the exact letters I needed. But there was a problem.


    They were white in color and looked too bright when you compared it with the black and white pictures.

    So I tried out an idea that I had. I copied what the US Navy did with several night fighter F4U Corsairs in the Korean War and simply gave the letters a light over spray using the "Gunship Gray" color.

    I made sure it was thinned out to where it was almost transparent. The US Navy used Dark Navy Blue to tone down the fuselage code letters and insignia on the Corsairs.

    But I wasn't able to get it to look quite right. Something about it bothered me.

    To make things worse, part of the decals blew away and now it was missing a little chunk from the letter. I made a feeble attempt to fill in the missing parts.

    It looked horrible.

    So back to the drawing board ...

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    So I took out my masking tape and used it to remove the decals.



    Then I used a shade of light gray and roughly sprayed the letters on the fuselage.


    This still looked too light, so I repainted the letters using a slightly darker shade of light gray.

    I used FS 36307 Light Sea Gray as the darker shade. You can see how it looks darker and it's on the left side.

    FS 36622 Camouflage Gray is the original color I had used but it looked too light to me.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    The next step was to mask off the fuselage letters. For this I used Tamiya tape. I measured out how wide the letters were supposed to be and cut a strip using a sharp razor blade and a steel ruler.

    Then I used another piece of tape to use as a guide for laying out the letters.



    Once the letters were situated properly I removed the alignment tape.


    The next step was to spray on a light coat of Gunship Gray. I didn't want to go too heavy with the Gray.


    After the paint dried I simply removed the tape.


    A little touch up will be needed on the Starboard side "T". Once that's done it should not be too much longer and the decals will be going on.

    In hindsight I would really have been better if I had taken the time to mask the letters in the first place.

    As usual comments are encouraged.

    Thanks

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    Paul Barber said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    It’s a journey this modelling business, Louis! I find myself getting in and out of trouble on a daily basis! I’m on what seems like the hundredth redo of the painting of laminated props for the WW1 builds. I watch YouTube tutorials where it looks as if everything has worked perfectly first time! Perhaps it has. Your WIPs are always ‘warts and all’ and your mishaps rare and recoveries usually seamless. These are looking fantastic. I love the grey scheme, especially!

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    Tom Bebout said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    Nice recovery Louis, just like those road wheels on the Sherman, you have the technology you can rebuilt it.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    Thanks gents !

    I wasn't happy with how the dry transfers looked on the clipped wing Spitfire... something was wrong.

    Then it hit me. Please follow along on this next posting and I'll show you what was accomplished over the weekend.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    I was staring at the original photo I have of the clipped wing Spitfire. Something was not quite right when I kept gazing back and forth between the picture and the model.

    The size of the serial number letters was too small on the model. So off they came with some tape.
    I'm getting pretty good at removing messed up decals and dry transfers using the adhesive side of masking tape to lift them off... it's becoming an art form. 🙂

    Then I added new lettering using a larger set of numbers. This looks just about right. (Good enough for me)



    Then I started adding the "stickers"...


    and before I knew it, this one was done. I didn't add all of the stenciling, because from what I have been seeing in some pictures of the original Spitfires that were in service in the desert, these stencils don't seem to last too long in a plane that has been in service for a while.

    Here's the clipped wing Tamiya Spit. I'll let it sit overnight and hopefully tomorrow I'll spray on some semi gloss or flat clear to tone down the shine...



    Then it was time for the Malta Spitfire to get some decals... The same thing applied here with the stencils.

    But I changed it up just a little, and added the "Trestle Here" stenciling decals under the wings.

    and now we have another pair of Spitfires ready for some clear to seal the decals and knock down the shine.


    as always,
    Comments are encouraged.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    Today I sprayed the Tamiya flattening agent on these three Spitfires.




    I'm going to concentrate on finishing up the early Mk 1 so that all of the 1930's era planes were done for the Group Builds.

    As usual comments are encouraged.

    Thanks for looking.

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    Tom Cleaver said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    This is really very impressive, Louis. Crazy, but very impressive. 🙂

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    Chuck A. Villanueva said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    outstanding work on the Spits Louis. Just viewing the WIP from start to finish shows the passion you have for this hobby. The research, detailed steps on each aircraft the oopsies as well. No rock unturned. The standard of WIPs, allows a young modeler to learn about this hobby and apply these techniques shown. Thanks for sharing.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    Thanks Tom. I appreciate the compliments.

    Chuck,
    I thank you for the kind words. When I started this build journal I wanted to make it educational in more ways than one. I wanted to include a little history on the types and also add in some of the techniques that I have used.

    Some worked great while others not so much. I went into the details along the way just for the purpose you mentioned.

    I want to help others that have similar plans for building up a Spitfire or two. This article will be even better for me if it teaches just one thing to one person.

    Then I will have accomplished my mission. This would really be cool if somehow the build teaches something new to someone who is just entering the Hobby.

    Sort of like paying it forward ...

    Thanks gentlemen.

    Please stay tuned for the next installment.

    I somehow wrapped up another Spitfire.

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    Louis Gardner said 5 years, 11 months ago:

    Well I now have the early Mk 1 Spitfire finished.

    Now I can rest a little easier knowing that all of my 1930 decade builds for the 100 Years of the RAF are completed.

    Please follow along and I'll explain the last few steps.


    I added the two bladed Watts propeller. The exhaust

    The radio antenna mast and the pilots entry door were also added at this point.

    Now came the time to build up the main landing gear. I added some Bare Metal Foil on the oleo struts. This little touch goes a long way to make the struts look a little more realistic. It's hard to see, but it's there.

    If you're building up one of these Airfix kits, please be warned that the wheels are indexed and are installed in a specific order. The right wheel will not fit properly on the left main gear strut. This is because of the molded in "flat spot" on the tire. If these parts are not correct then the flat spot on the tire will show up and look bad.

    Now here comes the worst thing about this kit.

    Adding the main gear.


    Lots has been written by others on this arrangement. It's a rather weak design and is quite tricky to get aligned properly. There is only a flat spot and a keyed spade on the main gear legs where it attaches to the retraction mechanism.

    What I did was make sure that no paint was present on the glue surfaces. Then I used Tamiya plastic glue (the thicker stuff) and placed the main gear legs in position. I had to hold the legs stationary while the glue set up.

    Once the glue was starting to set, I added a little drop of CA glue to act as an anchor for holding the parts in position while the Tamiya glue completed drying.

    I placed the Spitfire on the stand so that no weight was on the gear as it dried.


    All the tiny parts were detail painted. The tail wheel, navigation lights and radio antenna was taken care of. The pilots canopy was added using Future acrylic as a glue.

    And then it was done !



    I might do a little more work on the Tamiya clip wing Spitfire... but I might also just call it a night.

    As usual comments are encouraged.

    Thanks again for following along.

    Here I definitely liked the Tamiya approach much better than what Airfix came up with.

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