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Trumpeter Spitfire Vb in 1/24th scale.


Alex Gordon

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G'day Chums,

Thought I'd better get this one off the bench being as she's been there for the best part of 2 years.

This is a build for a friend who wanted a Spitfire in Grey,Green and full overlord regalia.A bit of digging gave me an aircraft of 345 Squadron,AA847,which was shot down near Lille during July 1944.This fitted the bill nicely so that is what I went for.

The build stalled earlier this year when work became all pervading and the paint and decal job didn't come up to expectations.This is where we are;

 

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The squadron code markings,suitably doctored,came from the 1/24th scale Airfix P51 kit.These have a tendancy to flake off at the slightest provocation so careful handling is,for now,required.

I did a lot of work in the cockpit,scratching up pipework.wiring,a seat,the harness and a seat cushion.

 

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There is a certain amount of paint lift in places,coupled with my overambitious hopes that the Trumpeter decals would settle down over some of the more pronounced detail on the underside of the wings.

 

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Now we all know where we are I can pick this one up again and get her finished.

More soon chums,thanks for looking.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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Good work so far. Some of that paint lift looks like weathering to me but pity about the decals - will a coat of Future/Klear or something similar help the more fragile ones?

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Hello again Chums,

Col,the less I can put on in the way of top coats the better.A spot of nifty brushwork with a drop of Humbrol 90 Sky will do the job.

Woody,Rick,I built the Airfix job about 20 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.It has niggles but nothing a little modelling won't cure.I started another one about 7 years ago,converting it to a Seafire III,wingfolds and all.Haven't touched it for 5 years but I'll book it in for next years KUTA.

A bit done tonight,started touching in the blue and red on the underside roundels.This will take a few goes,to get the colour match right and to fill to the thickness of the decals.Had a go at the sky,the next go will sort that,and the black.I will acquire a drop of white paint and rattle that off later in the week.

 

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More soon,thanks for looking.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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G'day Chums.

kwaterous,the colour match is close out of the tin.The blue is Humbrol 15 Royal Blue or very nearly and the red is nearly Humbrol 19 Post Office Red but I don't have my tin of that to hand at the moment,just my tin of 174 Signal Red which is a bit on the grey side and doesn't quite match.

Not much to report really,just the death of a thousand cuts touching in and then allowing to dry.More or less sorted out the squadron code letters anyway.

 

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One more go and we'll be there.Then tidy up the green :frantic: .

More soon.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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Hello again Chums,

A spot of decalling to report this time.While yet another round of "let's make the paint thickness match that of the decal"was being allowed to dry I thought I'd slap a few more decals on.The upper wing roundels and most of the stencils were the victims of my attentions this time.

Any stencils that would have been covered by the Overlord markings were omitted just leaving the stuff that wouldn't have been overpainted.Is it me or is that another comment from the university of the blindingly obvious?

For now this is one of the upper wing roundels not long after application;

 

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A puddle of Johnsons Klear was placed somewhere near the centre of placement.The decal was then placed gently on top of the puddle,allowing capillary action to spread the Klear under the decal.With practice it is possible to put just the right amount of Klear in the puddle so that there is no wiping up to do.I have managed,more by luck than judgement,to do this precisely twice.A gentle press down with a folded pad of freshly plucked bog paper (straight off the roll,can't get fresher than that) picked up the excess and then a gentle wipe around the edge with a drop of water sodden bog roll removed any staining that would show on the paint finish.

I decided to jerry her up onto her mainlegs.This was more to massage my enthusiasm than anything else.

 

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She's starting to look the part.Legs are off again(splendid stuff is Blu Tack),paint finishing awaits,matt varnish and weathering to follow.

More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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G'day Chums,

A little more done.I gave the decals a good couple of days to sort themselves out and was rewarded with

 

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The decals have settled into the surface detail very well and I am pleased by this.This piccie also shows up my ropey masking and where I forgot to knock off the raised line of paint where the edge of the masking tape was.I'm not going to worry about this,a coat of matt varnish will probably do a bit towards hiding it.

On a profile of a Mk IX Spitfire flown by this squadron was a squadron badge under the windscreen,so I reasoned that this would probably be there on an earlier airframe.The shape of the shield was traced from a similar item found on the decal sheet for the 1/48th Italeri Mirage III E.

 

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The design was drawn onto a square of masking tape and then the outer edge was cut round to make the basic shape.This outer portion was then placed in the appropriate place on the fuselage.

 

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More later chums,back soon.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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Hello again Chums,

Had a bit more of a play this afternoon.

I needed some tiny wee little circles of masking tape for part of the squadron badge and had been puzzling over how to make these for the last few days.This afternoon the idea occurred to me that if I drilled out one of the holes in my SAM scale rule with a 1mm drill then I could use the back end of the drill bit as a punch to press out the required items.

 

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This was very effective,but would have worked better if the back end of the drill had been entirely flat.A new blade was fitted to the scalpel and then a length of masking tape slightly narrower than my newly made circles was cut.These were all then used to create

 

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I forgot to mention that I'd chucked a bit of white paint at it first.

So on to the the next bit of paintwork.Humbrol 48 Mediterranean Blue was sprayed on,2 coats in the space of 20 minutes.

 

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To my surprise this had dried sufficiently to mask off for the red component within a couple of hours so a drop of Humbrol 174 Signal Red was prepared and sprayed on.

 

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This is now going to stand overnight before I mask off for the edge of the shield.

Meanwhile,out at the far end of the port wing I had managed to snap off the business end of the pitot tube,to I chopped off what was left of it and made a replacement from a short length of solder.At least it's the right colour and won't need to be painted.

 

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A little tidying up should see this bit finished.

More soon chums,thanks for looking.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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Hello again Chums,

Col,glad you're enjoying this,for a first attempt at something like this badge I think it's going rather well.

Just a quick couple of piccies for now.

Masking off

 

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and after a bit of a sand down and titivate

 

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It needs a little more work and I know it's not quite there but I'm happy so far.

More soon chums.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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  • 2 weeks later...

G'day Chums,

I've been a little preoccupied just lately.Finding some time today allowed me to do something towards making the serial number.I don't have any relevant decals in the spares box so I'm going to do this the interestingly hard way.

 

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Not the most fantastic photo but please,dear reader,allow me to explain.What you see is the sheet of mirror glass that I use to lay out and cut masking tape.To the left you may behold the serial number portion of the Trumpeter decal sheet.I took a measurement from this to make the strip of masking tape that you see crossing the top of the piccie.This is mirror glass,my indisputibly inept photographic skills have shown this to be twice its breadth due to reflection from underneath.Please take it from me that the cut strip of tape is largely the same breadth as the black portion of the BR195 bit of the decal sheet.

Below all of that is a big white nearly square of masking tape with the serial number more or less laid out with lengths of said strip.This also shows the 8" height that this should represent.

A brief moment of trying to cut around what you see caused me to realise that thin strips of masking tape are not as solid a guide as a steel rule and ti was time to think again.

 

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A quick squirt of black with the airbrush (says he tossing the comment nonchalantly to one side) covered all with enough to work with.

 

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A little light freehand bladework,following the now very visible edge as described by masking gave me

 

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What I now need to do is make the little triangles to go into the A's and the 4.I'm not sure about the 8 yet,we should see a bit of it just past the edge of the white fuselage stripe but what I've made up is purely a spacer and entirely the wrong shape.A little toggling of position methinks,I'm just too idle.

More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

Edit,having just seen this in full post form I find that there is something rather Easter Islandesque about my masking technique and there is every chance that I will rework it 'cos it just does not look anywhere near any good.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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  • 1 month later...

G'day Chums,

Due to a severe lack of suitably spare time I've not been able to do much.I reworked the masking for the serial number and spray painted the relevant bits in the relevant places

 

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I'm not entirely happy with the result but a little titivation will sort it out.

I also started on the oil streaking underneath.

 

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I used little spots of unstirred Humbrol 10 Gloss Chocolate Brown and then dragged them about with a 0 hairy stick and a drop of white spirit.Again I feel a little refinement is needed.

The exhaust stubs are all that is left to make,the kit ones are fine but the individual fishtail stubs are more appropriate for this build and making 12 identical items is going to be a bit of a game.

This one will be finished and the piccies will go into RFI but there's a way to go yet.

Thanks all for looking in and thanks to Mish for all her hard work.

Edited by Alex Gordon
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