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Eagle Squadron Spitfire


spitfire

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Hi Jafajake, A long time ago I decided to be more friendly to my wife's very sensitive nose and switch to acrylic paints, naturally for my first attempt I used Xtracrylix and like you I had a nightmare with a clogging airbrush, in the end the paint finish turned out fine but I decided never again, so I stuck to enamels after that. I know that you can get all sorts of flow improvers to stop the clogging but it seemed a lot of faffing about to me.

Strangely enough it does not seem to be the airbrushing that causes the smell (I use Xtracolor's own thinner) it is the cleanup that cause the real damage so I switched from white spirit to Turps for cleaning the airbrush followed up with a squirt of Badger's airbrush cleaner through it to keep the air valve from gumming up, which I had a problem with when using neat Turps.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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And carrying on with the markings, I positioned the underwing roundel masks and removed the white and red centre sections, these were put back on the backing paper that they came from so that once the white is sufficiently dry I can replace the white section accurately and on the correct roundel ready to airbrush the red.

Before affixing any masks I detack them as best I can by sticking them on a window and using my fingers, hopefully this will stop them pulling off any layers of paint.

The centre sections of the fuselage roundels were treated similarly and then I attached the fin flash masks, with these I wanted to avoid having a layer of different coloured paint under the individual sections, so I will remove each of the three sections in turn and airbrush the appropriate colour then replace the sections mask. I started with the red section.

The pictures hopefully will show this a bit clearer.

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White and red sections of masks removed and white airbrushed.

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White and red sections of masks removed and white airbrushed, red section of fin flash removed and red airbrushed.

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Cheers

 

Dennis

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  • 2 weeks later...

With the white fully dried it was time for the red, Colourcoats RAF/FAA Red, so the white section of the mask was replaced, fiddley work but the lines that I drew on the mask helped.

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The bump under the wing needed to be accommodated so I slit the mask a bit and covered the gap with Tamiya tape.

 

The fuselage roundels white masks were replaced, and the red portion of the fin flash replaced ready for the white to be airbrushed.

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The red was airbrushed, note the curved p[ieces of tape to prevent any red getting into the join.

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Red airbrushed and the blue mask section removed.

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The red centre covered with Tamiya tape, all ready for airbrushing the blue, the white section of the fin flash has also been painted..

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The blue airbrushed and the masks removed to reveal the finished markings, there was some slight creep of blue under the mask on the white section on the underwing roundels but nothing serious.

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All done, just the codes and serial to paint now.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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Still slow going but I have been distracted, the builders are due in to build a two story extension to the house, the ground floor is a garage for my bikes and the top floor is a new study for me, however access will be via the existing study so I have been busy removing all the shelves from that they held my reference books, paints, and other stuff. These have now been boxed up and consigned to the loft and the shelves removed.

So on with the build, next up were the code letters, I spent a bit of time pondering if these would have been Grey or Sky, but in the end I went for Sky as I am working on the assumption that the aircraft had been given a new paint job.

So on with the masks, as usual I first checked for the correct placement and was shocked when I realised that the position of the XR on the Port side would not match the photographs that I have of the aircraft, I had been that focused on placing the fuselage roundel in the right place (overlapping the radio hatch) that I did not check the clearance for the code letters between the hatch and the fuselage roundel.

In the photograph that I have the X stops short of the cockpit hatch, but with the fuselage roundel in the correct position that is not possible, so I could either sand off both the fuselage roundels it has to be both as they should match and paint them on again or overlap the X onto the cockpit hatch.

I decided to take the easy way out and overlapped the hatch, but, and there always seems to be a but the Barracuda hatch is very slightly too wide for the opening on the fuselage so I could not put it in place to paint the codes, so I had to temporarily fit the kit hatch. The Barracuda hatch will be fitted in the open position so it's size will not matter on the finished article.

First up was to use some Tamiya tape to line up the top of the two masks, note that the tape lines up with the top of the mask and not the letters themselves

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And below with the XR mask in place, the Tamiya tape is just there to hold the mask components together while it is removed from the backing paper and applied to the model.

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And the port side masks in place, note the kit hatch and the X overlapping it.

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Masking all in place.

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And the finished article, I always remove the masking as soon as I have finished airbrushing as I always worry about ripping the paint off it it is dry, and I am impatient.

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And the other side.

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I'll now have a go at the stencil decals though this is the job that I least like as they always seem to silver no matter what I do with Sol, Set, and even floated on with a base of Klear.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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7 hours ago, Jaffajake said:

Lovely job on the roundels. She's coming up a treat!

Thank you, I am very pleased with them especially the fuselage roundels, they came out well.

I've started working on the stencils and I'm mightily pleased so far, I'm using the stencils from the EagleCals shett #158 and so far they are going on a treat, the acid test though is what happens when the matt varnish coat is applied

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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1 hour ago, elger said:

this has to be one of the best builds of the Revell kit. Great stuff!

Well thank you very much, that's very flattering, but I think I'd wait and see what it ends up like before casting judgement on it.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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  • 2 weeks later...

In a fit of modelling I got around to painting the serials, and applying all the stencils, and I've just given the model a wash down with a damp cloth ready for the varnish, hopefully I'll get to that today though the sunshine is making me want to go outside and work on the garden or get my motorbike out.

The serials took some serious patience as they are so small, after I had applied the masks and started to remove the actual figures the circles on the figure 8 kept on lifting off as well, so using a toothpick and a lot of patience they had to be replaced, this took two goes and two masks, it was a good job that Sean had given me spares !! The paint went down successfully but the numbers and letters look a bit skinny and the relationship between the sky band, codes and serials is not quite right on the starboard side but that is how they will have to stay as I'm not going to re do them.

The stencils are a mix of Eagle Cals, kit and Tally Ho decals and they seem to have gone on well, though the proof of the pudding will be what they look like after the varnish coat.

Here's some photos.

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Cheers

 

Dennis

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Wow Dennis,......what a beauty!!! I love what you are doing here, love the subject and as for those painted on markings,......they look fantastic! 

Good luck on the home straight,

Cheers

            Tony

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3 hours ago, tonyot said:

Wow Dennis,......what a beauty!!! I love what you are doing here, love the subject and as for those painted on markings,......they look fantastic! 

Good luck on the home straight,

Cheers

            Tony

Thank you Tony, I think that painted on markings in this scale are definately the way to go.

2 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

That's amazing, those markings look just like they were painted on. Seriously though, I don't know how you have the patience for all the masking.

Nearly there.

 

John

Hi John, thank you for the kind words, the patience comes from practice, at first I started with just the codes because I could not get the right decals for the subjects that I wanted to build, that went well, I was mixing them with decals for everything else, then I got brave and used masks for the codes and the two colour upper wing roundels on a Spitfire, then I moved on to 3 colour roundels which was great for French subjects and underwing RAF roundels. Then I got really brave and went the whole hog, but it did take a few years to get there.

Sadly I did not get around to the matt coat today as the sun was shining and I needed to finish working on my motorbike, as I have to do this out of doors I need to take advantage of any nice weather that we get, but I will get around to it tomorrow as they are talking about it raining.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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Well I did work on my bike and I did get around to giving the model it's matt coat, my cunning plan for this operation went slightly wrong, I had decided to airbrush the model holding it by the wing and then place it on the shelf on it's temporary "undercarriage" and airbrush the remaining wing tip, however the wing tip decided to give out, luckily it did not break off altogether but when I re glued it it was left a bit droopy which I am not even going to attempt to fix.

I left it to dry overnight and sure enough when I checked it the next morning some of the stencils had silvered, so out with a new #11 blade, a cocktail stick with an end cut into a chisel shape and some micro sol and off I went.

Once I had finished removing as much of the silvering as possible another matt coat was applied, and although it is not perfect it is a lot better than it was and luckily the Eagle Squadron badge did not silver at all.

Here it is after the first coat.

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Cheers

 

Dennis

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This is one of the best Spits I`ve seen Dennis,.....really looking forward to seeing it finished now,

Cheers

            Tony

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And on with the fiddley bits, prop, undercarriage, tail wheel etc.

One of my many not so favourite jobs is aerial wires, so Spitfires are good in that few of them have wires between post and tail, however there is still the IFF cheese cutter wires, I used the same technique on this one as I used on the two Mk. V's.

I drilled holes in the fuselage and the tail planes (with the elevators removed) then using some stretchy Aeroclub thread I fixed one end in the fuselage with some thin plastic rod and then threaded the other end through the tail plane and fixed it in place with some more plastic rod and all done and dusted.

Then I came to the under fuselage recognition light, this is amber, so I decided to use an amber lense (Little Lenses).

First up I had to drill out the clear plastic Revell insert, then glue the lense in place, I used the lense upside down after removing the silver backing, I did not get it quite in the centre but it's near enough and it looks far better than if I had tried to paint the circle in the insert.

The lenses with the kit insert.

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The IFF wires being fitted.

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Cheers

 

Dennis

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11 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Excellent! Now looking forward to the next one.

 

John

Thank you for watching John, the next one is all lined up, for this year I will be going Japanese and the first victim will be Hasagawa's 1/32 scale Ki 84 Hayate.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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Good choice, I look at mine in the box from time to time and think " I must build this, it looks like a great kit ".

 

Can I reserve a seat at the front?

 

John

 

PS I decided to build jets this year but I'm already suffering ' Spitfire withdrawal ' symptoms.

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Consider yourself booked in for a front row seat, and yes I am seriously considering the new Revell Mk.IX as an extra option.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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