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Jabba, thanks for your appreciation

Thanks for the kind words, Cookenbacher

Hello again, I finished my Spit XIV over the week-end (RFI here, sorry for the self-publicity...), so I finally managed to start working on the "Shark Teeth" RAF Phantom. I started by cutting the canopy parts off the sprues. For this I used a mini-saw, and cut the sprue branches a bit away from the parts, in order to avoid damaging them, leaving a small stub. The following picture shows two of the parts already sawed off the sprue: IMAG2157 With the parts already off the sprue, I used the tools shown in the following picture to remove the excess plastic stubs. These tools were used in order, from top to bottom: IMAG2158 First, I used the x-acto round blade, with a rocking movement over the stub, just shy of the part's edge, in order to remove most of the stub without damaging the part. The result is shown here: IMAG2159 The remaining excess plastic was carved out using the nº 11 x-acto blade. To finish with, I used the sanding stick to sand out any remaining plastic and polish the part's edge. The final result is here: IMAG2160 The transparent parts were washed, with water and dishwasher liquid, and left to dry. Then, they were dipped in Aqua Gloss, in order to improve transparency and brilliance (together with the canopy parts of the other two British Phantoms I'm building). The set-up for this is shown here: IMAG2164 The parts were put to dry in the box on the right, which was covered to protect the parts from dust. After this, I cut from the sprues the small parts for the cockpit and main and aux air intakes. They were cleaned of moulding marks and glued, with CA, to the tips of toothpicks, ready for priming and painting: IMAG2167 I also dry fit the main aricraft parts together: IMAG2165 The fit is very good and there is only a small warp of the fuselage halves, which is nothing to worry about. I may have to fit a spacer in the fuselage, to avoid gaps in the wing roots. I filled in the hole in the rear cockpit's floor immediately, to avoid the problems I'm now having with the RN and Alcock & Brown Phantoms. This was done with a piece of plastic carved out of sprue, melted in place with Tamiya's extra liquid glue, then covered with Squadron's white putty, diluted with enamel thinner and applied with a paint brush: IMAG2172 I also used putty to treat the moulding marks in the main air intakes: IMAG2173 and in the wall panels of the cockpit: IMAG2174 That's it for now. Hope you liked it and thanks for looking. Cheers Jaime

Hello again, While I was finishing my Spitfire Mk XIV (RFI here, sorry for the self-publicity...), I applied a dark wash to the cockpit parts of the British Phantoms and left them drying. With the Spit finished, I came back to the Phantoms and cut the canopy parts off the sprues. Here is the sprue of the RAF's Alcock & Brown Phantom: IMAG2155 After removing and washing (water + dishwasher liquid) the transparent parts: IMAG2156 After drying, the canopy parts were dipped in Aqua Gloss, to improve transparency and brilliance. This was done simultaneously for the canopies of the three British Phantoms I'm building. Here's the set-up: IMAG2164 The parts were left to dry in the box on the right, which was covered to protect the parts from dust. Just like with the RN Phantom, I also forgot to fill in the hole on the rear cockpit's floor, since this RAF Phantom didn't have a rear control column. I filled in the hole with a piece of plastic, carved off a piece of sprue, melted in place with Tamiya's extra liquid glue. This was covered with Squadron's white putty, diluted in enamel thinner, applied with a paint brush: IMAG2171 This is now drying. The next steps are: - sanding the excess putty and polishing the area - re-prime the area - re-paint the area - re-apply silver dry-brush - re-apply dark wash Only after this, can I install the cockpit tube in the fuselage and close the fuselage. Thanks for looking. Cheers Jaime

Hello again, While I was finishing my Spitfire Mk XIV (RFI here, sorry for the self-publicity...), I applied a dark wash to the cockpit parts of the British Phantoms and left them drying. With the Spit finished, I came back to the Phantoms and cut the canopy parts off the sprues. Here is the sprue of the RN Phantom: IMAG2153 After removing and washing (water + dishwasher liquid) the transparent parts: IMAG2154 After drying, the canopy parts were dipped in Aqua Gloss, to improve transparency and brilliance. This was done simultaneously for the canopies of the three British Phantoms I'm building. Here's the set-up: IMAG2164 The parts were left to dry in the box on the right, which was covered to protect the parts from dust. I did a dry-fit of the main parts (fuselage, wings, cockpit, tail plane, landing gear legs), to check if any weight was needed in the nose, to avoid a tail-seater model. As can be seen, no weight is needed: IMAG2163 In doing this, I noticed that I forgot to fill in the hole on the rear cockpit's floor: IMAG2168 This hole is for installation of the rear cockpit's control column. However, most British Phantoms (both RN and RAF) had no rear control column, except for aircraft of the training squadron. Certainly not the specific machines I'm modelling. I knew this from the start but forgot to fill in the hole when I should... So, here's a set back resulting from bad planning, which will make me waste some precious time, as I'll have to redo the rear floor's priming, painting and weathering. I started by filling in the hole with a piece of plastic, carved off a piece of sprue, melted in place with Tamiya's extra liquid glue: IMAG2169 This was covered with Squadron's white putty, diluted in enamel thinner, applied with a paint brush: IMAG2170 This is now drying. The next steps are: sanding the excess putty and polishing the area re-prime the area re-paint the area re-apply silver dry-brush re-apply dark wash Only after this, can I install the cockpit tube in the fuselage and close the fuselage. Thanks for looking. Cheers Jaime

Keith, Miggers, Greg, thanks a lot for your appreciation and kind words. Thanks for pointing out those improvement areas. I agree that the harness is too big. At the time I only had some rather thick aluminium wire. In the meantime, I managed to find some thin electrical copper wire, which looks better at this scale (You can see an example in my recently finished Bf 109 here). I may try to replace the harness in the Spit later, but now I'm a bit busy with the Phantom GB. Regarding the hatch, I'm afraid it is OOB and if its out of scale, so are the cockpit walls and canopy frames, which are as thick as the hatch... I will leave it as it is but will keep a note on this for future Spitfire builds Thanks Miggers, I always try to research my models as much as possible and am very interested on the human factor behind the machine and the historical context. Regarding the nose of the Spit, this is Mk XIV, which used a super-charged Griffon engine, instead of the Merlin engine used in most previous Marks (the first Griffon-engined Spit was the Mk XII, and this was not super-charged). The new engine needed a 3-foot longer nose, with bulges over the exhausts to accommodate the engine's cylinder blocks. The Mk XIV also needed a five-bladed propeller and a bigger tail fin and rudder to enhance directional stability, due to the increased engine power. Maybe this is why some people refer to this as a "Spit on doughnuts"? I used this diagram as a reference during the build, as well as pictures that can be found on the net. The only correction I made was scribing some missing panel lines aft of the lower wing part, but it is possible that there are some other inaccuracies. Cheers Jaime

Thanks for the kind words, Val

Really stunning work, PlaStix, and the diorama with the Spitfire line up is superb Congrats! Jaime

Hi Dorbeck, I've just finished one of these kits in D-Day guise and it really is a nice kit with great fit and detail. Apart from the fit of the aft of the lower wing part, I only had problems with the alignment of the flat spots of the tires with the table top and didn't manage to make the propeller spin while ensuring its backplate kept flush with the aircraft's nose. I also rescribed some panel lines missing on the area around aft of the lower wing part. Good progress on your build. Looking forward to seeing it developing. Cheers Jaime

Rob, batcode, thanks for your appreciation, it means a lot

Thanks for the nice words, Dave

Great looking scheme Ced!

Thank you all for your kind words and interest

Jockster, Rob, thanks for your kind words

Roger, thanks for your kind words. Much appreciated. Jaime

Knight_Flyer, PlaStix, thanks for your appreciation

Hello all, This is my rendering of Spitfire Mk XIV of the 91 Sq, RAF, West Malling (codes DL-F, NH698), flown by Flight Officer Kenneth Roy Collier of the RAAF, as it was on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and the following days. Collier became famous when, on 23 June 1944, tipped a V1 flying bomb with the tip of his Spit's wing, making the bomb lose directional control and crash on the ground, without hitting its target. This technique was then adopted by other pilots chasing flying bombs. On 5 December 1944, Collier was shot down and killed in a dogfight with FW190s and Bf 109s over Germany. He rests in the Rheinburg Commonwealth War Cemetery, in Nordrhein-Westfal, Germany. This is a small homage to a brave young man. This model was built OOB, with the exception of the seat belts (made out of Tamiya tape and aluminium wire) and the bar on the cockpit access door (made out of stretched sprue). I also rescibed some panel lines missing on the aft of the lower wing part. The D-Day stripes were painted. The WIP thread is here. Here are the final photos. General views: Detail views: Port wing's upper surface: Starboard wing's upper surface: Starboard wing's under surface: Port wing's under surface: Belly and wheel wells: Landing gear: Cockpit: I hope you liked it. All comments are most welcome. Thanks for looking. Jaime

Hallo, this is the last post in the WIP, since I've finished the Spit yesterday. In the previous post I had chipped the painting and applied a good coat of gloss varnish for protection of the decals and in preparation for the wash. The setup for application of the wash is shown in the following picture. I used a "greased earth" acrylic wash by Vallejo: IMAG2086 I applied a sludge wash and let the model dry for 10 minutes. Here it is, while drying: IMAG2087 IMAG2088 After that, I removed almost all the wash using cotton buds soaked in water. The model became quite clean: IMAG2089 IMAG2090 Only a subtle enhancement of the panel lines and a slight superficial dirtiness remained, as can be seen in the following detail pictures: IMAG2105 IMAG2107 IMAG2109 I was a bit afraid of overdoing the wash, so I left it as it is shown above. Going forward, I glued the small parts in place, starting with the main landing gear. First, the legs, glued with CA for strength: IMAG2115 Then the wheel wells doors, also glued with CA: IMAG2116 and finally, the main gear and tail wheels, as well as the tail wheel doors: IMAG2117 The main gear wheels in this kit are pre-weighted, which is a nice touch, and come with locating slots to ensure they are glued in the proper position (there are mating pins in the gear legs). However, they didn't fit in the proper position (with the flat spots aligned with the table top). I'm not sure this was mines or the kit's fault. Anyway, I had to cut the locating pin in the gear legs and adjust the position of the wheels in order to make them stand properly on the table top. After this, I assembled the propeller. I had to glue it directly to the aircraft's nose, instead of using the small part that allowed it to spin, because I didn't manage to keep the propeller's back plate flush to the nose otherwise. Since this isn't a toy, that's really not a problem. I think I won't bother any more with these attempts to make spin-able propellers in future models. Here's the propeller fit in place: IMAG2118 and a detailed view: IMAG2119 I left the canopy's moving piece, the exhausts and radiator flaps to be glued in the end. Then, I applied several good coats of Micro Flat, in crossed directions, to ensure a good matte finish, and left the model drying for several hours. After that, I glued the exhausts in place and applied black and brown pigments to simulate exhaust and cannon / machine gun stains, dirt, airflow/rain streaks. I used Vallejo's pigments rubbed with a small nº 1 detail brush. The pigments were fixed with flat varnish diluted in a 60 thinner / 40 varnish ratio, airbrushed at low pressure (10 psi), at least 10 cm away from the model. This was done to avoid blowing the pigments away or diluting them in varnish. After a few more drying hours, I removed the masking from the canopy pieces and found that some overspray of the cockpit interior green managed to go under the tape. This affected all canopy pieces. The following picture shows an example for the rear fixed piece: IMAG2126 The overspray was scratched away with the tip of a toothpick, followed by the application of a few drops of Aqua Gloss (also with the toothpick) in order to restore transparency and brilliance. Here's the moving piece of the canopy: IMAG2127 To finish with, the moving piece of the canopy, the radiator flaps and the access door to the cockpit were glued in place, all in the open position. The bar on the inner wall of the access door was painted cockpit green to be historically accurate. Here's the final result. More photos are posted in the RFI post here. IMAG2128 This model took me about 6,5 months to complete but I did it in parallel with various other models. It was built almost completely OOB, except for the seat belts (made out of Tamiya tape and a bit thick aluminium wire) and the bar on the cockpit access door (made out of stretched sprue). I also rescibed some panel lines missing on the aft of the lower wing part. The most notable points of the build were the highly detailed OOB cockpit and the D-Day stripes, which I painted with correct widths and positioning, instead of using the decals provided for that effect. I'm pleased with the result, as I managed to learn a few techniques and consolidate others. I hope you liked the rather long posts and found them useful. Thanks for all the comments and encouragement along the way Cheers, Jaime EDITED: link to RFI added above

As I said along your WIP, I can't stop being amazed by the perfection of your build. I agree with others that said it looks like the real thing! I will now try to find a Fine Molds 109 and will keep your WIP bookmarked for future reference. Congrats on a superb achievement Jaime

Simply stunning! Excellent built , paint finish and weathering, simply perfect! Congrats! Jaime

Great progress, Steve! I've been eyeing this kit for some time now, and I'll be following your build with interest. Cheers Jaime

Thanks Nigel. I use Vallejo's pigments on matt varnish. They stick but possibly not as well as chalk pastels, because they are a dry, powder-like stuff. If I apply fixing liquids, some of them dissolve and look like paint. When I airbrush a coat of varnish, some get simply blown away. I may try chalk pastels in the future. Jaime

By the way Nigel, when you apply pigments, do you use any kind of fixing liquid? I've tried some but I haven't been pleased with the results. Jaime

It's a superb build of an awesome aircraft! Congrats! The WIP thread is full of usefult tips and will be a great reference for my future build of this kit. The only problem now is the bar has been put too high :-) Jaime

The paint finish and weathering look great! Jaime