Beggsy

Good thinking! I got caught out by that one year, went to bed thinking "It's 3AM, I'll do the gallery tomorrow".

That chrome ink has worked beautifully!

I don't think I've seen an airliner in a blitzbuild before. Great work so far!

17 hours and 20 minutes of clock-time in, and it's done. Admittedly, that time included a lot of walking around the park, eating meals, cleaning the kitchen, and a few interminable waits for various substances to be dry enough to continue modelling. Anyway, here's my Spitfire Mk.I PR Type C. Airfix kit with Pavla resin parts and decals. Other than the canopy, which was unusable and replaced, the Pavla parts are very good. No blemishes that I could find, and very easy to fit. The Airfix plastic parts gave me more trouble than the resin.

Last bits and pieces done! Time for some sleep. Happy building everyone!

Progress continues. I got everything sanded, then used a leftover canopy from another boxing of this kit as a mask. You can tell by the colour that I've already done this for a Mk.I PR Type 1. The front canopy, unfortunately, decided to react with the masking tape. I'm working on producing another as a replacement. The fuselage was painted with a mix of 3 parts Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue to 2 parts XF-2 White. These went on over a base coat of black. I highlighted a few panels using a lighter tone. To do this quickly, I cut a right-angle corner out of a piece of cardboard and held it up to a few panel-line corners, then sprayed the lighter blue mix. I've just finished applying the decals. I used some stencils from the kit to supplement the Pavla ones. Pavla's worked very nicely, despite spending a few years ageing on my shelf. Not far to go now!

It's fighting me a bit, but getting there. Painting the inside went well, very happy with these results. I managed to force most of the gaps in the fuselage and wing joins closed, but I've puttied it up, just to be sure. I've also plugged the hole for the radio antenna and the guns. The resin bits went on pretty easily. The chin piece needed a 0.020" shim, which was easy to make as the mating surface was planar. I glued evergreen sheet to the kit, trimmed it to match, then put the resin onto that. It fitted nearlty perfectly. Just got to let that Mr. Surfacer dry now.

Time for a breakfast break: Then, onto the biggest bit of kit-surgery. Removing the lower cowling in readiness for the Pavla replacement part. On the real thing, I believe this housed a larger oil tank, since these PR spits had an increased endurance compared to the fighters. Them, it was off to the paint booth for today's first session. I've also started filling in the holes in the wings for the shell ejection ports. Once the upper half of the wing is attached, I'll use Evergreen rod to plug the gun holes in the leading edge. Next up is some hand painting of cockpit details, then closing up the fuselage. Making good time so far!

Time to get going! First up, that canopy. Both the Falcon and Pavla canopies seem to be designed for an older version of the Airfix Mk.I. Neither of them was remotely close to fitting around the windscreen area. I almost gave up, but then I had a look in my spares box and got lucky. I had previously built the Mk.I Early boxing of this kit, and still had a leftover canopy that didn't have the external armour plate. It was quickly sawed off of the rest of the transparency. Yep, I think this'll do. I took some sandpaper and tamiya polishing compound to that frame and it turned out alright. I used the back piece of the Airfix canopy too, leaving just the sliding section for the vac-form. I found the Falcon one clearer, so that's what I'll use. I gave them all a dip in some acrylic clear gloss. I think this has saved the build!

Gee, I've done a few of these now. Sometimes it feels like the only way I manage to actually finish kits!

How hard could a modern Airfix Spitfire really be? I've had this one, and the conversion parts, sitting on my shelf for a few years so it's high-time I built it. The all over PRU-blue should at least be simple to paint. Other than that, this may prove to be a bit of a challenge. The resin bits look good, but the fit may or may not be easy. The vac-form canopy may be a challenge (I have both Pavla's one and the Falcon one from the Spitfire Special set). I've interpreted the rules to mean that I can cut the vac-form piece out for a look, and it looks like it'll be a bit smaller than the opening in the fuselage, so some filling needed. As a backup, I may use the front windscreen from the kit, sanded smooth and polished to remove the canopy framing that isn't present on this particular Spitfire variant. Other modifications, courtesy of the resin, are a pair of blisters under the wings (one for fuel, one for camera), a slimmer oil cooler, and a bulged oil tank under the chin. Oh, and there's an improved seat and set of wheels, so I guess I'll use those too. Good luck everyone!

A very wise choice!

Having finally found a.copy if the Italeri kit, obtained decals to replace the dodgy RAAF roundels in the kit, ordered some resin parts, and then ordered them again after the wrong items were shipped.... ...I am honoured to be the sacrifice to the modelling gods this time around.

I've always liked the razor-back Mustangs, and I knew that Arma Hobby's was meant to be very good. However, with a stash and backlog that will take years to finish building, the fighter version of the kit never quite justified itself in my collection. Then I saw this boxing, and this paintscheme, and all rational decision making was abandoned. Bold colours? Check. Bare metal? Check. Kit with no known major flaws? Check. And so, it followed me home from the model show. Having brought a couple of second-place trophies home too, I figured I should give this one everything I had. In the end, though, I reminded myself that this is a hobby, and I was better off having fun than chasing the chance of an award. So, there are some seams not perfectly filled, lines not perfectly scribed and parts not perfectly aligned. But, unless you're a model judge, I don't think they're worth bothering about and I had a great time putting it together and experimenting with a couple of new things. Kit: Arma Hobby Expert Set 70040 Paints: Tamiya acrylics and Vallejo Metal Colour acrylics Weathering: Tamiya panel liner for the interior, Abteilung oil wash (buff and raw umber mix), Abteilung oil streaking (engine grease), prisma colour silver pencil chipping Decals: From the kit (lots and lots of stencils!) Additions: Brass rod replaced the landing gear door actuator rods. The originals broke off when trying to mask the gear bay. This is my second time trying oils for weathering. Some good, some bad. It was harder to completely remove excess paint after the wash than I expected, so I spent quite a while trying to un-grimy the panels. Overall, I think the wash has mostly disappeared. Some of the streaking worked out well though. Overall, the kit went together really well. Near perfect fit of every part. I only needed filler in a few small areas. Unfortunately, I've just seen that the fuselage seam has split right above the rear D-windows. That area was always pretty flimsy. I used the closed canopy part as a mask while painting, then replaced it with the open part at the end. That took a bit of force to get it in between the windshield and the D-window, so maybe that's where the crack happened. I probably spent 1/3 of the entire build time on the cockpit, there's so much detail in there. Careful assembly was needed to make sure it was all aligned before the fuselage went together. The paint scheme really did sell me on the model. I know very, very little about recconaisance Mustangs in China, other than that they looked pretty awesome! No bombs fitted, as I've only ever seen photos of the recconaisance Mustangs in this squadron with drop-tanks. No drop tanks fitted because I lost them. Maybe they'll re-appear one day and be added. The replacement rods attaching to the gear doors are visibly here. Maybe I should go try to paint them sivler, the brass is a little more obvious than I expected. Arma's detail in the wheel-well is phenomenal, and really does make it look like there are pipes and wires running off into the rest of the airplane. If you're at all wondering about buying this kit, do it! You won't be disappointed.

But if he wants to be historically accurate, now would be the time to do it. The Arrow was also cancelled in its prime! 😁

Heard this on the radio this morning. I met a man walking down the street in Paris, carrying a long fibreglass rod. I asked "Are you a pole vaulter?" He responded "Nein, I am German. And how did you know my name was Walter?"

Those are absolutely beautiful, both the real-life schemes and your rendition of them in plastic!

Here's my result. A good fun kit with some very challenging decals. Thankfully, I got those done before I was too sleepy! Kit: Tamiya 1/72 A6M2b Zero Time: 16 hours, 48 minutes. I've done 8 blitzbuilds now and I'm starting to finish them eariler in the evening with better results. Planning and experience are paying off!

16 hours and 48 minutes later - that's a wrap! My number of failed blitzbuilds is still "Zero" Looking forward to seeing the rest of your builds tomorrow, but for now I need some sleep! Beggsy out.

Well, the paint went on nicely. The decals were another story. The Tamiya ones took forever to let go of the backing paper and are super thick. Any that were placed near an edge (like the propeller blade tips and the red stripes on the inboard trailing edge) kept moving around due to surface tension. Meanwhile, the Print Scale ones wer the thinnest, flimsiest decals I've ever seen. The stripe wrapping around the rear fuselage took me 20 minutes alone to wrangel into position without wrinkels. On the right hand side, it's got an edge folded over itself that I just couldn't fix, no matter how hard I tried. I'm glad these are all done!!! I'm also not convinced that the shade of blue is even remotely accurate. Time to let them set for a bit, but it's getting close to done.

Hopefully this will add some tone and interest to the finish once the grey-green goes down over the top.

Ready for paint! The closed canopy is tacked in place for use as a mask.

OOB except for the decals and a canopy maks from Eduard (practically mandatory for a blitzbuild zero!). I'm going to decal it as Saburo Sakai's airplane V-103.

5 hours in. Fuselage still to go together and I'd be a bit nervouse normally, but I've mad good progress on all the fiddly bits that usually drag on for a few hours at the end of one of these. Wheels, gear legs, engine and propeller are all complete.

@emily kindly made me a coffee and chose a very appropriate mug. ' Meanwhile, the airbrush has been busy.