Jim Kiker

Hi Jeffrey, Beautiful work, that. Are you going to be vending at the Telford show this year? Thanks, Jim

Hi Phil and all, Here is the image I have from the Detail & Scale book on the P-39, showing the camera installation and cokcpit controls. Posted under private use policies and not for commercial purposes. If this is in error, I'll ask the mods in advance to take it down. HTH, Jim

Hi all, I've been having a look at these and other pictures of Mossies from these units. One thing I've noticed is that while many of these aircraft have had the engine exhaust shrouds removed, a fair number of them have what looks like a natural metal area round the exhausts. For those aircraft, the underside color seems more like MSG to my eyes. Conversely, when I see the same area around the exposed eshaust shrouds painted, the underside color looks more like Sky. Would this suggest that different airframes were getting top/bottom repaints at different times, or is this beyond our knowledge? I have also seen some sources suggest that the EDSG applied on the upper surfaces was at least sometimes done in a thin coat, causing the underliying colors to show through a bit. That would also tend to make the EDSG look a bit lighter, I think. Is that correct? And if so, would a second thin coat of EDSG make it darker and more opaque? Interesting discussion, I hope there is more to be learned. Cheers, Jim

Hi Mr. B, I quite agree with you that your spinner is now more subdued. If we may agree to disagree, however, when I get 'round to mine, I will go with dull red. That is what I see although that doesn't necessarily mean either of us is more correct, just different. All in all, a very nice conclusion is in sight! Cheers, Jim

Hi Mr. B, I have another plane from that unit in my stash which is marked very similarly. I have found several color pictures of these aircraft on the internet, as I am sure you have. One thing I noticed in those pictures and I think it applies to may Mediterranean-based allied aircraft, is that the spinner color is often not a bright red, but rather the dull roundel red. I plan on going with Dull Red on my own build. I also have a question for you. Are you planning on fading/weathering your markings to match the weathering you have done on the airframe? I am following your build with great interest! Thanks and cheers, Jim

Hi Iain, I hear you 5 X 5 (loud & clear), mate! Use what you wish or not, it's just information. I really do look forward to seeing where you go with this "do-over." Happy modeling, Jim

Hi Iain, Happy to oblige. First up, the wings. The grey lower Mk I wing in this pic has been corrected; it's the one on the left side of the picture. I used a Tamiya Vb upperwing in tan to show the differences. Here is a pic of the completed airframe; I converted the kit to a PR I. You can see the way the wing trailing edge is more slender, the longer rear fuselage, and the light grey patch under the rear fixed canopy section. Some details for the fuselage lengthening. As you can see, the cross sections are not quite the same, but there is enough thickness in the plastic is get this done. This picture show shows how I glued up the fuselage bits. I did one side of the fuselage first, using the kit pieces with alignment holes so I could tape them to a flat surface. Once they were cured, I use that side to tape and glue up the other side so everything would be straight. Once the joints were done, I flooded the inside area with CA glue and let it set up on it's own. This was my cushion in case the plastic got a bit thin where I worked the external contours. The safety margin that provided turned out to be a really good idea! Well, I hope this gives you an idea of what I did. The fuselage correction was some work, but I do like the way it improves the look of the finished model. And by way of encouragement, here's a shot of the finished Spitfire PR I. [/url] Hope you find all this useful in some fashion; I look forward to seeing your work progress! Cheers, Jim

Cplrafman, Well, several things, a couple easy and one rather less so. One thing I learned from the real Boffins is that the trailing edges of the wings are over-curved. This amounts to a bit over 1/32" at mid-span or so, at the line between the inner aileron and the outer end of the flaps. When I fix this, I leave the outer end of the ailerons where it is so it still fits the wing-tip, and the same next to the Wing root. In between, it's just re-doing the curve so that it is the more shallow in the middle, then re-thin the trailing edges from the inside. It really improves the look of the finished model. The outer leading edges of the wings are also a bit over-curved; these can be sanded back without going through the thickness of the plastic. Of course the Boffins will tell you that the fuselage is too short by about 1/16", and I agree with them. I still have several excess ICM fuselages, and if you cut the kit fuselage about half way between the rear of the cockpit and the vertical tail, you can graft on an ICM piece with the top and bottom matching up to the Tamiya fuselage and get the extra length. The cross sections don't line up perfectly, but there is enough plastic thickness to get them smoothed out. This is the hard one, by the way, but again it really improves the look of the finished kit. Finally, the area just behind the cockpit and below the rear fixed clear piece has been pinched in a bit so you can fit the kit canopy in the open position. There is a little rounded indent there; with an open canopy it almost disappears but that area should be flat, not dished in. All in all, fixing the wing trailing edges is the best single thing I'd suggest. If you are interested, I can supply pictures of all of these fixes. You may not care for any of them, but since you are re-doing this kit you may give it some thought. Oh, and some Ultracast goodies like a seat, exhausts, and wheels really put a shine on this pleasant-to-build kit as well, as you likely already know. HTH, Jim

Cplrafman, I see that you are starting anew on this most colorful Spitfire. Would you be interested in doing some additional work on the Tamiya kit's outlines this time around? If so, give me a shout, and if not, no worries. Cheers, Jim

Hi Murph, Some time back I started on a quest to do five different flavors of the Spitfire PR line. One of those is the PR IV, and I too wanted to do it in an unusual scheme. I wound up doing BR410 because someone sent me a copy of a short magazine article on it; it got the top color wrong, but all else matched information on the airframe from "Spitfire: the History." I finished her in off-white and Deep Sky with PRU Blue along the upper spine, based on two available photographs (could the dark color be Royal Blue? Sure, it is possible; to date no one knows for sure). Here is the finished model, from the Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk I: Notice in the two following photos where the sun is coming from, the lighter and narrow color on the spine of the aircraft behind the canopy, and the dark color on the upper front end of the fuselage and along the upper leading edges of the wings- between the two pictures all of this is shown without shadow as far as I can tell. Also note that I have not yet seen clear evidence that the roundels on these aircraft were painted in non-standard colors. That jury is, I think, still out, but one thing we do know is that orthochromatic film plays hob with the reds and blues. I chose standard roundels for this reason. See also the off-white overspray on the propeller blades; I take a picture of the plane with me to shows to prove I'm not just lazy, I'm observant! It is now my belief that these pictures are often mis-identified as BR416 instead of BR410. The copies of these pictures do not really prove either serial; they are too degraded to be certain. The magazine article I mentioned has the same side view as seen here, but again the serial is unclear. Why would I think this way? Becaused someone, Edgar, perhaps, later sent me this picture of BR416: This is an early picture of BR416. Note the lighter color on the top wings and fuselage compared to the other pictures, the lower demarcation line of that color and the very light lower color. I have no direct evidence, but I find it a little hard to believe that one airframe in the desert would have been repainted three times. A far more likely scenario is that BR416 started in this last camo scheme, and later became the overall Royal Blue seen in later photos. BR410 got the dark blue/off-white scheme. I also think both aircraft went through the 103 MU at Aboukir based on the Aboukir filters. In "Spitfire: the History" the section on PR Spits mentioned that a small number of PR IV's went through this MU and got some "hot rod" upgrades along with repaints involving non-standard schemes. So while this is not definitive information by serial number, it does hang together reasonably well. I stand ready to see all of this tossed into a cocked hat if there is better data to be had. On the other hand if I am mostly correct so far, then I think BR416 was likely not painted with Azure Blue; the simplest version of her picture suggests the original PRU Blue on her uppers with a thin white (appearing to be off-white) lower color. My guess is that both of these airframes received similar but not identical re-paints for some specialized PR work. What say you, gentlemen? Cheers, Jim P.S. to Edgar- thanks as always for your unflagging efforts to dig up more and more data and share it with all of us on the public boards. I wish I could return the favor!

Hi Richard, This is something of a sticky wicket, at least for me. I recently finished a Mosquito PR I using the same kit. I too enjoy spending time adding detail to the cockpit. I used the kit canopy pieces but do not generally do the future dip; it makes for a sparkly canopy which often looks out of place on a model with much weathering on it, in my opinion. I do use some plastic polish however. So, with the kit pieces polished up, the canopy looks fine but aside from the seats and the big radio box in the back, I am not able to see- clearly at least- much of the added detail in there. It was a bit disappointing for sure. One thing in the kit piece's favor is that it was fairly easy to tweak the fit and seal and smooth the edges of the clear piece all the way around; this gives a very realistic look to it when painted. If you can find a vac canopy, the thin-ness of the material will make the cockpit much more visible. The trick is, you need the standard bomber style canopy; it has a V-shaped front end (the fighter-bomber canopy has a flat front which you do not want), and it should also have the same two side blisters as the bomber canopy. And I hope I'm not preaching to the choir here, but I will also note that some of the cocpit framing is on the inside of the glass. It's not uncommon to see models with all the framing painted on the outside, which is not accurate at all. Montex and Eduard both make framing masks for this kit that have both inside and outside masks. They are not perfect but they do make painting the frames much easier that doing it your self. Looking forward to some piccies when you're done! Cheers, Jim

Hi all, A mate of mine who really knows his stuff has told me more than once that the red spinners we see on allied a/c in the Med were generally NOT painted in "red;" rather, they used dull or roundel red. Color pictures I've seen of these 40 Sgn a/c, while taken with a grain of salt, do not show a bright spinner, but they are much more in line with dull red to my eye. As for the camera this a/c carried, I have seen the port covered over with both dull red and camouflage color on different models. It seems to me though that a camera lens behind a clear side oblique port would be more reflective to the type of missions the airplane flew. Of course, I like doing recce birds anyway, but it would be another perspective showing the plane's history. Cheers, Jim

Hi Bruce, Hope you're doing well, mate! According to "Spitfire- The History" (aka the bible, small , the first two PR I's were indeed converted from Mk I airframes. At least for the wings, the shell chutes and gun barrel openings were plated over, and all of the gun access panels and most other panel lines were filled in with Plaster of Paris, sanded and smoothed out, and the entire airframe prepped and repainted in Camoutint Green (which turned into Sky, by the way). These first two aircraft were refitted with (I think) 8" camera lenses instead of the original 5" focal length, then redesignated at PR IB's. So the gun bays remained in place, but the wing panels were extensively filled and disappeared during the repaints. Need more? Give me a shout here or shoot me an e-mail off-board. Cheers, Jim

Hi all, In honor of the new Airfix PR XIX kit, here are a couple of pictures of my PR XIX built around the turn of the century. I used and made the best of the Academy 1/48 scale Mk XIV kit, which needed a fair bit of work to bring it up to standard. Even so, it was never the Bee's Knees in terms of shape, but not horrible if worked up. To me this is the prettiest scheme ever seen on the PR XIX; Medium Sea Grey/PRU Blue, and flown by Flt Lt Ed Powles out of Hong Kong, including clandestine flights over communist China, circa the early 1950's. Great aircraft + great story + great markings = wonderful modeling. I even got to talk with Mr. Powles about the markings for a particular point in time. A great thrill! Cheers, Jim

Hi mate, Nice nose art in the picture you posted. While I am sure the FAA Corsair boffins will be along soon, I think I am correct in saying that the birdcage Corsairs were designated Corsair I's and were only used for training. Vought-built -1A's and -1D's were designated Corsair II, and were painted in an FAA equivalent scheme of Olive Drab, Sea Gray (similar to Dark Sea Grey), and Sky Gray (a pale blue-green-gray meant to look a little like Sky). Corsairs built by other companies got different schemesincluding US Navy Gloss Sea Blue. The scheme for the Corsair II's comes closest to what you have asked about, and makes for an attractive and different combination. Some internet searching for Corsair II's ought to yield some specific information while you wait for the boffins to chime in. HTH, Jim

Hi Roger, I finished a Tamiya Mosquito recently and chose to replace the aerial mast for strength. I added some plastic underneath the slot in the fuselage for the mast in order to give it a stronger base as well. I started with a small wooden flat coffee stirring stick and cut it to the desired shape in profile. I drilled a shallow hole for the aerial with a #80 drill bit; this is much easier to do when the piece still has it's original thickness. I then shaped the piece into a sort-of airfoil shape. I coated it with CA to fill in the wood pores, sanded it back to smoothness, and painted it. Once I mounted it into the model I added the wire using invivible sewing thread. My reward? A strong mast, and not a single comment about the mast from anyone; no one recognizes that it's not the kit piece and that is just the way I wanted it! HTH, Jim

Hi John, Thanks from me too. I am feeling oh so smug to know that! Cheers, Jim

Hi Martin, Very nice work indeed, and it is the same one I have dreams, parts, and plans to do. Do you happen to have any in-progress pictures or descriptions of how you put this one together? I do not recall seeing anything in the Work In Progress section... Thanks, Jim

The caveat: I do not have exact measurements of the various camera lenses or the camera ports for the various Spitfire PR types. Back in the day I was a GIB in RF-4C's and did a lot of work teaching the camera systems and download procedures. Oddly enough, those cameras mostly ran 4.5" film stock and most of them had lenses about 6" in diameter; both of those numbers stemmed from the early days of WWII-era reconnaissance. I now have four Spitfire PR's done with a fifth in the stack. What I have done is to use 1/8" tube to make a 1/48 scale 6" lense body, generally attached to a scale 9" to 12" square piece of plastic to mimic the camera itself. I make the camera ports starting with a hole that is a scale 9" in diameter, since the opening is almost always a bit larger than the camera lense. I have been able to make the offset vertical cameras for the fuselage with no problems. These are approximations, but in 1/48 scale they have worked very well- no one has ever asked if these dimensions are right, nor offered better information to make use of. I tend to be pretty zealous with matters of accuracy, but sometimes close enough is, well, close enough! Oh, and I will note that in recent years the aftermarket has made PR and resin parts for the Spitfire's camera ports, and their camera port dimensions generally agree with my SWAG's. HTH, Jim

Hi Ossian, Welcome back to the modeling scene! I do not have anything much to add to what has already been written here, just a suggestion of two to pass along. As an FYI, I try to reproduce the effects of weathering, fading, stains, and so on as realisticly as possible in my modeling; I like to use the "art" techniques to replicate reality. In my opinion, some modelers perfer to use art for art's sake. That is OK for them, it is their model, but it often does not reflect the reality I have seen in pictures and in person. As a result, I suggest you focus on what you see in pictures, and when you have a question about "how do I do this?" it will be welcomed on the model boards. The next thing I would say is that we also need to be very careful about reproducing exactly what a given picture seems to show in terms of color. No one can correctly tell you what a given color is based on a black and white photo; one has to understand the time period, finishing practices generally in use, and so on in order to use a B&W photo properly. And the same can be said about color pictures; the filters used on the camera, the type of processing, color leaching, exposure errors, etc. can cause huge swings in how the colors reproduce, so just be aware of those things. Finally, I would encourage you to build as you wish, not necessarily what "everyone" is doing, for two reasons. First, the model is going to sit on your shelf, not one of ours, and second, "everyone" often bases their modeling on other models instead of available information and "everyone" is therefore often wrong. OK, Rant Mode- OFF. I am looking forward to seeing how your work progresses! Cheers, Jim

For Bryan, The early exhausts are a single outlet that is lower down on the side of each nacelle; you can just see them in the picture of the bottom. The exhausts were collected inside the nacelles and routed out; the single exhaust per side also had an opening at the front to allow cooler air over the collector. And you are correct; the early exhausts were quite different and caused a lot of blistering in the area due to the heat. The later stub exhausts (even with shrouds on the night fighters) was the solution to that problem. HTH, Jim

Hi Jennings, Glad you like her. As for "The Spook," some day perhaps. I have two Mossies already in the queue, a NF XII and another recce so time will tell... Cheers, Yoda

Hi all, I have been doing a project diary in the Work In Progress section over the last few days for my Mosquito PR I. We have arrived back at the present, so here are the pictures of the completed model. And a final one of the cockpit area... My deepest thanks to all those who helped me get the details right. That's all, folks! Cheers, Jim

Hi all, Re: Col's question, I started and stopped this project three times which really drew it out. Generally for a conversion like this it will take me 3-4 months if I don't get distracted too much. On the other hand, I let my intuition guide me and try not to force things along; it's still a hobby after *many* years! I love unusual schemes, and when I find a neat story of an airplane I'm interested in and add in an interesting scheme, I'm hooked. The only problem is, those unusual schemes can be difficult to pin down. Eventually, a round of questions here on BM brought help from the gents I mentioned at the beginning; a copy of the order for the camouflage that went on these first PR I's was turned up in the archives. I had stopped work at the point shown in my last installment because I wasn't sure of the colors so that was a huge boost. Based on that, the colors are Medium Sea Grey (MSG) and Olive Grey; the bottom color is very light and the best we could come up with was Sky Blue. Note that Olive Grey is a non-standard color; Nick worked his alchemy to determine it's shade, which is near Ocean Grey (OG) with an olive green cast. When W4051 went to the PRU to go on ops, she received a repaint on the bottom of PRU Blue. By the way, while I had excellent color data available to work from, I make no claim to have reproduced it exactly; but I will say again how much I appreciate being able to start with an idea of the correct colors. I will also note that the upper surface paints on these early PR I's had a very soft demarcation line in the pictures. I was able to spray paint the camouflage free hand. I started with the Mosquito day fighter scheme because it was fairly close to the pictures, and then partially re-drew that to match the pictures. For those that are interested, I use solvent-based paints and custom mix colors most of the time. I then use clear acrylics for a gloss coat before decals and second clear acrylic gloss coat as a sealer over the decals. I apply washes, weathering, and things like exhaust stains, and then seal it all off with a clear acrylic flat. I use the clear acrylics because they allow decals to settle into the finish, making them look painted on. All that said, I only have one picture of the paint work in progress, and at that the work was nearly done. Notes: I masked off the clear parts and wheel wells first, then painted the top camouflage colors, and then masked and painted the bottom. This aircraft received type A1 roundels with the wide yellow rings at the factory. After she went to the PRU, the yellow and white were painted out using dull blue and dull red, respectively. This meant that she carried non-standard fuselage roundels, and thus, no decals are available. I had picked up a masking set for the Mosquito markings which included masks for the A1 roundels. Therefore, I masked and painted all of the roundels and the fin flash. The code letters and serial number along with a few external stencils were done with decals. I also painted the area at the bottom of the mast in a dark ruddy brown; it's made from the same material as Spitfire seats and was left unpainted in the vast majority of cases, both on the Mossie and on Spitfires. As the painting continued, I finished the landing gear, wheels with the early spokes on the left side, and replaced the tail wheel components with Ultracast units. I painted the prop tips in yellow and the rest of the props and spinners with Floquil's Grimy Black, a very dark gray I like for "scale" black. A forgotten addition- back during the build I added a chunk of .040" plastic under the opening for the antenna mast. The kit mast has a very shallow pin to hold it, so I made a new one from a wooden coffee stirring stick. I made a hole for the rigging before the final shaping, and made the bottom end over-long. I slathered it with CA glue to fill the wood pores, painted it, and added one end of the monofilament before rigging it at the end of the build. It is pretty robust for such a small piece, much better than the kit piece. OK, this is more than enough words to describe the process of painting, we all have our ways to get there, this is just an explanation of my methods. Want to see her finished? I will add those pictures in the "Ready for Inspection- Aircraft" section so stay tuned! Cheers, Jim

Hi Woodie and all, Happy to obilge! In thinking about the landing gear, I decided to clip off the axle for the main wheels and substitued a plastic rod later. This allowed me to paint and wash the gear separately from the wheels and tires, but it also meant that getting the gear pieces together in proper alignment was more difficult. I decided to use the kit's gear strut mounts as a jig. I took care to clean off the fine mold separation lines on all the struts; while doing that I added tiny drops of thin CA glue to the smaller joint areas on the struts. This provided additional strength to the gear without detracting from the details. I added brake lines to the right side only of both sets of struts, substituted the resin mudguards from Ultracast, and added rollers on the front of each strut from white plastic rod and strip. The gear was later painted silver, washed to pop the detail, and dirtied up a bit before being installed. I used Montex masks on the inside of the canopy and painted the frames with IGG. Main assembly of the fuselage and wings followed. Before gluing on the wings I painted the landing lights and glued on the clear lenses. The lenses were fully faired in with CA glue applied around the joints, sanded smooth, and the lenses polished back to clarity. I glued in the resin back ends to the engine nacelles and filled and sanded the rather loose joints with Milliput; much sanding and minor filling ensued to achieve an smooth sweep of the modeled skin on all these new joints. I also replaced a lot of the panel line and rivet details that run right next to the nacelles; it is tedious work but it makes the conversion parts look like they belong there. Once the wings were on I fitted and added the prototype "short" horizontal stabs. The separate short elevators were fitted, pinned with small brass pins, and installed at the proper "dropped" angle. It's high time for some paint! Cheers, Jim