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I picked up these two second hand MkI Spitfires last year, after a long hankering to make a prewar two bladed prop version. I love the yellow bordered A1 style roundels the first batch delivered had, and I was a little disappointed the newest tool version I got first didn't have this option a couple of the earlier versions had. I was also gutted it didn't come with the original flat unblown canopy, just three very similar (to my eyes) blown canopies. The detail is amazing though. 2010 kit top 2015 kit bottom by Mike, on Flickr The second kit was the previous tooling from 2007, which was is much more basic, especially in the cockpit, but came with the squadron transfers I wanted. It also has the earliest flat canopy. MkI Spitfire transfers by Mike, on Flickr Instruction comparisons by Mike, on Flickr 2015 transfer options by Mike, on Flickr 2010 transfer options by Mike, on Flickr Spitfire MkI – 19 Squadron RAF, (1) by Keith Pharo, on Flickr Now, my initial thoughts are to build the newest tooling MkI with the transfers from the older kit. I'm not sure yet what to do about that blown canopy though, as I'd really like to do it with a flat version. And for the second kit with the older tooling, my plans are a bit more ambitious for a novice builder. I have always wanted to build K5054, in one of its variants. This kit has already been started, but thankfully the previous owner gave up quite quickly. This makes me less nervous about making a balls up of it! I've already got a bit of reference material to swat up on. Being a Southampton lad Supermarine is a pet subject. I'm guessing I'm not the first to attempt this, and I'll have a gander on here later to see how others have gone about this. My initial thoughts and worries - where to get the transfers from - how to make the curved windscreen - how to make the stubby exhausts - radiator - tail skid - colour - wing planking ... I think my basic skills will be more suited to later appearances of the prototype, as trying to replicate that bare metal finish looks beyond me. Also later versions will be closer to the production model. Some reading up required by Mike, on Flickr Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I, K5054 by SDASM Archives, on Flickr Well, here goes. First build of 2020. First 1:48. Well, since the 80's anyway. Even then I think I only made one? My mince pies are thanking me already.

Hi all, So after 7 months out of the hobby with a house-renovation move which involved packing/unpacking/packing again and unpacking again, i'm finally back to the hobby that keeps me sane in life. It feels good to be back. I missed taking part in (but followed with interest) lots of the GBs here during that time and this was on my plans but is only now finally seeing the light of day. So as a tribute to Edgar and all involved, I'm going to try and bodge a 1/72 Mk 1 Spitfire into the one that started it all off, the (Vickers) Supermarine Type 300. I'm also building this for a Spitfire GB on my own home forum in Ireland. Hello again Mr Worbench! Some notes to remind me of some of the changes I need to make... Before I go further, a big thanks to BM member and all-round decent bloke John (rs2man) who supplied the decals for this one - it wouldn't have happened without him. And thank you to all out there who've built this type, whether as a conversion or straight kit - your work, links to photos and passion for K5054 have really helped me prepare for this. I'm sure I'll make some errors along the way and my build won't be 100% faithful but I'll interpret the best I can! So made a start by tackling the top surface of the wings, filling in and sanding away most of the panel lines/access panels so I could rescribe back to the prototype version - left wing is done, right in progress. Did some small filling around the nose cowling and closed the flap on the radiator. Also cut out the cockpit access door and made a start on the cockpit. The seat should be less tall but I can live with it. (Note - I discovered the open door might not be accurate for the first flight but I'm going with it) And the top wings almost done. I used the scriber from RB Productions and it's a great tool. Thanks for looking and more soon! Dermot

Hi all, Some of you may have followed the WiP I did for this little Spit way back in late September, I managed to complete it in October, however I have been so busy with uni I haven't had time to get back home to get my camera. I just got back from uni today and I used the remaining sunlight to capture a few pictures! This build was bought about because I decided that I had built all the significant marks of Spitfire, except the first. I picked up an Airfix 1/72 Mk.I and simply went about rescribing and reshaping, that's all there is to it really. My thanks to the late great Edgar for providing me with information on this build (and all my other Spitfire builds for that matter). This one's for you Edgar! IMG_2905_zpszx14v1cl by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMG_2906_zps3hcdmy84 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMG_2907_zpsbmu8fxq2 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMG_2908_zps8qrzyeef by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMG_2909_zps5fvgepuz by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMG_2910_zpsmet7arl3 by Ben Standen, on Flickr Thanks for looking! Ben

Supermarine Type 300 Spitfire Prototype 1:48 AlleyCat There can't be many modellers that haven't heard of the Supermarine Spitfire, the brain child of a certain R J Mitchell that went on to become the sweetheart of the skies during and after the Battle of Britain. The "Shrew", as the Spitfire was almost called began life, in spirit at least, in a 1931 design for a fast modern fighter, for which he designed the Type 224, which was far from successful and was trumped by Gloster's Gladiator design in the end due to its poor performance. This seems to have spurred on Mitchell to create a sleek aerodynamic form with none of the characteristics of the 224, into which the newly minted Merlin engine was placed, shown to the Ministry, rejected and then accepted in 1934 with a contract issued for a prototype. On the 5th of March 1936 the prototype flew for the first time after which the test pilot Mutt Summers issued those famous words "Don't change anything". The did at least change the prop, and she flew again a few days later, testing the landing gear during the flight, followed by changes to the rudder to resolve some issued with sensitivity. She still wasn't much faster than her main competition the Hurricane, so changes were made to the prop, squeezing almost 20mph more out of the Merlin in level flight. After testing at RAF Martlesham Heath by the RAF, the first order for 310 airframes was issued, and construction of the Mark I Spitfire began, as did the problems due to Supermarine's lack of experience with mass producing aircraft. Sadly, the prototype crashed in 1939 and was a total loss, by which time it was wearing a camouflaged pattern and more closely resembled a production airframe. The Kit Although a resin conversion set has been on the market in years past, it has been out of production for some time now, and this is the first kit of the complete prototype that I am aware of in this scale. The kit arrives in a small white card box with a colour painting of the prototype in flight on the top, and inside are three bags of resin parts, a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE) parts, a length of brass rod, a bag of clear resin parts, a decal sheet, and an instruction manual consisting of three sides of A4. AlleyCat have chosen resin for almost all the parts, but a few, such as the landing gear parts and pitot probe have been strengthened by the addition of brass rod running through them for added strength and to avoid the concerns of thin resin parts deforming over time due to the weight placed on them. Four options are available to the modeller from the box, depicting the prototype at different stages in its evaluation, with colour schemes to match. There are three engine cowlings with different exhaust arrangements, two choices of windscreen, two rudder parts, a tail skid or wheel, and two types of chin intake, with notations next to the parts in the instructions telling you which parts were used by which scheme. The kit has been cast to simplify construction and reduce the number of parts, taking full advantage of the flexibility of moulds that allow undercuts that are difficult to execute in styrene moulding without expensive sliding moulds. Clean-up of the parts is quite quick, and can be done within an hour or so with razor saw, scalpel and some sanding sticks, resulting in a small pile of parts for your chosen option. Construction is very simple, as the fuselage is one piece aft of the firewall, as are the wings, with integral gear bays. The fuselage has a "skinned over" cockpit aperture to ease moulding, and this is easy to remove with a sharp scalpel, trimming it back to the side walls, which are happily easy to see. Inside the cockpit area is a wealth of sidewall detail including ribbing and ancillary equipment, with the rear cockpit roll-over frame built into the rear of the fuselage. The five cockpit parts consist of an instrument panel frame, cockpit floor with integrated rudder pedals, seat and seat frame with head-rest and the mounting bracket for the seat moulded in. Once built up and painted it is slotted into the cockpit from below, and the wings can be added, once you have trimmed and test fitted them together. It is quite easy to get a good fit at the wing root by repeated test-fitting and scraping of the joints with the edge of a blade until you are happy with the result. The tail planes slot into the sides of the fuselage in keyed fitments that prevent them being installed on the wrong side, and the rudder attaches to the rear, with a section of the top of the fin removed if you are portraying the initial scheme before the rudder was amended. Some small PE parts are added to the top of the rudder, and to the spine just in front of the fin, and then it's just a choice of skid or tailwheel. The cowling of the Merlin engine changed from an initial short oval individual stack arrangement to flush oval holes, and then a rather odd-looking cigar-shaped exhaust that has no visible outlets, so you must choose which of the three cowlings you'd like to use. The first two choices are single parts, while the third choice has a slot in the sides of the cowling and two additional parts representing the exhausts. There is a slight step between the cowling and the fuselage that may possibly be down to mould shrinkage, but it shouldn't be too difficult to resolve with some filling and sanding of the short seam. The prop is a wide-chord two bladed affair with a squat spinner cap, and glues to the front of the cowling as a simple butt-joint. If you want to make it spin, you'll need to do some surgery to the kit parts, such as installing a brass rod in the prop, sleeving into a length of tube in the nose. The chin cowling is the same for all options, but a choice of angled tube or shell-style intake under the chin is given, but with no notation to guide you in your choice. Under the wings are the radiator and oil-coolers, which are both drop-in parts that fit within the recessed engraved into the wings. On test fitting the radiator, the inner edge wouldn't touch down without a little adjustment to the part, so be aware of this before applying glue, and it needs a bit of extra head-room in order to fit. The landing gear legs have brass cores, as mentioned earlier, and fit into slots in the gear bays, with nicely rendered wheels that have a slight bulge at the bottom, the Dunlop logo in relief on the sidewalls, and slightly convex hubs. The first prototype flight was done without landing gear doors, so you can leave them in the box if you fancy tackling the bare metal/green shades, but the following two scheme had inner and outer doors, while by the time the fourth scheme was adopted, the additional weight of the inner doors had been removed and the familiar half-covered wheels were on view. The canopy is presented in clear resin, and there is a tiny gap between the parts and the casting block, which allows you to get the razor saw in there without losing and framework detail. They are nice and thin with a very slight bloom to the clear parts that disappears after a dip in Klear or Alclad Aqua Gloss. The original single piece curved windscreen is supplied along with the opening canopy and fixed rear portion, and for the final scheme, the bullet-proof glass has been added. These parts are quite different to production Spitfires, as the windscreen was given a sharper rake and larger bullet-proof screen area, splitting the windscreen into three distinct sections. The initial batches of Mk.I Spits reached service with the prototype straight canopy, but was soon superseded by the blown "Malcolm Hood" that afforded the pilot better visibility and allowed a little more head-movement to scan for enemy 'planes. The final act is to add the pitot probes to the port wing leading edge, the longer two-stage part is resin with a brass core, while the smaller one is 10mm long and the supplied brass rod is used to create it, gluing them both into holes in the leading edge of the wings. Markings The colour schemes for the prototype Spit are controversial and rely heavily on evidence of those that were there at the time, plus the error-prone interpretation of black and white photos. There are four schemes included, as mentioned earlier, from unpainted to glossy blue green and grey. From the box you can build one of the following: Eastleigh Airport, 5th March 1936 – all over natural metal with yellow/green zinc chromate primer on metal surfaces and aluminium dope on flying surfaces. Supermarine works, Eastleigh, May 1936 – High Gloss Blue Green with silver spinner tip. Hendon, RAF Pageant, June 1936 – High Gloss Blue Green with silver spinner tip. Black 2 in front of each fuselage roundel. Supermarine Works, Eastleight, December 1936 – High Gloss light blue-grey called French Grey. The decals are pretty simple for the prototype, consisting of roundels under and over each wing, with fuselage roundels, and serial under the wings, on the rear fuselage and rudder. The fuselage roundel and codes have a white outline that is supplied on the sheet as an additional white backing decal. The red roundel centres are also separate, so you'll have a stack of three decals on the fuselage sides. Decal quality is good, and due to the separation of the white outlines, registration isn't an issue between the black and white, unless you mess it up! Conclusion The very first Spitfire is now easily available in kit form, and won't take a whole heap of work to turn into a finished model. The resin is well cast, the part count has been kept to a sensible minimum to ease the job, so as long as you have a few tools, some super-glue (CA) and two-part epoxy for the larger joints, you shouldn't go far wrong. I suspect that the kit was patterned from a Tamiya Mark I kit, and can see a few tell-tale signs that's the case, as I've built two. To build the initial mark without the gear bay covers, you'll need to fill the two grooves in the gear legs, which are used to position the bay covers, but that's about it. A few air bubbles are lurking just beneath the surface in places, and can be filled with styrene rod and nipped flush for ease, but again – that's an expectation of short-run resin kits. Highly recommended – a good candidate for your first all-resin kit too. It really is quite simple. Thanks to Ali for the chat on colour schemes as well as the review sample, and to the folks at Alclad for confirming I'll be able to mix their clear green with their aluminium shades. Review sample courtesy of

Well I've been making the most of being stuck inside because of the rain... This is the obsolete Airfix Spitfire Mk.I (old tool ofc) and I had a bash at converting it. I admit, it is some what crude, however, it looks the part Modifications; Sanded all the raised panel lines and filled the panel trenches around the engine, The curved front canopy came from Airfix's XIX, the "un-blown" slidey bit and the rear bit (very technical) were thermoformed, The two blade prop was built from scratch, The rudder was altered, Undercarriage legs from the Heller XVI and the wheels had the spokes filled in, Scratch built tail skid, Cockpit interior had a control column and belts added, Pitot tubes came from bit of metal. Paint; Overall Hu90 after which I blended in various shades of greens and yellows to give the dirty zinc chromate look, Control surfaces painted with Hu11 for aluminium dope, The airscrew was painted with Citadel Snakebite Leather and given and oil wash, The cowl was painted with Citadel Chainmail Decals all came from spares other than the exhausts which were printed by myself (My thanks to Rick Brown for the jpeg). I think thats enough talking... Cheers, Ben.

Hi all, Found this Spitfire half built in a tin... Seeing as the old tool is so naff I thought I'd have some fun with it. Would anyone like to guess what I'm doing? What I've done so far is sand off all the rubbish panel lines and fill in the the huge panel lines as well as the exhaust. The Rudder is being reshaped too. Ben.