Spitfire VII

[Giorgio N]

Here's my fist work in progress on this forum, the old 1/72 Ventura Spitfire VII ! These Ventura kits have a deserved reputation for being the most accurate in this scale but also a reputation for being well, not very easy builds..

I have no older pictures, but here's where I was saturday morning:

Watching the inside of the wings show how rough these kits are on the inner surfaces. Plentuy of scraping and sanding the get the cockpit bits fit ! Then outside there are very fine recessed panel lines. Mind, the VII is probably the roughest of the Ventura spits...

Time to glue one wing:

Well, the fit is not too bad... let's glue the other wing:

Now there's a bit of a gap there, but honestly I've seen worse gaps in big companies injection moulded kit !Maybe the bad reputation these kits have is not deserved !

On to the tailplanes (I decided not to cut the elevators, as per many pictures of Mk.VIIs) and let's fill some gaps:

The undersides required plenty of filler where the wing meets the engine cowling, and there were some gaps behind the radiators. These are moulded with the wings, while are separate in other spitfires by the same company. The pink stuff is my trusted Isopon P38 car filler.. dries quick and can be sanded very well.

Just a note on the cockpit: a few bits are taken from other kits, the rest is scratchbuilt.

Now It'll be cleaning up some joints, glue the canopy, prime and paint. With Paddy's Day coming I'll have one more day to spend modeling.. especially as the weather will be perfect to stay at home ! Now i just have to decide, invasion stripes or not ? Ah, decisions decisions...

Giorgio

[quarryman]

looking good so far Giorgio, keep the pics comin'

[Mentalguru]

THis is going to be good- I just know...

[perry]

Looks great so far Giorgio!

[MikeC]

... These Ventura kits have a deserved reputation for being the most accurate in this scale but also a reputation for being well, not very easy builds.. ... Now i just have to decide, invasion stripes or not ? Ah, decisions decisions...

Giorgio

I built their PR19 once, so I know how much work they are, so great work sir.

As for the stripes, you could always compromise: partially paint the stripes, and add a couple of erks with paint-brushes.

[Troffa]

Here's my fist work in progress on this forum, the old 1/72 Ventura Spitfire VII ! These Ventura kits have a deserved reputation for being the most accurate in this scale but also a reputation for being well, not very easy builds..

Giorgio

I'm never sure about the spit in its "pointy wing" (thats extended tips in technical terms!) guises but your model is looking very good so far, Giorgio.

I have always struggled for decent references for the mark VI and the VII- what with the relatively small number of units that operated them- have you got aftermarket decals for that one or do the kit ones measure up?

Cheers,

Troffa

[Giorgio N]

Thanks to all for the comments ! Will keep updating the thread as soon as the work progresses.

About the references I'm using mainly two of Price's books on the spit, The Spitfire History and the osprey Late Mark Spitfire Aces. Together with a number of magazines and web pages. On the VII information seems to be sufficient, while I haven't seen much for the VI... I never really looked much into the VI though.

The decals coming with the kit are very limited, just roundels and serial number for one example. I have a KP decal sheet that has some interesting options, including Peter Brothers plane and another in invasion stripes, the famous "Spirit of Kent" with no stripes and one in standard dark green/ocean grey/ medium sea grey camouflage with standard wing tips. Problem is that I'm not sure of the right colour for the codes, and the sheet has no stenciling at all. So I believe anyone building a VII has to hunt around for decals... unless they buy the CMR kit of course.

Troffa, I'm not convinced myself by the pointy wing, was looking at the model and realised how they destroy the elegance of the design ! Yet the high altitude fighter scheme is so elegant !

Mike, that's a good idea about the diorama with the erks adding the stripes ! But I might save the idea for a IX..

Giorgio

[magnusf]

Giorgio!

Hang in there, there is nothing that beats a finished Ventura Spitfire! I like them a lot but have only finished one until now, the PR XI in Norwegian markings! But I have several more in the stash to build in the future.

A link to my finished Ventura PR XI

Regards

Magnus

[Oliver]

Looks good so far, i like the look of ventura spifires when finished (i built a Mk.22, posted on here somewhere) but i find building them is a right pain in the... those giant plastic worms on the back of each injection part i found rather annoying and tedious to get rid of.

[Harvs73]

For Mk VII aftermarket you can always do an Australian SQN in RAF service. Red Roo do a sheet for 4 different Mk VIII's of 453 SQN. I have attached a review of the sheet and some links to my versions in 1/48 of the aircraft in these markings.

Review

http://www.aussiemodeller.com/pages/Review...0Spit%20Mk7.htm

My ICM Spit Mk VII's

http://www.aussiemodeller.com/pages/Galler..._SpitMk7-1.html

http://www.aussiemodeller.com/pages/Galler..._SpitMk7-2.html

I personally like the Grey / PRU blue scheme.

Red Roo site

http://www.redroomodels.com/decals.php?decal=104

Edited March 13, 2008 by Harvs73