Jump to content

Spitfire Mk.IXc IDF, 1/72, AZ Model, FINISHED


Recommended Posts

Hope you dont mind guys if i start another topic here, this time with AZ Model Spitfire IXc. Bought this in duo pack, with IDF/REAF decals. As i m building just one of the kit, it is low enough under the 10 limit :)

I chosed to finish this in IDF version. In the kit there are two quite interesting IDF options, both spits have many panels "cannibalized" from other spits, so while most of the surface is in some kind of olive green, you can see there panels with desert camo or even left in bare metal. That should make the look somehow interesting, together with the marking being made mostly by chalk from hand. I ll do some research yet, trying to find out which panels were replaced and so, because as i saw around, some aftermarket decals have quite diferent paint scheme for the same aircrafts. But i think, if they were replacing the panels, it could vary by the time.

I ll finish this purely OOB, just to have some rest while working on my mossie, so i ll work on this just at the free time. So not a single wire, not a single evergreen ll be wasted during this build! :) I m sure if i used just a little of these, i wouldnt stop... :)

So, here goes quickly painted, washed and drybrushed cockpit. I tried to use oil paints for drybrush (trying to drybrush with acrylic tamiya/italeri paints drives me crazy.. the brush is literaly dry in few seconds doesnt matter what you do! :) ), buti have just like 5 colours here so it was not best.. :) Also tried to use the oil paints for seat, to simulate the laminated surface. For the back of the seat i used dark green, i saw some of the late spits used some overlay for that. I did also blind the exhaust openings a bit, the exhausts should be glued from outside but i was scared i would drop it inside later.. :)

001.jpg

Edited by Wolwe82
  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I did not updated this thread much i see, its because it was always just one part here, one there and i did not want to spamm it by making photos of "one more dot on the left wing".. So, now its a bit of progress overall, the fuselage/wing joint is sanded and polished. I added plastic strip where the trailing edge meets fuselage, to make that sharp line there, because it was too thick originaly. After a bit of putty added and some more sandpapering, its looking quite good i hope :)

Next i ll have to do something with the wing tips, these do not fit at all, so i made best fit i could on the top side and ll have to do something with the bottom side (aka more putty and sandpaper :) ).

Here is how the IX looks now next to my other build for this GB, the AZ model BF 109G-6

009.jpg

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Hey again guys, i did not have much time last week, but i m back again! :) And decided to finish the spit first, to make a bit of room on work bench for the mossie :)

Somehow i managed to lose photos of progressing (i thought i uploaded these to postimage already, so deleted these from my pc, just to find out the pics are not on postimage... ), so i m sorry but here is how the kit looks right now :) Experimenting a bit with various shades of the base green/grey paint, though it now looks way more green than it should probably.. :( but well.. for me it ll be ok. So here it is, next i ll mask some panels and make these in bare metal colour and also there were few panels taken from desert camo painted machines, so i ll add these too.

Fotografie_0002.jpg

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey again guys, i had some more free time today, so i did some work on the spit again. I was experimenting a bit with masking and salt for chipping (though i did it other way around now, painted camo, used salt and then airbrushed the metal colour to the few spots i left "free"). The extra panels were taken from wrecks and other planes (though it was not exactly like i did it, but the kit info shows it one way, book other way and people on forum says it even another way, so i do not care so much - simply, there were some panels taken from other planes and thats it), so i wanted to make these a with more chips and such. But for some reason, realy do not ask me why, the alclad II did not want to hold on the agama spirit colours.... i wanted the desert coloured panel to be realy heavy chipped, but most of the alclad paint turned into some kind of jelly on the agama spirit colours and went down with salt... so well, might just chip it later with brush.. So anyway, a bit of the progress is here

006.jpg

007.jpg

008.jpg

the chipping on the top side of the engine covering panel on the last photo was done by tamiya tape - not intended, but the tape took off a bit of colour there, so i thought i might as welll just chip it that way, but it did not work as good as i thought and after some time the colour did not want to go off at all (which is usualy good, yea.. :) ) so i had to do the salty way for rest there

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So a bit of progress again, it seems nothing is going the way i would like to... :( But probably its because i m rushing this one, worked on it yesterday to very deep night, i could barely keep my eyes open, but i wanted to clear the wash at least. Well, i did, today morning i gave it overall satin varnish, with the extra camouflaged panels taking matt varnish instead. But ofc, i noticed at some areas i did not clean the wash enough.. and its now sealed. This is what you (me) get when rushing.. bad bad me.. :(

About the satin varnish.. i m usualy using microscale, thinned by water and that one is awesome. But i got new vallejo varnishes to test (gloss, flat and satin), so i wanted to give it a go. The matt (flat) vallejo varnish seems to be ultra hard.. even thinned like 70/30 for thinner (either airbrush cleaner or pure water) it keeps making that whitening effect on surface almost instantly... The satin varnish is doing that too, not that much though but still it does. So i dont know what can be wrong (+ the vallejo satin varnish is making kinda too flat surface for my taste).

Anyway, here is the progress, next ll be u/c, aerial mast (btw anyone know how were the aerials on IX? from mast to rudder only? thanks :) ) and it ll be kinda done. I dont want to do any extra chipping on the greeen, just realy a little bit around doors and so, because it was primer colour and kinda new. Not like the extra panels, which were taken from non-flying planes or even wrecks .

Fotografie_0001.jpg

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry you're having problems with the varnishes but I have to say there doesn't seem to be evidence of any issues on the kit itself - looks pretty good to me. The various shades look excellent. Interesting looking Spitfire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had similar problems in the past with Humbrol's spray can Matt varnish - I'm always wary now when I'm using it. Wonder what the problem with them is?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the can it ll be in the layers probably, yea, from the airbrush i might need to thinn it even more, duno. For the 109 i used GSI flat from can, but i sprayed it into airbrush first and then airbrushed it on the kit. I ll have to check if i can get the GSI stuff in no-can version too.
As for the spit, a bit progress. Added U/C, did realy quicky wash/dusting on it, added MG barrels into the holes in the wings. And tried to make the smoke trail with very much thinned mix of black + brown + bit of white vallejo acrylics airbrushed free hand. I need a lot of practice for doing this succesfuly, but i have to start somewhere :) With the original "smoke" colour it was easier (it was more transparent), but as i have only the agama spirit based smoke, i wanted to try some other way (bcs the agama smoke is glossy... ). I think on the right side it doesnt look that bad, on the left side i had to repair it and thus i kinda overdid it.. :( Well, as i said, i have to learn it somewhere :) You ll see, after 40years i might be able to do it a bit better... ;)

Fotografie_0001.jpg

Fotografie_0002.jpg

I wanted to try to make the gun smoke trails the same way, but that did not work (i cannt handle such a thinn narrow lines), so i had to repaint the leading edge. But because i was mixing all the colours, i could not catch the exact tone, so i ll have to do something with it tomorrow yet, bcs the new area is quite too bright.

As much as i was happy with the decals on the AZ 109, the decals in this 2in1 Spitfire IX boxing are not that good.. Too thick, reminding me old Hasegawa (or maybe even new, i did not build hasegawa kits for ages), you can clearly see the decals are higher than rest of the surface.. :(

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very nice Wolwe82. re the aerials on the Spit MkIX, I don't believe that there was any aerial wire. See THIS LINK to The Spitfire Site, assuming that the IDF radio fit didn't have its own aerial wire that is.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting colour scheme. Looks great. I, too, have been having the same issues with Vallejo flat varnish- sprayed some on a black prop and it nearly went white. Don't understand it as I have used it before with no issues.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yea Alan, thats exactly the problem i had with it. I ll try to thinn it more next time and spray it in realy thinn layers (though im trying to spray as thinn layers as i can always) and hope it ll help.

As for the spit, its finished now. Built straight out of box, only additions were MG barrels into the openings in wings. And now when i m looking at the photos, i managed to push the outter ones inside as i was handling the kit by the wings... Well, i m not going to make new pics, ll take it as tax to my haste.. :(

The kit is not bad, but definitely not going together as great as the AZ 109. But it is still nice kit, mainly for the level of details. I got their joypack (3in1, no decals) by luck on some e-shop (they had last 2 boxes on stock and i could not find these anywhere around) + 1 kit left from this 2in1 boxing, so in future i m going to make more IXs for sure. Two things i was totaly not happy with - first, the canopy in box is THICK.. i mean, the normal parts looks awesome, the canopy looks like something which was in kits 30years ago.. thick, not much clear, with flashing all around.. But i guess some vacu canopy ll be cheap replacement. And second, the decals in this kit were also thick, did not settle well. But that again can be sorted easy (i see use for my airfix IX decals here ;) ) There were few tricky parts (wings/fuselage, wings tips, the radiators inside are too small for the openings), but these can be handled (and i ll handle these better on my next IXs i promisse, here i did not paid that much attention to it :( ).

So anyway, here are some shots, hope you dont mind a bit more images here :) I ll pick 5 for gallery ( see, i m learning! ;) ) later :)

013.jpg

016.jpg

017.jpg

020.jpg

021.jpg

023.jpg

024.jpg

025.jpg

026.jpg

027.jpg

028.jpg

029.jpg

031.jpg

032.jpg

033.jpg

034.jpg

035.jpg

036.jpg

AND.. i think i have to get glasses... I was looking at the kit box now, where the painting schemes are (i did not follow the extra panels exactly, i wanted to make a bit more extra panels than there was + as i was reading about this exact plane, the kit instructions for painting this one are not right anyway), and what i thought was aluminium/metal on the under side is marked there as light grey.. how could i mess light grey and medium grey colour on the instructions, i dont know.. sigh.. But i m not going to change it now realy, sorry for the fail :(

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks snapper, i agree its totaly different... ;) I should have more focus on the clean build, but as i was having in mind this is only test subject, i could not force myself to focus on it more.. thats sad because the kit deserves some attention, because its quite nice kit, if you give it the time. I hope next AZ spits i can make better.

Btw, i know i have the mossie here (and i realy want it to finish), but... as i was ordering the vallejo varnishes and 3in1 spit joypack, i ordered Airfix 109E-7 and Mustang too.. yea i m bad boy, but you know, when you get some box by mail, the bigger the better!! ;) So i wanted to ask if you would mind me building the Mustang as part of this GB too (still two months for the mossie ;) ). I just feel i did not do the best job on this (at least building wise) so i have the feelings like "i have to fix it fast!" :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...