Mk I Spitfire WZ.T Finished at last

[dadgaddad]

It's taken 2 1/2 years but she's finally finished. The upper surfaces were brush painted with Humbrol acrylics and the undersides sprayed with Humbrol and Revell enamels. Panel lines were washed with Citadel Nuln Oil and the whole thing given a couple of coats of Humbrol Mattcote which came up very nicely. Exhaust stains were black and grey pastels applied with a cotton bud. I added an Eduard etch harness to the seat and replaced the gunsight with a ring and bead sight made from wire and stretched sprue.

[Beard]

The time you've taken has resulted in a great-looking model.

[Learstang]

Lovely Spitfire! Inspiration for me to get back to mine.

Regards,

Jason

[Doug Rogers]

Looks fantastic, really like the early schemes.

[Spitfire31]

A lot of care and planning went into that one, that's clearly visible.

Excellent work! In order for more people to see it, you should post in the Ready for Inspection – Aircraft forum!

Kind regards,

Joachim

[dadgaddad]

A lot of care and planning went into that one, that's clearly visible.

Excellent work! In order for more people to see it, you should post in the Ready for Inspection – Aircraft forum!

Kind regards,

Joachim

Doh! I've just realised it's in the wrong place.

[Jonny]

I'm slightly curious as to why you've only put wing roundels on the upper port / lower starboard wings. A photo I've see of 19 Squadron Spitfires Mk 1 at Duxford (link below) shows roundels on both upper wings, and other photos I've see of Spitfires of that era show roundels on both lower wings too - the one on the lower port black wing being edged in yellow.

It's an interesting point (to me, anyway!).

http://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Spitfire/MkI-RAF-19Sqn-K/pages/Spitfire-MkI-RAF-19Sqn-WZ-line-up-Duxford-IWM01.html

[Edgar]

There is (at least) one other photo, of the Squadron in flight, which shows a mix of one, two, and no roundels, which could mean they were in the process of undergoing a repaint from four-colour to two-colour roundels. No sign of an underneath photo, but maybe the builder could be allowed a little artistic licence?

My niggles are with the aerial, which should be stainless steel, and the muzzle covers/powder streaks; pilots told how little firing they did before the war started (Bob Doe said he only put a single burst into the North Sea,) and the fabric covers were not normally seen until mid-1940.

[jimmaas]

Somewhere there are clear prints of the 19 Squadron formation of WZ era Spitfires. I just wish someone would publish them. In several sources (like old issues of SAM) some grainy shots appear. In one, taken from below, there are 12 aircraft. Of these four have vivid dark discs on the white starboard wing undersurface. Two others have faint discs, pretty clearly overpainted 'A' roundels. A separate shot of three includes WZ-B, with an overpainted 'A' roundel and a very dark rectangle, which leads me to conclude that the underwing serials (on the original silver unbderside) were overpainted with black before the switch to white/Night undersurfaces. As to the vivid dark discs, the simplest explanation is that these were 'B' roundels applied in the mistaken belief that they were called for.

[dadgaddad]

Thanks for the input. Edgar, it is an honour to have you stop by. After two and a half years on the shelf I was more interested in getting it finished so I knew there were at least a couple of inaccuracies. The aerial is news to me, though, should it be bare metal? If so, it's an easy fix as are the muzzle patches.

[Edgar]

As far as I can make out, it was changed to stainless steel from December 1938, complete with a new insulator and rudder attachment; maybe it had been copper, and couldn't take the continuous movement, so needed to be stronger, but that's just a guess. The aerial was, in fact, made up of several strands, but I think that's a step too far in 1/72, even 1/48, scale.

The short answer is yes to bare metal, though I've always found that stretched clear sprue can be quite convincing.