Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk Vb - Completed! pg.18

[giemme]

Hi everybody;

here we go, back to aircraft modelling after a figure painting interlude. This time it's Tamiya Spitfire Mk Vb in 1/48, my first Tamiya kit and second Spit ever (first one dates back an era or so ... ).

The idea is to do an OOB build, meaning that I will not use aftermarkets, but I intend to do some scratchbuilding.

Here's the kit boxart

Sprue shots

I'll be doing this Aircraft (which is one of the options of the kit)

So I started with a quick dryfit of the main parts: fuselage

Wings

Wings to fuselage, showing a couple of points that will require a minimum amount of tidying up:

With tail planes fitted

I'll be largely copying from Stix's thread (here) for this build. Please feel free to add any comments/contributions to the thread; as usual, I'm mainly doing it to learn from others.

Next post is showing some initial surgery

Edited July 28, 2015 by giemme

[giemme]

Some surgery started last night; I've removed the wing reinforcement streaks:

Still a lot of tidying up to do, because I also scraped a lot of the surrounding area with the blade I used

(also some blood was involved)

All of that confirms an Italian saying, stating that one is not supposed to start anything on Tuesday nor Friday ....

The kit plastic is a tad too soft for my liking, but parts have little to no flash and fit seems generally very good. As said earlier, it's my first Tamiya kit, so that's what one should expect for, isn't that?

Ciao

[Val]

Looking forward to this

[Spookytooth]

After your Phantom , I will be following this build Giemme.

Simon.

[giemme]

Val and Simon, welcome on board!

Ciao

[PlaStix]

Well I'm definitely in for this one. At the rate I'm going you'll get yours finished before me!! I've thoroughly enjoyed building mine except for the decals and I know your planning on painting the larger roundels so you should be fine. Have fun!

[giemme]

Hey Stix, thank you for joining too!

At the rate I'm going you'll get yours finished before me!!

Naah, I don't think so, you know I'm quite slow But I'll definitely need your advice here.

I've thoroughly enjoyed building mine except for the decals and I know your planning on painting the larger roundels so you should be fine

You know, I'm even thinking of doing that also with the big code letters ... ... will see, there's a long way to go before I reach to that point

Ciao

[giemme]

Hi everybody; more work done on this Spit last night.

Again some sanding on upper wings (with my new Most Valuable Tool, an electrical toothbrush sander - thanks to Gene K for that! )

They look better now, but probably need a bit of putty before priming - I'll save that for alter on ...

More surgery: fin top connection for the aerial must go (left done, right undone)

in this case, soft plastic turned out to be a good thing

On with surgery: I replaced the molded rudder actuator with a piece of copper wire from an ethernet cable

(Stix, I'm blatantly copying from you here )

Cut the door open:

Made holes to later install the IFF system aerials

I've also started working on tail planes, to separate the movable parts in order to represent them slightly drooped, as they should be with the AC at rest. Question for Stix: did you cut yours completely off or left them "hanging" (if that makes sense)?

Ciao

[Homerlovesbeer]

Wow this build is going to be a real eye opener for me! I still am amazed with all the mods done to kits. Subscribed

[stevej60]

Nice one Giemme,looking forward to see your "treatment" on this kit,Good luck.

[giemme]

Nice one Giemme,looking forward to see your "treatment" on this kit,Good luck.

Hi Steve, thanks for joining

Wow this build is going to be a real eye opener for me! I still am amazed with all the mods done to kits. Subscribed

HLB, thanks to you too . Stay tuned, much more to come!

Ciao

[BOBO]

Who can tell me exactly which Spitfire version has these wing reinforcement streaks. I have only a guess as reason: Only Spitfire version (LF) has these strips for a low flying attacks? Or not?

It annoys me very much to remove these strips on Tamiya-Mk.V kits .

Edited March 26, 2015 by BOBO

[Val]

Hi everybody; more work done on this Spit last night.

Again some sanding on upper wings (with my new Most Valuable Tool, an electrical toothbrush sander - thanks to Gene K for that! )

That's genius!!! I'll be doing that myself!!

Val

[Gene K]

After your Phantom , I will be following this build Giemme.

Same, of course!

Gene K

[giemme]

Same, of course!

Gene K

Hi Gene, great to have you here!

See, I'm spreading the word about the toothbrush sander, it's just great!

It annoys me very much to remove these strips on Tamiya-Mk.V kits .

I feel you pain here As for which version of the Spit they were mounted, I wouldn't know exactly; I just checked that they were actually not there on the AC I'm reproducing (according to the kit instruction sheet, by the way)

Ciao

[PlaStix]

Hi giemme. Very nice detailing work going on there. And you copy away - I've 'borrowed' it all from everyone else here on BM anyway!

Kind regards,

Stix

Edit: Sorry I missed the question - I scored along the top - just going partway through with a craft knife until it was flexible enough to move but not so much so that it broke! I did a bit - tested it - did a bit more, etc. until it moved enough. Hope that helps.

Edited March 26, 2015 by PlaStix

[giemme]

Thanks Stix!

Sorry to bother you, have you seen this:

I've also started working on tail planes, to separate the movable parts in order to represent them slightly drooped, as they should be with the AC at rest. Question for Stix: did you cut yours completely off or left them "hanging" (if that makes sense)?

TIA

Ciao

[PlaStix]

Thanks Stix!

Sorry to bother you, have you seen this:

TIA

Ciao

With regards drooping the elevators:

Edit: Sorry I missed the question - I scored along the top - just going partway through with a craft knife until it was flexible enough to move but not so much so that it broke! I did a bit - tested it - did a bit more, etc. until it moved enough. Hope that helps.

I also meant to say I cut the short angled end section first using a fine toothed Xacto saw.

Kind regards,

Six

[giemme]

Thanks Stix; in fact, it's what I'm trying to do myself, even though I'm also scoring from underneath (and of course completely cutting the angled end sections); a bit of a chore, really.

I initially wanted to cut the elevators away completely, but then my concern was how to correctly replicate the hinging to the fixed part; I'll definitely go with your solution.

Thanks again

Ciao

Edited March 26, 2015 by giemme

[giemme]

Hi everybody;

work done on the elevators

They've of course also been cleaned up and sanded, but forgot to take pics afterwards.

Next I started tackling the cockpit; here I'm going again with one of Stix's brilliant ideas , opening holes on the rear frame:

Then I test fitted the main cockpit parts to the fuselage

I test fitted the wings once again, with the cockpit in place: looks like a tighter fit, probably the frames are prying open the fuselage sides a little bit. Any of you had the same feeling?

More cockpit dry-fit, this is to determine what needs to be painted and what not

I definitely need to work on those rudder pedals

Next update after the WE, which I hope you'll all enjoy (the WE, I mean, not the update ... ok, I'll get my coat )

Ciao

[PlaStix]

Good to see the progress on your Spitfire. The elevators look right - well done - tidy job.

I can't take credit for opening up the holes in the frames - I 'borrowed' the idea off other fine folk here on BM!

With regards the fit of the wings after assembling the fuselage; I found the tabs Tamiya provide seemed to keep everything in good alignment.

Hope the next stages go well.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Spookytooth]

Looks quite tidy Giemme mate.

Steady as she goes.

Simon.

[giemme]

Thanks Stix and Simon.

@Stix: you're right about the tabs; I only was under the impression that with the cockpit in place, the wing to fuselage join had slightly improved. Probably just an impression, as I said, because nothing is glued yet, so it might depend on how I aligned the parts.

Ciao

[Troy Smith]

Hi Giemme

if you fancy some ways to improve the Tamiya shape, I tweaked the fuselage in Plastix build thread

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234968337-two-148-mkvb-spitfires-tamiya-and-airfix-new-spitfire-collection-expansion-project-update-010315/page-3

Neat work, and the tamiya kit is very well engineered and fits, the new Airfix is very tight tolerance wise, and has a weird method for the UC legs.

cheers

T

[giemme]

Hi Troy, thanks for joining! I had, of course, already read your posts in Stix's thread (at least twice). I need to actually study them; the very first reaction was ... well, wing thinning on my RE2002 build seems now like a piece of cake compared to these Spit improvements

But I need to go through it more in deep; my major concern is not having a good reference to compare with (no drawings and no Airfix kit).

Ciao

Edited March 30, 2015 by giemme