Airfix 1/48 Spitfire Vb

[nsmekanik]

This kit, as it turns out, has been my slump buster. After seeing a few threads of the latest Hurricanes and Spitfire 1/48 kits, I happened to be mouping around the LHS and when i ran across this kit. I was actually kinda looking for the Hurricane but as us loyalists happen to be at the end of the supply chain, the latest and greatest from Airfix is a bit thin on the ground around here, but I ran across this one in the pile next to the earlier release of the Hurricane kit. Having read Plistix's double Spitfire Vb thread I felt a bit inspired to give it a go and picked it up, sure glad I did.

At the moment all I have is an Android phone to access the internet with and unfortunately this forums smilies and picture etc thingies do not appear so I have to enter everything manually which is a real pain if not to mention slow . And, as I found out the hard way, when I close the page to skip back to my Photobucket app, I lose everything I've typed in......

Anyway enough whining and on with the build.

As I was playing around test fitting stuff I had taped the fuselage halves together and found that the cockpit tub would slide in to place fairly easily and snugly. Airfix would have you first glue the right side of the tub on to the right fuselage half, and then glue a small tank to the fuselage half, and then glue on the left tub and fuselage bits. The problem is that the tank won't fit between the frames in the tub.

Given where the tank is located on the fuselage, attaching it the cockpit tube won't change it's location enough to be noticed when everything is buttoned up and now the tub can be built up separately and inserted into the fuselage at a later point.

Edited September 17, 2015 by nsmekanik

[nsmekanik]

One of the issues with this kit is the pebbly surfaces, which reeks havoc with aluminum finishes. After trying Tamiya and then Humbrol aluminum I settled on the Testors Metalizer version which to my mind looks close enough to aluminum paint. And after going through the interior grey green thread I decided to use Humbrol 78.

Another minor niggle is that not all the panel lines line up, a particularly bad an most noticeable one is across the top of the cowling which needed to be filled and rescribed.

Edited September 17, 2015 by nsmekanik

[nsmekanik]

An important point brought up by Plastix in his build is the gap between the upper wings and the fuselage, his solution being to glue the upper wings to the fuselage before gluing them to the lower wing.

I found the fit of the wing to fuselage to be excellent and not at all difficult to line things up, definitely the route to go in this case and I'm really quit pleased with the results

Edited September 18, 2015 by nsmekanik

[PlaStix]

Good morning nsmekanik. Looks like you've made a good start with this fine kit. I thoroughly enjoyed building mine and I'm enjoying building the Mk.I version over in the Battle of Britain GB. I look forward to following more of your progress.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Blitz23]

Very nice start!

[nsmekanik]

Thank you gentleman, much appreciated

I'm going to have to look at the group builds more often that is some gorgeous work Plastix (thumbs up)

[nsmekanik]

I decided to tail end a bit added the tail planes, the underside was a nice tight fit but the topsides left a bit to be desired but nothing a bit of Mr.Surfacer couldn't sort out.

Edited September 18, 2015 by nsmekanik

[Biggles87]

Hi, you're setting a cracking pace there, I see you're another convert to the Plastix method of wing/fuselage joining. Is the radiator ''borrowed ' from another kit, it seems to be a different colour?

All the best

John

[PlaStix]

Progress is still looking good!

[nsmekanik]

Hi, you're setting a cracking pace there, I see you're another convert to the Plastix method of wing/fuselage joining. Is the radiator ''borrowed ' from another kit, it seems to be a different colour?

All the best

John

I hate to disappoint but actually its culmination of several weeks work. Unfortunately I made a wrong turn when I finished up my edjerkation and rather the pursuing a lucrative career in the Canadian senate where their expense claims are about 4 times my wages, I jumped intointo stupid a truck. Subsequent attempts at a career change have ended disastrously, however I am open to being a charity case if anyone is in need of one , in the mean time there will be extended periods of time with no activity while my bride and I enjoy a long distance relationship

Actually I'd thought I'd jump ahead and paint a few things like radiators props and the like, that particular item is done in Tamiyas Medium Sea Gray. Now I've only recently taken a serious look at my RAF color choices (having gone through the RLM and VVS nightmares) and as I had decided I wanted to the DG/OG/MSG scheme purchased the Tamiya paints, which I like using. Now for all the wonderful things we can all say about Tamiya products all I can say is whom ever is responsible for the color research in their line of paints deserves a good whooliping with a big stick.

Since I don't have any color chips to compare things to I've had to rely on others opinions of what paints are close matches in various threads so using this as a guide I did a bit of paint comparison, fist off, in relation to comment in one such thread, unless the Russian's painted their tanks with fishing trawler boat paint, I seriously doubt HU 30 could be used as 4BO green(tank painted in Akan 4BO)

Truth is whom ever decided that HU30 would be a good match for Dark Green needs a spanking as well, but I digress........

Starting from the top left, Tamiya Dark Green,Agama Dark Green, Floquil 4079, HU30, HU163, HU116,

Tamiya Ocean Greg, HU106 alternated to see the effect,

Tamiya MSG, Hu165

Hb 5 sky type S(Hu90), Hu90 the latest batch, Tamiya Sky, Agama Sky.

Testors RLM 63,Agama interior Grey green, Hu78 old, Hu78 new, Testors RLM 63, and at the bottom, Testors 63.

A couple of interesting points, Areomasters RLM84 is an exact match for Hb5 Sky Type S, where as HU90 "appears" to have a brownish tinge.

Areomasters Sky is very bright and much greener the most.

Testors RLM63 is a bit darker then Hu78, but it will do in a pinch if lightened a touch.

Edited September 26, 2015 by nsmekanik

[hurricane39]

Nice work so far. We can't all have it as good as Duffy and Wallin can we?

[nsmekanik]

No, apperantly not,and thanks

I've decided I want to use the pilot, unfortunately he's not one of Airfix's better efforts. A part of the problem seems to be that the seat is fully lowered, and the pilot seems to be sitting in the seat sans parachute, which to me wouldn't be at all comfortable. So installed as per instructions our bloke can't see over the cowling.

I would like to post some pics but as the internet is lousy here I guess that will have to wait.....

[nsmekanik]

The Airfix pilot is not that bad persay, a little soft in the molding maybe, but workable. Unfortunately however, he's worse than that little old lady whose head you can't see for the steering wheel as far as altitude is concerned so I think he's pretty much cut as far as being a plane driver is concerned. This is one area I would really like to see Airfix work on improving, I do prefer to have a crew in my craft even though most of mine are on a shelf.

In the end I settled for glueing a piece of sprue to his butt to help him sit high enough to look right err well not so wrong, after a bit of test fitting to see how it will all look I find that you can't really see much with him in there to really notice unless you are looking very carefully and given where this will be parked that's not a worry.

Other bits and bobs

[nsmekanik]

Alrighty then, after a short interlude I've managed to stick on a few bits, throw on some paint and stick on a few stickers.............The primary hold up being painting (the pilot, having previously being satisfied  with a dab of Testors "flesh"  it now strikes me that this would no longer suffice) and paint, specifically Ocean Grey. As I'm shifting away from enamels as much as possible and leaning toward the Latest in Lacquers, I was not satisfied with Tamiya's rendition so after a lot of browsing and after reading through Tony Oliver's Eduard Exotic Spitfire Sextet Extraordinary Exhibition (EESSEE) in 1/72 and Hataka Orange Line Lacquer paint Review I decided to give Hataka's line a go.  While, from what I can gather with all my reading Hataka's Ocean Grey is not a great copy either, it's closer and close enough for me at the moment, and as the bottom was already painted in Tamiya which is close I just left it as is.......

 

 

 

 

This was my first try at using this style of masking, and as there was a bit of room for improvement I settled on the DDay markings from the Xtradecal sheet to help hide a few of the ills 

 

 

For painting on the stripes I first masked and sprayed them and after brushed on the colors to get that brushed on look without a massive build up of paint, the method still needs a bit of perfecting  but I'm not unhappy with the results although in this case the unevenness is a bit exaggerated

And on with the stickers .....

 

And a bit of weathering, although this airframe was about 3 years old by the time it was flying over the beaches, from what I understand these were well maintained so things may be a touch over done

 

And then the landing gear, there have been a few that have been somewhat less then pleased with this bit of engineering fearing the thing would collapse under it's own weight, however I did not find this to be an issue. What I did find that bugged me about it was that if one isn't careful with the glue.......things could get ugly, but who looks under there anyways.........

  

 

And on to the finished product....

 

Of course after I finish building the prop it comes out that the decals are for the museum example so for the moment the wrong prop looks better then the right one, until I get around to fixing things 

 

Fortunately the pilot isn't all that visible..............