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Height of the Battle - The Castle Farm Dornier


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After the 1/48th Airfix Spitfire build and being in the middle of the 75th anniversary year of the Battle of Britain I wanted to try my hand at reproducing an actual event from the Battle.

Inspiration came from within the pages of the Flypast special Luftwaffe Eagles. The article was titled Down on the Farm describing how, on 15th Sept 1940, two Spitfires from 609 Sqn forced down a Dornier 17z of 8/KG76. The article also showed two paintings by aviation artist Geoff Nutkins which depicted both the attack on the Dornier, called Height of the Battle and the scene after the Dornier had force landed on the farm entitled The Castle Farm Dornier. Both titles provide shortcuts to the relevant pages on Geoff Nutkins' website as copyright applies to the paintings (and I recommend you visit the site as there are some great paintings of which signed prints are currently available)

In brief the events in the paintings are described as follows:

Height of the Battle: Flight Lieutenant John C. Dundas and Pilot Officer Eugene "Red" Tobin of No.609 Squadron pursue a Dornier 17Z of 8/KG76 down the Darent Valley, Kent, September 15th, 1940.

The Castle Farm Dornier: Sunday, September 15th, 1940. A Spitfire of No.609 Squadron piloted by Pilot Officer "Red" Tobin roars over a crashed Dornier 17Z from 8/KG76. Smoke still rises from the crashed Dornier's starboard engine as the bomber's pilot, Feldwebel Heitsch is led away.

Heitsch and his crew were attacked by two Spitfires from No 609 Squadron over North Kent. After a low-level pursuit along the Darent Valley, Heitsch made a forced landing in a field at Castle Farm, Shoreham.

For this build I decided on 1/72 scale and wanted to use the newer mould Airfix Spitfire Mk1a and the new Airfix Dornier 17z

I purchased 2 Spitfire starter sets for the build and was already in posession of both the individual Do17z and the Dogfight Double boxing with the Defiant.

I also purchased Peewit mask set for the Dornier as well as Techmod decal sets for the Dornier and stencils for the spitfires along with Xtradecal and Sky models decals for the Spitfires.

After a certain amount of detective work I found enough information to deduce that John Dundas was flying PR.T SN R6922 and that Eugene Tobin was flying PR.C (if the painting is correct) SN K9997 (Tobin was definitely flying this aircraft because, on his return to the airfield the following occurred: 1230hrs: Middle Wallop. Spitfire K9997. 609 Squadron Warmwell
P/O E.Q.Tobin unhurt. (Crashed into airfield truck on landing approach)
.)

I started on the Spitfires pre-painting the interior green and applying an oil wash

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Although the moulding for the aircraft were quite nice and sharp the same could not be said of the pilots who looked half melted.

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So I raided the Boulton Paul Defiant kits for the pilot figures (Yep I had 2 of them too :winkgrin:) which were much better.

Getting carried away I decided to drill the lenses on the goggles to try to give them more depth.

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Makeup on and sink mark addressed

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And dressed to kill

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The office painted and assembled (the other one was the same..trust me)

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Fuselage halves assembled and thin clear acetate (I think) for the gunsights.

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Wings thrown on with wild abandon (the fit on this kit is brilliant) and the control surfaces deflected as this guy was going to be banking away to the left.

Canopies on and yellow tips to the props sprayed.

BTW I had heard that some people had experienced fit issues especially with the canopies.

I have found that careful cleanup of the mould seams allows everything to fit very precisely.

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A little smear of filler here and there but otherwise the fit was excellent.

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Props received a coat of Tamiya Rubber Black after tips masked off.

And the result after the masks came off...

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Canopies and other apertures masked off with Tamiya Tape, new sharp scalpel blade, geek goggles set to maximum mag and a Vallium sandwich.

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A nice clean coat of Halfords primer (cue your choice of any track from the Beatles' psychedelic phase.. that stuff is pungent!)

Phil's Tip No.1: If you value your marriage, spray the primer outside!

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Matt aluminium coat along with the preshade and we are ready for the camo.

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Because this build was so lengthy I'll break here and continue once I have received an infusion of tea.

All comments welcome

Edited by Phil Lewis
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looking good Phil

one point you may find of use is that apart from the cockpit all the rest of the internals of the Spitfire, (and most other British planes in early ww2) were finished in aluminium paint.

The outer wheel well where the wheel goes is the underside colour, from looking at various photos.

Links on various related subjects here

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234990780-spitfire-mkii-undercarriage-colour-question/#entry2142850

HTH

T

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looking good Phil

one point you may find of use is that apart from the cockpit all the rest of the internals of the Spitfire, (and most other British planes in early ww2) were finished in aluminium paint.

The outer wheel well where the wheel goes is the underside colour, from looking at various photos.

Links on various related subjects here

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234990780-spitfire-mkii-undercarriage-colour-question/#entry2142850

HTH

T

Yes I did find that out later in the build but after the spitfires were mostly complete and it was too late to do anything about it.

Also as the wheels were up and the canopy closed I decided it would not be obvious enough to be worthwhile changing it.

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Proceeding with the build I applied a Tamiya mix of 90% XF21 and 10%XF2 for RAF Sky as per the suggestion in Osprey Modelling Monual 18 Supermarine Spitfire.

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Followed by a freehand approximation of the Dark Earth Using the mix 70% XF52 + 25% XF62 + 5% XF58 from the same publication (page 31 if you have it.

You might also notice that I applied a little masking fluid again to provide a chipping effect once all the layers were on.

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Masking with White Tack 'worms'

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Green bits done

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All masking except canopy removed

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Shiny :coolio:

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Oh yes, I learned a significant lesson whilst gloss coating these babies. When using Tamiya TS-13 clear, do NOT repeatedly spray coat after coat without letting the first one fully dry.

It ate through the sky colour on the underside, pooled and ran :badmood:

The following picture shows the result of my repair to this little disaster

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I had to use a needle in a pin vise to clean out the filled panel lines and, once the gloss coat was dry, carefully sanded away the horrible drips. Repaired with a light coat of sky and then a careful spray of the clear.

So. many. stencils...

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Decaling proceeding apace. I'm glad I bought 2 packs of the stencils. several ended up firmly attached to me, the bench, the cat or broken into pieces.

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A little light weathering, exhaust stains, a matt coat, off with the canopy mask and on with the sticky outy bits.

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and that..

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was...

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a brace...

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of...

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609 Sqn Spitfires done.

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Except for the aerial wires.

It was then on to the Dornier....

Edited by Phil Lewis
Re-shared images from Flickr
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This next stage I start off with an apology.

I began the build on the Airfix Dornier with the full intention of photographing every stage but then got a little carried away so the first picture is actually of the almost completed cockpit with the fuselage halves joined :)

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I used RLM 02 for the interior colour and picked out the details with Tamiya paints Rubber Black, White and an oil wash.

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I also added instrument backs and a representation of the wiring bundle on the back of the instrument panel.

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3 out of the 4 crew members added. Note the one chap leaning over to the pilot having a word in his ear? That was intentional, honest, had absolutely nothing to do with the incredibly tight squeeze to try to get him in :winkgrin:

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Some guns and wings added (thought I'd be brave and see if I could complete the build without breaking any of the guns).

Oh and crew member number 4

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And a start on the glazing

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Nacelles added and engines assembled and painted.

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Starting to look like a proper Dornier now.

I drilled out the exhausts a bit more and sprayed them with alclad burnt metal. Looked really good... shame they're mostly hidden behind the cowlings.

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I experienced a bit of a fit issue with the engines but it was of my own making.

I assembled the cowling parts without the engines and made them a tight fit for the braces when I tried to slide them over the engines.

just required a few careful swipes with a sanding stick on the ends of the cowl braces and I got them to fit. I dry fit the engines to the wings to get the correct alignment in the cowlings before applying glue to attach the cowls to the engines.

I could then take them back off the wings for spraying.

Glazing masked up with the Peewit masking set. Note the deflection to the control surfaces.

Edit: Please note the elevator guide horns. The slots they run through in the horizontal tail surfaces need to be cleaned out to allow the horns to move freely and allow deflection of the elevators.

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And underneath

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Good old Halfords primer again and then a bit of preshading.

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On with the RLM 65 several light coats being careful not to completely obliterate the preshade

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I used Tamiya tape to mask the splinter pattern and use Vallejo model air Dunkelgrun and Schwarzgrun.

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I was particularly pleased with the way the upper/lower demarcation came out.

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I used the Airfix decal sheet for the national markings and the Techmod decal set for the F1+FS and some of the stencils all on a carefully applied gloss coat.

This was followed by some light weathering and Tamiya Flat Clear

I found the Techmod decals to be quite fragile and consider myself fortunate to have rescued the starboard S after it broke into several pieces.

Then it was off with the masks and voila!

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Had fun and games trying to mask the green on the spinners to spray the red... then I realised I was doing it all wrong so sprayed the red masked that and the props

and then sprayed the green

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I also masked and sprayed the white panel on the port wing.

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Stringy bit added

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And canvas boots for the guns (used white glue and painted a yellowish canvassy type colour)

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And I didn't break a single gun or sticky outy bit :)

I shall post up an RFI once I have taken some pictures of them all together with my new DSLR.

In the mean time here they are (albeit a bit blurred) on our stand at the Universal Model Show at Crewe on 28th Feb this year

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As ever comments and suggestions welcome

Edited by Phil Lewis
Re-shared images from Flickr
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Like the idea very much.

Bet the Dornier's crew member was saying(in German of course)"Best get your foot down Heitsch,there's two Spitfires(Schpitfueren?)

on our tail !!!!"

Looking at the three models posed makes you want to go NNNNEEEEOWWWW,TAKKA-TAKKA-TAKKA :thumbsup:

Edited by Miggers
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Superb. Viewing this, I had to remind constantly remind myself the models were 1/72nd scale, especially the Spitfires. Well done! :thumbsup:

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