1:32 Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IIa

[monsjmse]

Hi everyone

For my third build since returning to modelling in late 2016 after a 20+ year break, I'm building the Revell 1:32 Mk.II Spitfire. You know the one - cue box shot... hopefully

 

 

I have actually been working on this one since about mid-November. Now, I'm not in the habit of taking photos of my builds, either WIP or finished, but I have been capturing a few images of this one because I am building it for my brother and wanted to show him that work was indeed progressing. As I became a member at Britmodeller earlier this month, I thought I could share the journey with you guys too. I really enjoy wandering round the forums taking a look at everyone's brilliant work, so I thought I'd make my own contribution.

 

My brother received this kit for x-mas a couple of years ago, but he's into painting Warhammer stuff rather than building aircraft. When I got back into the hobby I asked him if he had started it and offered to make it for him when he confirmed that it remained untouched in a cupboard. That was Easter 2017. I originally planned for it to be a side project and to finish it by Christmas, but that didn't happen so it spent some more time in a cupboard albeit in a different location.

 

As you can tell from some of the timelines of the above, I'm not particularly quick. Life has a habit of getting in the way of modelling progress, but I do get there in the end - most of the time. Actually I have recently signed up to the RAF Centenary Group Build, so I am working to an artificial deadline of the GB start date to get this one finished. Beginning of April if I remember correctly...

[monsjmse]

The finger crossing didn't work. I'll go read the FAQ on posting pictures 

 

[monsjmse]

 

 Mr. social media I am not.

[monsjmse]

Well, now I'm on a roll....

Before making a start with some snipping I gave my sibling a final chance to rescue his kit. He has two young boys and I thought that they might fancy turning it into a gluey mess instead of me. Snip away came the reply (think he's also trying to get them into figure painting), so I started prepping the cockpit pieces and priming them. Being fairly new back to modelling, I should say I'm still experimenting a bit with different products and how to use them. I'm also new to airbrushing as all my modelling previously was done with a brush and on a tight budget. It's a great piece of kit, but again I'm still experimenting as to how best to use it.

 

 

 

[monsjmse]

Before you ask, that is not the full extent of my progress since November, otherwise I might finish in time for the RAF 150 years GB. I'm slow, but not that slow 

I'll try to post some more of the pics tomorrow.

 

[spitfire]

Another slow builder here, as long as you are having fun is the thing that matters, I struggle to complete more than 3 builds per year but I get a lot of satisfaction from those builds. That is a really nice kit you are building I built one last year and enjoyed it so will be interested in how you get on, looks good so far..

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[monsjmse]

Hello Dennis, thanks for dropping by. I managed 2 builds last year but also moved house which took up a lot of time and meant that most of my model stuff was inaccessible for a while. I'm hoping for at least 3 this year. I'm counting this as the first despite starting it in '17. I managed to locate your 1:32 MkII Eagle Squadron build in the RFI section. Very very nice, neat finish. I've noted your comment about fitting the landing gear at the end. Something I will look out for.

 

Looking at my photos I am missing progress shots on the painting of the cockpit. The next one I took has the 2 fuselage halves with interior just about finished, alongside the sidewalls, seat and most of the instrument panel.

 

 

Here is the instrument panel minus the gun-sight and compass in a bit more detail

 

 

I went a bit more overboard on the weathering than I had originally anticipated. As it was done just after Christmas, I think I had had a whisky too many and got a bit carried away with the sponge dabbing. You may also notice that the base of the rudder pedal assembly has been stuck on upside down . A little plastic surgery was required when attaching the cockpit sides later on to make them fit.

[monsjmse]

Here are a few more of the office, now with gun-sight, compass and one sidewall in place.

 

 

 

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Good looking cockpit 👍

[monsjmse]

My idea was to build this one straight from the box without any after market stuff - partly because I didn't want it to take too long, but mainly because I didn't want to spend a small fortune on something I would just be handing over once completed (sorry bro)! It's amazing that you can pick this kit up for less than £20, so it would be very easy to spend many times more than the cost of the kit on after market products. [hold on though, it didn't cost me anything ].

 

However..... I couldn't let the fact that was no safety harness go, as in a 1:32 aircraft model with an open canopy, this omission would be rather noticeable. So I did end up buying an HGW seat belt set along with some Eduard masks as masking my own canopies still scares me a little.

 

 

The HGW seatbelts were a first for me, as on the Corsair I built last year I had a PE set. I managed to thread and stick all the buckles:

 

 

 

Then install them onto the seat and rear bulkhead:

 

Added a bit of a brown oil wash to make them look a bit dirty and worn in keeping with the rest of the cockpit. I'm quite pleased with how they look - I think that the microfabric makes them look more realistic than the PE ones I did before. I found them quite fiddly to put together though, even in this scale. Not sure I would want to attempt the same in a 1:72 

 

[monsjmse]

Right, time for the part I always dreaded as a child - sticking the fuselage halves together and hoping that the cockpit bits don't get in the way. I also built up the wings and stuck the oil cooler on - easier said than done. The oil cooler came in 4 pieces that didn't seem to be designed to be fitted together. It's a bit small for the hole too, so will need a bit of filler around it later.

 

 

[monsjmse]

A bit more sticking later and I'm pleased to say it looks like a Spitfire. A few gaps to fill, but nothing too serious.

 

 

[monsjmse]

A bit of filling was required at the wing roots and just fore of the cockpit. The worst bit to deal with was the underside where the wings and fuselage parts joined.

 

 

Filling and sanding is not my favourite job, especially in areas like this with raised detail that needs preserving. After a while I managed to get to this point. While not completely satisfied, I felt I'd spent enough time on it.

 

 

 

[Kallisti]

That is frequently a nasty joint on spitfire kits because of all the detail that will get lost when sanding down. That said, its not a particularly visible area of the finished model usually. This is a nice, relatively simple kit - I built one a couple years back for the Battle of Britain GB

 

 

You put a lot more effort into your cockpit that I did for mine, and it looks excellent for it, but I was putting a pilot in mine so not much is visible anyway, my main concern was trying to make it look like it was taking off  

 

I tied those HGW seatbelts on a Spit or Hurricane  (can't remember which) some years back, very fiddly but does look the part!

 

[spitfire]

Looking like a Spitfire now, and yes that joint can be a pain to get right, there's a few panel lines there that are awkward to rescribe.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[monsjmse]

21 hours ago, Kallisti said:

That is frequently a nasty joint on spitfire kits because of all the detail that will get lost when sanding down. That said, its not a particularly visible area of the finished model usually. This is a nice, relatively simple kit - I built one a couple years back for the Battle of Britain GB....

 

Thanks for the comments and the link to your build - it's really impressive. I love the idea of modelling the aircraft just taking off. I've never seen that done before and didn't know you could get those rotating prop blade effects. I have only ever seen the clear plastic discs before, which don't look so good. You did well getting the pilot in too as he looks like he's fighting for some space at the bar with those elbows .

 

12 hours ago, spitfire said:

Looking like a Spitfire now, and yes that joint can be a pain to get right, there's a few panel lines there that are awkward to rescribe.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

There sure are! If you look at the second picture in post #13 you can see where I have tried to restore the raised area by scraping the area next to it and causing a bit of a divot. As usual it looks a lot worse in the picture than it actually is. It is only noticeable from certain angles.

 

I stuck the rest of the control surfaces on. I had originally planned to put the flaps down for a bit of interest. However a quick bit of research persuaded me to reconsider. The aircraft will be parked as it is the only option available, (excepting the taking-off pose which never occurred to me) and Spitfires were parked with flaps up. Glad I didn't invest in some expensive AM photo-etched versions...

 

I finished filling the gaps and then gave the thing a coat of Vallejo white primer after masking the cockpit. The grey lines are dabs of Mr Surfacer where there were still some cracks that the primer layer revealed.

 

 

 

[monsjmse]

You can see the prop blades in the picture above which I had already painted up. I usually get the prop done way ahead of completing the rest of the aircraft. I think it may be the small satisfaction of getting at least something finished. I wasn't sure what proportion of the blades to leave yellow, so guessed at ~5mm. Taking the masks off though, they didn't look right.

 

 

A bit more homework and I found that the standard on RAF aircraft was 4 inches, which at 1:32 scales to just over 3 mm. So masks on again and on with a bit more black paint. I painted the spinner too so I could do some more sticking.

 

 

Now ~3 mm at the tips. Not quite as smooth as it could be on the blades with that extra paint, but it isn't really noticeable unless you look really hard.

[monsjmse]

Looking at the underside again after the primer layer, I still wasn't happy with the wings/fuselage join. As some time had elapsed since my last attempt at sanding this area, I felt ready to have another go. In my limited experience of priming models I had learnt to my cost that Vallejo primer doesn't sand particularly well, but this was about 3-4 days after the primer coat had gone on and I thought everything would work out fine. Unfortunately though, the primer still peeled in places, though it was less severe than I had experienced in the past. Mr Surfacer 1200 came to the rescue and covered the worst of it.

 

Before...                                                                                                    After.....

 

 

Only after doing all this I realised that there was supposed to be a panel line running across right where the join is . I've tried to re-scribe this. Though it now looks a tad heavy, it will do. I've said that somewhere before though.

[Ade]

This looks great so far! I brought the same kit yesterday for the RAF centenary GB, I can’t wait to get it started! 

[monsjmse]

7 hours ago, Ade said:

This looks great so far! I brought the same kit yesterday for the RAF centenary GB, I can’t wait to get it started! 

Thank you. It's a nice kit - certainly can't knock it for the price. I have a Defiant on the shelf for the RAF centenary GB and have so far resisted the temptation of starting it. The plan was to finish this Spitfire before the GB start, but now that's only 2 weeks away I'm not sure it will happen. I try to keep my current build count low, otherwise I never finish anything.

[Ade]

5 hours ago, monsjmse said:

Thank you. It's a nice kit - certainly can't knock it for the price. I have a Defiant on the shelf for the RAF centenary GB and have so far resisted the temptation of starting it. The plan was to finish this Spitfire before the GB start, but now that's only 2 weeks away I'm not sure it will happen. I try to keep my current build count low, otherwise I never finish anything.

You have my disease, I’m great at starting kits but terrible at finishing. In the loft there are several started kits which have hit a pause for one reason or another. My plan for the GB is to work on the Spit alone until completion. 

[bigbadbadge]

Hi

Looking good . Cockpit detail is good and the instrument panel looks very nice indeed. I too have this kit in the stash but I have bought some after market bitsfor it too. I am also a slow  builder.

Keep up the good work 

All the best 

Chris 

[Biggles87]

I think most of us suffer from that disease  to some extent, but it's always good to see another Spitfife started so I'll hang around if I may

 

john

[monsjmse]

Thanks for the comments and welcome aboard . Nearly a week without an update as work has rather got in the way recently. I have started the painting, first putting a pre-shade on the underside. My airbrush was not behaving itself at all whist I did this. It was spluttering a lot, but like a fool I carried on and it ended up looking a bit of a mess. Don't zoom in too closely - it's a horror show.

 

 

I stripped it down afterwards, but it was quite clean and I couldn't see anything wrong. After putting everything back together it sprayed fine, so who knows what was up with it. Managed to overlay it with enough Sky Type S to hide the splatter.

 

 

 

[monsjmse]

Time flies - over a week since the last update. I have made some progress, so will try and get this back up to 'live' status. I added a thin coat of W&N gloss varnish to the underside, left it about 24 hrs and stuck on some masking tape. It was still maybe a little tacky, but I was being impatient.

 

 

I'm still experimenting with different gloss varnishes (I must have 5 or 6 now), but haven't found one I really like yet.

 

Painted the upper surfaces and fuselage black. The idea was to get some tonal variation when I put down the green/brown...

 

 

But the tonal variation plan mostly went wrong after I started by putting green down where the brown should go and vice versa. So I ended up with a much thicker paint layer than I had originally intended. I started out trying to use blue tac for the camo pattern, but I didn't really get on with it. I ended up taking it off and spraying it on freehand. It took a while, as there was no masking so I was being very careful to avoid over-spray. Got there in the end and I'm reasonably happy with the result.