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Some Special Small-Scale Supermarine Spitfires


Beggsy

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I have Seven spitfire kits sitting in my stash.....time to build two of them!

 

I'm thinking of doing something interesting with this pair of Mk.I kits:

 

45531911091_10d90139f1_b.jpg

 

As to what that is.....I'm not going to tell you just yet!  I will be using some of these though....

 

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And one or more of the un-used parts off of this sprue of a past project:

 

30590892197_b65f9bc181_b.jpg

 

Want another hint?  This one might confuse more than it helps, but I'll be scavenging these exhaust pipes from the Airfix Hurricane for one of the spits:

 

30590891537_488b35f5fd_b.jpg

 

These are going to be fun, I think!

 

(And the Hurricane might get it's own WIP.  Given that it shares a lot of colours inside, it will be built concurrently)

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So a bit of progress this evening.  I've painted the basic interior colours of each, and assembled the major cockpit pieces.  Phone-photo's aren't great quality, I'm afraid.

 

Tamiya:

44636660295_bba881d380_b.jpg

 

Airfix:

44636659985_72fe37f51d_b.jpg

 

Another hint:  The Airfix and Tamiya kits are going to swap their main landing gear with each other.......

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That interior green almost looks more turquoise, just the camera I suppose? I will be stopping back in to see how the Tamiya build goes, and especially because of all the intrigue! 

 

Best of luck, Tweener

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On 10/24/2018 at 7:02 PM, Col. said:

High Speed Spit

 

14 hours ago, Newbie(kinda) said:

K5054

We have winners!  The Airfix will become K5054 and the Tamiya will become the High Speed (it has shallower panel lines that will be easier to fill).

 

13 hours ago, Tweener said:

just the camera I suppose

The camera and the indoor lighting.  I might get some in daylight tomorrow.....maybe....

 

Anyway, here's the current state of progress.  Both aircraft's cockpits are complete, and are ready for the fuselage halves to be joined.  The Tamiya can have the cockpit inserted from below after the halves are joined, so I may do the panel line filling first to try and avoid damage to the fine details.  Here are the Tamiya parts: 

 

45529492382_322a97c38f_b.jpg

(oops, that's the Airfix cockpit!)

 

45579959661_3a4b396235_b.jpg

 

And here are the Airfix bits:

 

45529488812_851031a699_b.jpg

 

45529487862_162a6192c0_b.jpg

 

45579957741_c53822307d_b.jpg

 

The seatbelts are made from painted Tamiya tape, everything else is OOB at the moment.  I'm not too concerned with accuracy of the cockpits since reference photos are practically non-existant for these two, and I'll be shutting the canopy so not much will be visible.  I've left the oxygen tanks out of the high-speed example since they would have been extra weight.  Since the Tamiya parts were a nicer moulding than the Airfix ones, they've found their way into that kit instead.

 

Now the next quiz for the Spitfire fans here:  How will I make the High Speed spit without having access to anything close to that 4-bladed fixed pitch propeller it had?  There is a plan in place.....

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Beggsy said:

How will I make the High Speed spit without having access to anything close to that 4-bladed fixed pitch propeller it had? 

I think I'd use two two-bladed propellers, cut one up and glue to the other. Possibly, some plasticard and filler would be required.

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Hello,

May be considering that saving the nice and crisp structure lines of the tamiya intact

And filling the trenches of the airfix one ?

That way you save a nice moulding... Just my guess !

You are still the owner and chief of project..

Great job anyway !!

I'll tag along if you don't mind it 

Sincerely.

Corsaircorp

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...making this up (you can tell, can't you?!). BUT I'm guessing, the 'unused' Rotol spinner from an Airfix kit will be used to make the Speed Spitfire spinner on the Tamiya kit. Which will be IN FLIGHT, guns blazing above a static K5054 as an ME262 goes down in flames in the background. Oh, hang on...!!

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  • 2 months later...

Wow, I hadn't realised it had been this long since an update!  I lost interest in this one for a while (due to the huge amount of filling, sanding and scribing to do across the two aircraft), then Christmas happened, then resuming work.....

 

But eventually, I realised I needed to bite the bullet and get into it.  A week later, here's where we're at:

 

Tamiya:

- Joined wings, fuselage and horizontal stabiliser

- Filled all panel lines and the location of the radiator

   -   Removing the radiator is actually the answer to the propeller question!  In it's final form before reverting to "standard", the aircraft was fitted with a 3-bladed propeller (same as production aircraft but with small fairings at the roots of the blades) and had it's radiator replaced with a "total loss" evaporative cooling system that vented the hot coolant overboard.  I'm going to make that version because it is easy, and because I think the shiny metallic prop hub will look good.  Here's a picture:

 

44988744414_bd90e377e7_b.jpg

 

 - Sanded smooth

 - Attached canopy

 - Painted all over to get a uniform surface (the blue paint is quite transparent)

 

46083285794_62f309e878_b.jpg

 

39842962703_6ed61e7997_b.jpg

 

 - Painted all over with gloss dark blue (Mr. Hobby H5 Acrylic) and clear gloss

 

46083316434_0c9ce718c4_b.jpg

 

39843003543_a71d2036a3_b.jpg

 

 - Sanded all over with P2500 to start to fix that surface texture (and removed canopy masking....removing the tape residue was a whole other story entirely that I really don't want to have to re-live *shudders*)

 

46083316174_910138de2f_b.jpg

 

Meanwhile on the Airfix:

 - Joined fuselage, wings and horizontal stabilisers

 - Filled panel lines on wings

 - Re-scribed new wing panel lines

 - Attached canopy

 - Filled the slots for the exhausts

 - Tried and catastrophically failed to drill some clean holes for the exhausts

 - Cut out all filler in the exhaust slots

 - Squashed some short sections of brass in some pliers to make exhaust pipes

 - Painted all over in a mix of Tamiya X-1 Gloss black acrylic and Microscale Mico-Gloss

 

46083284944_188002540c_b.jpg

 

39842962003_87c67c55cf_b.jpg

 

As for what's next:

Polish the Tamiya , then paint on the silver (going to try and mask the N.17 on the fuselage sides too...)

Paint the Airfix in metal colours, then spray Tamiya clear yellow over everything except the engine cowling.  Going to do that quickly and messily and maybe mix up the shade with a tiny bit of clear green and a smidge of non-clear yellow.

 

I'm once again feeling more enthused about the project. :)

 

Hopefully I'll make more progress today and have more to report by this evening!

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OK, both models are moving in the right direction.

 

The Speed Spitfire has been subjected to the "Coarse" and "Fine" Tamiya polishing compounds and is looking very glossy:

 

46100471784_8522a0e2e6_b.jpg

 

39860452783_76c7bb2d6e_b.jpg

 

46100471304_cd39d2b357_b.jpg

 

These next two close-ups don't make the surface look so great (close ups never do), but I'm quite happy with the amount of interior detail that can be seen.

 

31884222427_b1132fe7af_b.jpg

 

39860452133_1287d7aa6e_b.jpg

 

That's all well and good, but I'm really happy with how the clear green/yellow looks on the prototype!  Note that in real life, it's a little bit more yellow than it seems in these photos.  Just a touch.

 

I really hope the masking tape doesn't pull up the metal paint on the nose!

 

46100473204_a4ef126725_b.jpg

 

31884223797_2e1d42a44d_b.jpg

 

46100472414_2c60a66d8b_b.jpg

 

This last image shows the modified radiator housing.

 

31884223227_09f2a19907_b.jpg

 

I might mask some of the panel lines and go over it with yellow one more time, just to give it some hard-edged colour changes as well as the softer ones it currently has.  After that, this one will really just need silver doped control surfaces, a propeller, decals and landing gear!  Painting the silver streak and lettering on the Tamiya is going to be the next big challenge.

 

More soon!

 

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More masking, more painting.  Putting the lightning stripes down the sides of the Tamiya was certainly a challenge.  Tamiya tape for curves allowed me to achieve the widening at the front, but it was tricky to keep the curve smooth and also to keep both sides symmetric.

 

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The result was worth the effort though.  Peeling all of that off after a coat of paint was extremely satisfying!

 

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Speaking of masking, the Airfix got some too.  I masked a few panels so that the patchy finish would have some hard edges as well as the soft ones.  It's not very evident, but what is visible is the shiny cowl that has been unmasked.

 

31905549997_b14c6e42b8_b.jpg

 

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I'm very pleased with that.  However, I need to stop myself from leaping ahead with the Airfix until I tackle the scary task of masking the tail number on the Tamiya.

 

Wish me luck!

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It worked!

 

I masked a small rectangle on each side, with the vertical tape crossing the top of the fuselage to ensure they were aligned.  I then realised there was some symmetry to the tail number.  If each letter and symbol has a rectangle bounding it, there's a wide and a narrow rectangle mirrored around the centre.  Once I made the rectangles, I added some wedges of tape to form the N and the 7, and covered the top 3/4 of one of the thin rectangles to make the " . "

 

There are images out there showing the number in white and others showing it in silver.  I chose white as I thought that more colours would be more interesting, and this model has already got some questionable accuracy (that lightning bolt is not measured at all, just a cursory inspection with the Mk.I Eyeball.).  Anyway, here's the result! 

 

31928865487_b151897f71_b.jpg

 

31928865137_16ab4f2bb6_b.jpg

 

31928865807_7e828522fb_b.jpg

 

39905331373_8fc515fc60_b.jpg

 

The Airfix has had filler around those exhaust pipes, but no images to show for now.

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Hmm, I knew there was something that made me do this:

 

 

BTW the quick  way to a super shiny prop is micromesh, gloss black* and any chrome metallic paint I used Alclad Chrome. And dont touch it unless wearing cotton gloves...

 

46585227551_a2a953eb06_b.jpg&key=fe8ef6d

 

* I mixed Mr Surfacer 1500 black & super  UV cut gloss varnish 50:50 for black gloss and wet coated

 

Cheers

 

Anil

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12 hours ago, azureglo said:

BTW the quick  way to a super shiny prop is micromesh, gloss black* and any chrome metallic paint I used Alclad Chrome. And dont touch it unless wearing cotton gloves...

Thanks for the tip.  I'm limited to using acrylics due to my lack of a safe way to deal with enamel or laquer fumes, but your prop hub looks exactly like what I'm picturing in my head.  I might need to do more research into the best acrylic options for gloss black and chrome.

 

Thank you everyone for your kind words!

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