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If just doing 1/48 Spitfires is a sign of madness, then FC is Barking!!!


Fatcawthorne

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Despite starting half way through the year as my 2017 Yearbook was a bit later than planned, I sort of carried on where I left off on the Spitfire trail.

 

 

I did have a little break from Supermarine's finest by spectacularly failing to complete a couple of GB builds so the SoD is up by a VC-10 and a 737-200 which I will complete one day - honest guv'nor!

 

The 7 completions for the year all only managed to romp home over the line in the last month or two, and there is one more that is so close to finishing it's almost on the shelf.

 

The first two finished were a couple of Revell/SH Seafire XV's that I built in tandem.  Constructional sanity was marginal at times and the fit of the undercarriage left a lot to be desired.  As I've got 5 or 6 more left in the stash, together with plenty of very similar Vc's, any hints and tips to make them go together that little bit less painlessly would always be welcome.

 

Decals for SR572 came from the Freightdog Post War Seafires. She is modelled whilst serving with 1832 NAS RNVR at RNAS Culham in 1949.

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Next was PR479 of 803 Sqn RCAF, HMCS Warrior in November 1947.  Decals came from the Model Alliance Seafires sheet and apart from a self-inflicted Horlicks with aligning the port L they went on easily.

 

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Having managed 2 on the go with no real hassles, and with 2018 fast becomming a very fast target to hit, I started 3 more Spits.

 

The first was the newest Airfix Mk.I which using the reciprocal parts from the Vb used in last year's IIb build, created Bader's Va W3185 using Model Alliance's ETO Spitfire decals.

 

The Dark Green, Dark Earth and Sky all came from the Tamiya Acrylics range and the Sky Blue was Mr Hobby Aqueous H314.

 

Usual pinning the undercarriage palava but apart from being a bit enthusiastic trimming the fuel tank armour piece construction was pretty simple and straightforward.

 

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Next was a Tamiya Vb converted to the first Seafire Ib used for deck landing trials.  The decals for BL676 "Bondowoso" came from the Dutch Profile Presentation Spitfires sheet and again behaved wonderfully.

 

The Dark Green, Ocean/Mixed Grey, MSG and Sky were all Tamiya Acrylics and this build was notable (for me anyways!) as my first attempt at black basing.  Now I think I added far too many squiggles of the main colour and then did not thin the top coat on any of the colours sufficiently so any modulation effect I was after got negated by my ham-fistedness, but I will give it another go in 2019.

 

The A Frame arrestor hook (which now I look at the photos I have spotted has fallen off!) came from the SH/Revell Seafire XV's above and easily grafted into the Tamiya fuselage. 

 

Thanks to @72modeler  and @gingerbob for their help in researching the exact IFF and Radio aerial fit and other stuff and for their encouragement for this build.

 

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The third of this batch was another conversion, this time from Tamiya's old Mk.I, using the Pavla resin and decals to produce a Spitfire PR Mk.IC R6903.  Photographic evidence suggests that this Spit had only the one vertical camera rather than the 2 shown in the destructions so I went with just the one.  The PRU Blue came from Xtracrylics and was a pain to apply, forever clogging the needle of my 0.2 H&S Ultra (even with W&N Flow Enhancer/Retarder), and took about 4 coats to give a reasonable coverage.  Again any hints and tips for using this brand are very welcome.

 

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Whilst I had these three at the paint stage, the urge to build PR Spits took on a life of its own and I madly started a PRXI, using the Quickboost conversion on a Revell/Hasegawa Mk.IX.  I wasn't too put out by the well known length issues of this kit, but may consider a different base kit for the next attempt as I bought 2 conversion kits!  Next time I think I will use the redundant XIX Bowser wings from the final build below with perhaps an ICM fuselage as they appear to be quite close in fit, as this time I used the Revell wings and filled in the guns and extraneous panel lines.  

 

I also used a spare PR windscreen from anAirfix XIX and wish I'd faired it in better, having not removed enough of the original fighter windscreen from the fuselage.

 

This time PRU Blue came from the Hataka PR set and the decals came from generic Xtradecal sheets and the serials and fin flashes from an ancient Almark PR Europe Markings set.

 

I expected the worst from these old decals but they behaved surprisingly well after they were trimmed from the sheet to hide as much carrier film as possible.  I again joined the Horlicks Club by mangling the port H decal which I repaired using Xtradecal white striping.

 

I had no end of grief with the Hataka paint.  If I thinned it with Tamiya X-20A or water it ran and spidered everywhere and if I shot it neat it clogged the AB tip in seconds.  I also started another PR Spit based on the Tamiya Mk.I as who could resist a Dicer when you have a pot of PRU Pink in your grubby mitts, but this is the 95% complete effort that I will post for 2019.  FYI the PRU Pink was a pig (see what I did there!) to spray too.  I believe Hataka now have their own thinners on the market so that is the next logical step.

 

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Now not being content with 4 (5 with the Dicer) on the go, I had bought a big box off of eBay that contained the parts for a PRXIX and a Mk22/24 and a miscelleny of other Spitty spares.  Armed with my newly purchased Squadrons! No.7 the F.21, I started hacking the PR fuselage to lose it's pressurised and camera related bits and bobs and mated this to the 22's wing and undercart.  All in all this was a reasonably simple kitbash, the pitfall being the filling of the gap where the PR kit has the vertical cameras and the 22 lower wing stops short!

 

Although I got a good match from a side-on view, I could not get the fairing where the trailing edge of the wing meets the fuselage to behave and in the flesh from some angles it looks very wrong.  If @John Aero (aka Superman!) is in a phonebox nearby and can help out with any conversion parts then I have plenty more 22/24's in the stash to have another go using the proper parts!  

 

Decals came from generic Xtradecal and Fantasy Printshop sheets to depict LA200 of 91 Sqn in April 1945 (chosen as this airframe didn't have any squadron crests) and paints were again from my favoured Tamiya Acrylics (with Mr Hobby Aqueous for the yellow ID stripes on the LE).

 

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So, all in all whilst I managed to complete 7 this year, I do feel I rushed most of them and could have done better, and although I have a mancave, space soon runs out when you have 6 on the go.  

 

The biggest plus for me this year was getting into Flory Washes.  Apart from the first two Seafires all the others used either Grey, Grime or Dark Dirt and I am well chuffed with the result.  5 Stars for Mr Flory from the FC!

 

Negatives ironed out:- I have learned not to use Blutac as a cockpit mask for open pits as it really gets into places I couldn't get it out of.

 

The Dicer is not finished because the Blutac got under the rear canopy portion and in removing the canopy my thumbs for fingers broke the piece (and the spare left over from using the Pavla Vacform on the PR MkIC) so I will be contacting Tamiya's UK distributor pretty soon for replacement clear sprues (unless any of you good folk in BM World have spares that I could take off your hands in return for a wad of cash, a la the Waynes World "I'm feelin Saucy, do you accept cash" Stratocaster buying scene!).  

 

Also despite having a free supply of plastic foam from my work I will not be using that again either as it reacts poorly either to the "spirit" in the acrylic paint or the Klear coat and sticks to everything it should have masked (hence no upskirts of my beauties as it made a mess of all their wheel wells, nor cockpit shots as nobody wants to see a furry cockpit do they?!). 

 

I didn't get the hang of the black basing on Bondowoso to my own satisfaction, and have spent a fair bit of time watching internet tutorials to give me a fighting chance next time around.  Well I do have 3/4's of a can of Halfords black primer left so it'd be rude not to eh?!

 

Also despite having a semi-decent digital SLR, I am only shooting on Auto, and to my picky self my pictures seem dark and getting the right depth of field is beyond me in this shooting mode.  Perhaps some internet tutorials for that are in order too!

 

What's up next then?  Santa and the Birthday Bunny (my birthday is 29 Dec and that sucks!) bought me the Airfix Blenhiem and the new Tamiya Mk.I (bought by myself and then given to my teenagers to wrap up so I could look surprised on the big day!) so the siren voices are calling for these bench-clearers to get under starters orders.

 

I would like to do more WIPs so may make a bit more effort for you good folk in 2019 if I can tame my car-crash career (I bought a shop as a hobby to get out of the City rat race and it's become an iro 100 hour per week millstone!).

 

Wishing your 2019's to be tickedy-boo, so until next time - it's been emotional, Chris

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