1/48 new tool Tamiya and Airfix Spitfire Mk.I comparison build

[Basilisk]

On 3/24/2019 at 7:35 AM, Smithy said:

What a wonderful, informative and useful thread. Sorry I'm a bit late to the party but only just saw it so better late than never as they say.

 

I've got a couple of the new Tamiya Spits on the list for my next Hannants order but saying that, you really have to ask why on earth Airfix stopped making their version. Easily the most popular British aircraft and the model which for many epitomises the Battle of Britain, in the popular 1/48 scale and sharply priced and what do they do? Stop making it. Bloody stupid from a business stand point.

 

If they still offered it I'd definitely pick one or two up. In fact I've just sent an email to Airfix saying as much.

Thanks Smithy. But why bother to build the Airfix kit when you can build the new tool Tamiya kit which is much more detailed and has a much better fit. Also the cost is comparable considering you get a mask and a Harness with the kit.

 

On 3/24/2019 at 9:04 AM, cmatthewbacon said:

If it's helpful to anyone, you can find a pretty complete walkaround of the Cosford Mk1 here.... thanks to the chaps on duty who let me get up close and personal:

https://cmatthewbacon.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spitfire-Mk1-Walkaround

 

best,

M.

Wow, that is great Matthew. I was looking around the web for a Cosford Spitfire Mk.I walk around and couldn't find anything. This is certainly of much help to me and others.

 

Boy did I open a can of worms with my plan to add the rivets to the cockpit. HGW  rivets where too flat and Archers rivets too large. So I had to come up with something else. At the end I used a riveter tool on a 0.13mm thick plasticard sheet to make positive rivets and then cut a strips of 0.25mm wide.

 

This worked surprisingly well, but attaching these tiny strips into the cockpit was another matter.

 

1. This just didn't look right as the frame was too wide and not tall enough. Also the Extra Thin Tamiya glue I used made the rivets collapse.

 

2. I then replaced the frame with my own and attached the strips with a little clear varnish first to keep them in place. After that I used some tiny amounts of Mr. Cement S to secure them. This glue didn't damage the rivets.

 

3. I think they look acceptable when the cockpit is painted and a wash is in place.

 

This is a slow process, so it will take some time until I have more to show. Hopefully with the pluming in place as well.

Cheers, Peter

 

[Smithy]

20 minutes ago, Basilisk said:

Thanks Smithy. But why bother to build the Airfix kit when you can build the new tool Tamiya kit which is much more detailed and has a much better fit. Also the cost is comparable considering you get a mask and a Harness with the kit.

 

Thanks Peter, I'll still be getting the new Tamiya kit. My observation was really one about the place of a 1/48 iconic Spit in Airfix's lineup. It's just seems odd that it's not a regular offering considering the importance and popularity of it to British aviation.

 

Really enjoying following this thread and your progress. 

[Silver Fox]

If you consider that the 1/48th scale Spitfire I, Hurricane I and Defiant I in their initial Battle of Britain boxings have all seem to have disappeared from the catalogue and the model shop shelves here in the UK and next year is the 80th Anniversary, I reckon that they will reappear as part of the 2020 line up.

 

In the UK the Spitfire was between 15.99 and 18.99 GBP when available and the Tamiya kit is 34.99 GBP, there is a  significant price gap, especially if making multiple models. I know that the pricing structure in other parts of the world will differ, but for me, at least, it is a significant factor. 

[Smithy]

Thanks Silver Fox. I didn't buy the Airfix Spitfire when it was released but had just presumed that it would have been noticeably cheaper than the new Tamiya version.

 

If Airfix re-release it I'll definitely pick a couple up as well as the Tamiya. You can never have too many Spits in my book!

[NPL]

2 hours ago, Silver Fox said:

If you consider that the 1/48th scale Spitfire I, Hurricane I and Defiant I in their initial Battle of Britain boxings have all seem to have disappeared from the catalogue and the model shop shelves here in the UK and next year is the 80th Anniversary, I reckon that they will reappear as part of the 2020 line up.

 

I believe that 2020 is the magic word: 80 years since the BoB. If Airfix misses this it would be worse than a crime; it would be stupidity. 

 

Now my guess is that Eduard will not miss the date. Mr. Sulc is warming up for an Eduard Mk.I release in the future.

 

We had a discussion shortly at the Rumormonger-list that the newly announce Italeri Mk.I would be an Airfix reboxed. The people active there were mostly of the conviction that it would be a rebox of the old Tamiya. Alas, I fear that they are right.

[Liam Harrison]

Jeez, crazy how much difference there is between two 'identical' kits! Really interesting thread so far, I look forward to seeing it come along

[Biggles87]

Wow Peter, that's what I call attention to detail!

Airfix used to have a policy of 'rotating ' kits years ago, perhaps that's what they are doing now. I recently bought a 1/48 Sea Fury which I have no plans to build at the moment on the basis that it might disappear again by the time that I do.

Keep up with he good work.

 

John

[one of the few]

Thank you for an excellent comparison of both kits. Just a point though. R6915 is a MkI Spitfire, not a MkV. She fought with 609 Squadron in the Battle of Britain.

[Smithy]

Well I received the very polite answer from Airfix saying thank you for my suggestion and that it would be passed onto their production team for consideration. Fingers crossed they do have plans to reissue it. Actually it and their 48th Hurricane I should both be in their regular lineup, it's just commonsense.

[Grey Beema]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

Well I received the very polite answer from Airfix saying thank you for my suggestion and that it would be passed onto their production team for consideration. Fingers crossed they do have plans to reissue it. Actually it and their 48th Hurricane I should both be in their regular lineup, it's just commonsense.

My understanding is that both the MkI Trop. and Sea Hurricane are still available.  All of the Airfix 1/48 Hurricanes have the same parts in the box i.e you can make anyone of them from the box parts.  If you want to build a BoB Hurricane whilst it is out of production - it's a matter of buying the first you find and then organising decals

[Basilisk]

On 3/27/2019 at 3:00 AM, one of the few said:

Thank you for an excellent comparison of both kits. Just a point though. R6915 is a MkI Spitfire, not a MkV. She fought with 609 Squadron in the Battle of Britain.

Thanks to point this out. No idea why I was under the believe it is a Mk.V. I will correct the original post shortly.

 

I am still placing rivets - actually more like fighting with them as they are rather small.

I think I just keep it at the visible stuff Tidy things up a bit and pluming is next.

 

I spend some time in-between riveting comparing the seats. After all, the seat is one of the most visual component in the cockpit. As mentioned earlier, the Spitfire vintage I am building has the metal seat fitted, but both, Tamiya and Airfix only provide a plastic seat.

 

Looking closer at the Tamiya seat, I thought that there is enough material to convert it to a metal seat. But comparing it to the Ultracast seat it looks tiny.

 

Ultracast states that their seat is based on original drawings! But having nine cartridge spaces in the flare cartridge rack instead of eight doesn't make this statement very creditable!

 

So hod do some other seats compare?

1 = Tamiya, 2 = Eduard Brassin, 3 = Airfix, 4 = Ultracast.

 

And the real seats.

 

The worst is definitely the Airfix rendition and the best for a plastic seat is the Eduard Brassin.

 

Unfortunately I was unsuccessful finding some dimensioned drawings of a Spitfire seat. The best I could come up with was a drawing of a plastic seat in the tremendous Monforton Spitfire book in 1/10 scale. Measuring the drawing carefully, I obtained following full size dimension (in brackets 1/48 dimension):

 

Width = 426 mm    (8.88mm)

Height = 730 mm  (15.21mm)

Depth = 180 mm   (3.75mm)

 

The four seats measure as follow (Width / Height / Depth):

Tamiya = 8.4 / 15 / 3.6

Eduard = 9.1 / 15.2 / 3.8

Airfix = 9.0 / 16.3 / 3.8

Ultracast = 9.7 / 16.2 / 4.2

 

This brings the Eduard seat closest to the measurement with just being slightly too wide. The Tamiya seat is actually not too bad, being slightly under. But (like Airfix) the wide side panel width does make it look smaller.

 

The biggest problem with the Airfix seat is that it is too tall and the leather padding is wrong. Now the Ultracast seat does look correct proportionally, but is just a bit too large in all the dimensions.

 

That leaves me with a dilemma as I have one Tamiya seat and two Ultracast seats for the build of the two Spitfires and I really like to make the seats look the same. I used the Ultracast seat in my previous Spitfire build and it actually doesn't look too bad.

So I may just use it  and live with the size discrepancies.

 

In case someone knows of a Spitfire seat drawings containing dimensions it would be great to hear from you.

Cheers, Peter

[Biggles87]

The riveting looks pretty spectacular to me.

I think that the actual seat is smaller than some people imagine, the above photo of the seat without back armour gives a good indication of the size in relation to the frame it's mounted on. I have never used any of the Aires cockpit set seats as they are way over scale, being almost as wide as the back armour, and I haven't tried any Brasin sets.

 

[Kev The Modeller]

Some superb work and a very interesting project 

[Kev The Modeller]

How is this build going, any up dates?