Sigh for a Griffon (x3) in 1/48

[MattSimps74]

I’m dragging three reluctant shelf queens along with the XIV in a race for quadruple Griffon engined glory! 

They’re all at the same stage and will get similar treatment (although the 46 will be clean as a whistle and semi-glossy), namely seal coat, filter, oil dots etc, before I move on to an FR. Mk 47. I love this (1996) kit!!

 

first up - Planet Models Seafire f.mk 45 

 

 

This was a pricey kit when I bought it (£45-odd iirc!) Must have been ten years ago, too - I remember warping the wings to the right angle and heating up a baby bottle for number 2 son in the warmer gizmo -worked a treat! 

That canopy masking’s been on there for a decade though. May have to re-glaze this one - but I can do that sort of thing these days, right? 

 

Of similar vintage, and inspired by Desmojen’s one on this very site, you’ve seen it all before, Mk 46. Bit more optimistic about the canopy mask on this one! I can’t help thinking the LM on the tail of this should have the black outline too. The hook wasn’t fitted to this plane.

 

 

Number 3 - Contra-Prop Mk. 45 

Aeroclub Mk 21 fuselage, Airfix 46 wings and prop. This mark was the longest of all of the Spitfire line - a two stage Griffon, contra-prop, broad rudder and hook, meant it was too long for the deck lifts on the Pretoria Castle, where Eric Brown did the deck landing trials. It still needed more rudder area as was unstable - it had sacrificed some area for the sting hook. Even with the contra-prop it was a bit of a pig to fly, so for the mk.46 the tail grew in height instead, borrowing the spiteful/seafang tail unit.

 

 

What an awesome machine, I love it -Joe Smith and his team really knew how to wring out the spitfire airframe.

You’d be pleased as these two if one was parked on your lawn, wouldn’t you?

 

TTFN,

Matt 

 

 

[Biggles87]

What a good idea, I am completing  an old Mk VIII alongside a ‘ new ‘ Mk IX and I have a structurally complete Mk 21 which I might finish in conjunction with my next Spitfire build.

 

John

 

 

[SafetyDad]

Lovely builds and beautiful paintwork! You have to finish them!

 

Hollering encouragement 

 

SD 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Nice.  The Mk.45 was an essential step on the road, but a decidedly imperfect one.  Mk.46, however; utterly gorgeous.

 

Love the photo of the Commander RNVR Observer peering uncertainly at a single-seat aircraft; “so where does the Looker sit?”

[Christer A]

One can never have enough Griffon spitfires!

I like the look of them so far, what did you use for paint for the slate grey?

[MattSimps74]

Thanks chaps!  Christer I mixed my own Tamiya mix, but just kept tweaking until i felt it looked right, so no magic formula I’m afraid. Likewise for the Sky and Extra Dark Sea Grey. The main thing for me was getting the contrast between the colours right, rather than nailing any particular shade.

cheers

matt

[MattSimps74]

I’ve succumbed to the Fr. 47 I’m afraid, so no progress on the other 4(!) until it’s been ‘caught up’ to the others. 

Apologies to anyone hollering encouragement for a glorious griffon engined 4-plane RFI post, it will happen eventually! 

I’ve been collecting Aires resin bits for the Fr. mk. 47 for a while, essentially an equivalent to the Grand Phoenix version of the Airfix kit - resin cockpit, engine and wing-folds (these were hard to come by!)

 

I started with the wing centre section. The flaps were very much Fr.46. I’ve filled the 46 lines in here. The inboard flaps were filled with putty this time, much easier to achieve the gull-wing curvature on them. 

 

The trailing edges of the radiator fairings were sanded away for the mk 47’s larger flaps, the fairings themselves squared up, and luckily I found some Pr.XIX radiator faces in the spares box. It’s worth keeping everything!

 

I’ve re-worked the kit’s arrestor hook to match Jumpei Temma’s drawings.

 

 

These are really handy - watch o-rings, perfect for scale doughnuts!

I’ve used one here for the hold-back ring under the tail hook.

They’re rubber so they stick well with CA glue and can withstand a clumsy knock or two. 

 

 

The outer wings, with the Aires wing-folds installed. Clear red and green acrylic wingtip lights, a few tweaks to the wing-fold shape and aileron tabs scribed underneath. 

The tips were re-profiled and thinned quite a bit, too. 

Barracudacast prop blades are lurking at the bottom of this pic.

 

 

On to the fuselage next. I thought the camera windows on the kit were a bit small, so have spliced in the windows from the new XIV kit and polished them up.

I’ve added 3D strengthening plates for the sling attachment points and done the carving trick to pick out the armour plate on the main fuel tank too.

 

 

The cockpit would have been a lot easier if the sidewall details were cast onto wafers rather than 1mm thick resin! Both the resin and plastic were thinned out as much as I dared, the fit is ok. 

I want to keep the overall 47 nose profile on this one, so only the side cowlings will be removed.  I’ve thinned around the cowing panels to accept the photo-etch in the pic below. 

The Tamiya extra thin/sprue gloop was amazing here - any slips with the grinder (and there were a few) plop a bit on, leave it overnight and start again. Superb! 

 

 

This is a beautiful chunk of resin, though! The mounting beams had shrunk a lot unfortunately - test-fitting leaves the assembly about a mm short (2 scale  inches) hopefully I can pack out behind the coolant tank a bit when it comes to it.

 

 

So that’s it for now, next up is butchering the engine assembly into the nose and painting up all these lovely cockpit castings!

 

 

TTFN