Spitfire Mk1 K9795 19 Sqn 1938 Airfix 1/72 - My First Go - Now Finished

[Olmec Head]

It is with some trepidation that I enter with my first build on Britmodeller.  I have viewed the site content for several years and done some posts, but I have not been bold enough to try to build something.  I have built a lot of 1/72 Airfix Spitfire 1s over the last few years and so this might be a goer.  Not like my recent Airfix Lancaster build which was not ideal (actually very frustrating) and which I am happily donating to the small children next door.  They will wreak suitable vengeance.

So everything starts with the box and sprues…

 

 

And the bits of some aftermarket (I don’t think I will use the vacform canopy, that way madness lies, for me at least).  Every time I have tried to use a Vacform it hasn’t worked, at all.

 

 

 

I have always liked the look of the first Spitfires with 19 Squadron in 1938 and I will do the flat canopy closed as that highlights it ‘pre war ness’.  It also means you cannot see the cockpit detail and I don’t have to use the vacform (which is all good).  An open flat canopy model would just look like a usual Spitfire model, I want the flatness to be there.

I will use the old ILIAD Design decals or transfers.

 

 

The a/c is also featured on pages 7 and 8 of the new Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1 in RAF Service by Wingleader books.  As an aside it looks a good reference book and has joined my other Spitfire reference books (I only have around 15 Spitfire reference books which is not up there really in Britmodeller terms.

 

Well that is the easy stuff.  Now to actually do something...

Edited June 14, 2020 by Olmec Head
bigger pictures!

[Johnson]

Welcome to the GB OH. Its a really nice kit, I made the same one a few years ago and its really nice to have the early Spitfire with a 2 blade prop and a flat canopy on the shelf.

 

I hope it goes well for you.

[Olmec Head]

Thanks Charlie for your kind words. 

Now that the overly warm and dry late spring weather has returned to a more properly British climate, I have been motivated to stop doing outdoors things and move back into the garage and the Spitfire.

In between some bouts of homeworking, I have actually glued the fuselage together.

I filled the nose fasteners and then opened them up again with a beading tool to hopefully make them a bit more fastener like.  Whether this works under layers of paint remains to be seen, or rather not seen.  I re-did the starter handle on the starboard side by filling and beading tool it, it is probably not good enough, but I will go with it.  I filled in the port electrical socket as Mk1 s did not have them, something new that I learned from the Wingleader book (page 72).  I initially disbelieved such heresy, but reviewing pictures of Mk1s shows this to be true (including my pictures of the MK 1 Spitfire at Hendon).  The good news is that all my old build Spitfire Mk 1s are now wrong as it seems all Spitfire Mk1 model kits (Tamiya and Airfix anyway in 1/72 and 1/48) have the port electrical socket below the cockpit and then compound the error by giving you the decal stencil to bodge in beside it. 

 

 

 

 

I painted the cockpit a slightly garish green mixture based on Tamiya Sky with a secret ingredient (green) to possibly represent Eau de nil.  The name is redolent of the 193Os and the Bertie Wooster books. The cockpit after the seat was painted silver and the seat was green as the original metal.  I put in a crude flare rack and a manual undercarriage lever, but both are over scale and won’t be seen anyway as the cockpit will be closed.  I also stuck in an overly large radiator flap lever and did the Sutton harness in Tamiya tape.  The rear voltage thing was removed as early Spitfires did not have them at the back of the seat frame (where were they) and as a homage to the revered Procopius’ 1/72 Airfix Spitfire dual build , I stuck in a support spar from the seat frame to the rear.

Picture

Again, the Wingleader book suggest that the underwing empty round shoots (or ejection ports) were covered and the few underwing pictures of early silver winged Spitfires seems to support this.  It does ask questions why and with what, but I also remember an article somewhere with a BOB armourer saying that they stuck sticking plasters over the ejection ports, if that is all they had, when rearming.  It would make sense to stop ingress of FOD on take-off, but again, the early Spitfire gun barrels were not ‘capped’ and I would have thought that FOD down a gun barrel is much worse than FOD blocking the round ejection.  Also, would the spent cartridge have the energy to pierce any covering on the ejection ports.  To end my musings , I filled in the ports with Vallejo filler. 

 

 

 

Next:  I will now stick the wings and tails on.

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good afternoon OH

Welcome aboard have fun with your build and by the way very nice start ..

Best Regards

Patrice

[almac]

Nice work so far. 

 

Cheers Allan

 

[Olmec Head]

Thank you Allan and Patrice, 

 

With Spring now turning to Winter in a day in the UK, I have pressed on with adequately making the Airfix Spitfire.  I have now put together all the main parts.  The wings went on easily with no upper wing gaps which is good and sometimes happens and the necessary Spitfire dihedral appears to be in place and looking acceptable.  I put in some shims on the cockpit sides to try to get the canopy fitting better as there is usually a small gap somewhere unless you force it down which is not good.  The shims unfortunately seem to just alter where the gap is , but have made some improvement.

I used the beading tool to put in some more fasteners and the two little funny venty type holes near the fuel cap in the nose.

 

 

 

On the underside, I used the Pavla resin bits (because they have been in the accessories box for 3 years now) but I don’t think that they really bring much to the party.  The radiator was not brilliant and none of the bits seem to be worth fitting really, the Airfix bits look just as good.

 

 

I also dropped the elevators on the tail, because that is the law with Spitfires (but not the flaps, that is not allowed).

 

 

Next will be Halfords' White plastic primer to find id there are any or many faults, then maybe painting.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Olmec Head

[Olmec Head]

Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear.

 

This morning with joy in my heart, I started painting the Spitfire.  I put on a bit of preshade, not too much as it was a new aircraft straight of the factory.  Then I started to spray Vallejo Dark Earth , the new model air 323 that seems to me to work well as RAF Dark Earth.  It went on poorly at first, but I was prepared for that, knowing that Vallejo clogs up in any airbrush that has not been ritually cleaned.  After some cursing and impromptu cleaning, I got the paint to start to work and eventually spray with out blotching (too much).  I use my wife's hairdryer to dry between coats.  I even got over that it stripped away from where I had preshaded with Tamiya paint.  I accepted that error and stripped it back where it peeled and painted.  After about 2 hours for what should have taken 10 minutes , the top coat was acceptable.  

 

Foolishly, I thought I would have a go after lunch at spraying the underside silver.  I decided to use Vallejo model air aluminium.  It seemed to have two settings coming out the airbrush, thin or blodgy.  By the end of even more cursing, it came out looking like it had been hammered from  Middle Earth iron by dwarves, not really the effect that I wanted.  I thought then to use 12000 ish  sanding micromesh to knock down the effect a bit, but the Vallejo paint just started to strip!  I took it all off and then sprayed it with Tamiya flat aluminium which is only marginally better.

 

Lesson learnt, don't use aluminium and certainly don't use Vallejo Aluminium!  I have used Tamiya before and it was just about OK, if you squinted, but the Vallejo was a disaster.

 

 

It might become a black white undersides Spitfire, even that is more appealing that trying to spray silver again.  The underside of the Spitfire is not looking too good with the poor Pavla resin bits and now a paint job that looks like it was put on with a house brush using Dulux!  It may well be that everything is stripped back, the resin replaced with the original Airfix bits and I will regroup.  And my fasteners have disappeared under all that painting and sanding.

 

Or I might press on regardless.

[Johnson]

Very sorry to read about your painting woes, hope the recovery goes OK.

I'm not a fan of aluminium finish, but having seen other (experts!) achieve fantastic results with AK's Extreme Metal range, I gave them a try and they do work very well, especially with a prime of Mr Surfacer 1200 or 1500, maybe give them a try?

[Olmec Head]

Buoyed by Charlie's kind words above, I decided to stick with it and put a slight squint focus on the Spitfire!  I resprayed the silver underneath and got a now adequate finish.  Ironically, where I had to brush the Vallejo Aluminium - yes brushed it - how old fashioned, it went on very well and smoothly.  Which was nice.

 

I then went all out and masked up the underneath ( trying to ignore my fear that the Tamiya paint would strip the still slightly dodgy silver) and resprayed the Vallejo Dark Earth.  It seems a good match to me for RAF Dark Earth (of course) and I do like using it despite the fact it needs lots of coats and it is a bit temperamental at times for no real discernible reason.   I got a reasonable finish, and then went on to go for the dark green.  

 

After a couple of hours and a quick hairdryer heating, I used the very useful masking cuts out (by Jon Eaton) which have been advertised before on Britmodeller and stuck them to the model with some blu tack and Tamiya tape.  The result was not bad.  I used the newish Vallejo BS Dark Green 71324, originally my plan was to use all Vallejo paints before being betrayed by the Aluminium finish!  Again it sprayed thinly, but seemed better than the Dark Earth.  That said, I was not impressed by the shade and hue of the Dark Green.  It seems to be overly dark and makes the Spitfire a bit Spinach and Sand.  I will go back to Tamiya RAF Dark Green in the future.  Although, the Tamiya Dark Green seems to still come in two versions, light and darker!

 

 

I need to touch up around the cockpit before putting the canopy on, I haven't properly thought about blending in the canopy frame to the fuselage, but we can await that.  There is not too much evidence of the original pre-shading after all the paint spray coats, but as the original aircraft was factory fresh, it would not be very stained and weathered, 19 squadron would have looked after their new aircraft especially for a press day.

[Bill Livingston]

That is looking really nice and clean. 

 

Sigh... Airfix Spitfire! I remember buying one in the late sixties in the little plastic bag with the instructions stapled to the top. I seem to remember it was quite a hard pale blue plastic...  I can't remember what it cost now... 2/6d I think.

 

(Thats 12.5p for all the kids looking in!😉)

 

A Lancaster was 7/6d at the time... thats 37.5p!!!

 

You are making a brilliant job of it... such a beautiful little model and no doubt significantly better than the one we used to buy all those years ago.

[Johnson]

7 minutes ago, Bill Livingston said:

such a beautiful little model and no doubt significantly better than the one we used to buy all those years ago

I can attest to that! 

[alt-92]

22 hours ago, Olmec Head said:

I will go back to Tamiya RAF Dark Green in the future.  Although, the Tamiya Dark Green seems to still come in two versions, light and darker!

The more recent 80-series Dark Green 2 is a good option. 

[Olmec Head]

After having done the painting, things were looking good and I hoped for a quick run to completion. 

 

That was hubris. 

 

Things started OK, I got the canopy on and painted the frames, I tried simple masking of the lines with Tamiya tape, but that was problematic as it stripped the Future (actually British Lakeland equivalent) but the end result was not catastrophic.  I then used the tried method of painting it on and then using a toothpick for cleaning off the excess.  The main issue again was the thinness of the Vallejo paint which meant I had to brush on several coats onto the canopy frames.  I am not good at canopy frames. 

 

The canopy fit was not ideal, and was a bit proud, but that is a tendency for the Airfix canopy as the fit is very tight and the extra paint altered the sit.  As Boyes was re-opened, I managed to get some new Vallejo filler and filled the worst of the gaps to an acceptable level.  I put in a very tiny ring sight, but that can’t be seen. 

 

I went slightly off-piste and tried to make the anti snag frame on the tail.  This did not went well and ended up with me stripping it down of CA glue accumulations and eventually getting something to work.  As I took my figure away I realised that I had stuck it to the side fuselage it came away but with the paint.  Worse the other side had a big blob of CA splodged on it.  Both needed sanding away and repainting.  What else could go wrong.  Dropping it on the hard concrete floor of the garage is what could go wrong.  This meant a new tail, new elevator and new tail wheel and new undercarriage to be painted and refitted!

 

 

I am now hopeful of getting to the point where the markings can be put on.

[Cookenbacher]

That's a sharp looking Spitfire alright, none the worse for wear. Looking forward to the markings.

 

I haven't used Vallejo's Model Air Aluminum, but their Metal Color line sprays very nice, but does require a primer coat first.

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, Olmec Head said:

 

 

I am not good at canopy frames. 

 

 

Hi Olmec Head, 

 

Few of us are mate - my hands shake too much these days. You have made a good job of this - the paint finish is excellent!

 

Hi Bill,

 

If the Lanc was 7/6 the Spit might have still been 2/-.  My first Series 1 was the Lysander at 2/-, Series 2 was the Mosquito at 3/- (it had a part missing so I filled in and posted the little slip and within a week I got a whole new kit - proper customer service), Series 3 was either the Boston or Hudson at 4/6, Series 4 was the Wellington at 6/- and whatever series they were the Lanc was 7/6, Sunderland 10/6 and B29 12/6 when I got it in the late 1960's as I recall. By today's standard they seemed to stay at that price for a good few years, and I don't really recall when they started going up in price - guess my "pocket money" had gone up enough for me not to be over concerned. and of course decimalisation helped to confuse matters! Throughout the late 1950's and the 1960's I bought an awful lot of small Airfix, Frog and Revell kits for the princely sum of 10p in today's money. Happy days!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited June 11, 2020 by PeterB

[Bill Livingston]

Hi Pete,

 

Do you remember the little slip of paper with all the kits on it... possibly the other side of the little slip you mentioned. It had a list of all the Airfix kits, from Series One (in the little plastic bags, all the way up to the Series 7 I think it was... or was it 8?

 

I remember ticking them off as we bought them... I had a few... a friend had most of them. I remember seeing his HMS Victory... I was SO envious!

 

I built a Lancaster, but never a Wellington... I think the Lanc was the biggest kit I ever bought in those days. I remember it was black, which meant I only had to paint the upper surfaces! 😄

Edited June 11, 2020 by Bill Livingston

[Johnson]

Looks excellent from where I'm sitting OH, the canopy frame is very good. But you've obviously been having 'fun'  !!!

 

Best wishes for the markings, I'm sure it will look great.

 

Cheers,

[Olmec Head]

Thank you all Gentlemen for your kind remarks and pointers.  I might try Vallejo Metal color, (with a 'u' in GB) but it looks quite expensive.  That said, I have a 1/48 Airfix Tigermoth that I want to do as a post war RAF initial trainer that my father flew in the 1950s before being chopped.  So I do need to do find a silver/ aluminium that works for RAF Silver paint.  

 

I have now put the markings on the Spitfire in between trying to pretend to work at home.  The good thing about the early 19 Squadron Spitfires was that they did not have a lot of stencils, presumably the pre war ground crew didn't need instructions sprayed around the aircraft.

 

I used the original Iliad Decals, but they are a bit thick and didn't set down well into the Airfix panel lines.  I used a mix of future with water that normally works well (again advertised on Britmodeller somewhere as a sticky).  This usually drags the transfers into every nook and cranny  and works better than decal softeners and setters.  I have put on another coat of straight future to see if that works better.  The underneath serials may well have silvered.

 

 

I put in the Browning cannon flash eliminators and the bead sight which caused some issues and yet more re-patching.  As a further first, I have attached the aerial wire, so I do hope that doesn't go wrong when attached to the tail strut.

 

The next will be very minor weathering as this was the eighth Spitfire out of the factory.  I am not sure about exhaust stains as I think that the ground crew would have cleaned these off ASAP after landing.  I think that the final spray will be Vallejo Matt varnish, I have used this before and it normally works well.  These are probably words that I will rue.

 

 

[alt-92]

13 hours ago, Olmec Head said:

I think that the final spray will be Vallejo Matt varnish, I have used this before and it normally works well.  These are probably words that I will rue.

Un-jinx. 🤓

I have more problems with their gloss, actually. Matt just does what it says on the tin. Or bottle, in this case.

[Olmec Head]

I have now done the finishing thing and posted it in the Gallery - shades of Tony Hart.

 

So Spitfire Mk 1 K9795 of 19 Squadron in October 1938 at the famous Photo session.  Only a month in service, so clean and not weathered. 

 

A/C potted History:  9th Production Spitfire, Delivered Late September 38 to 19 Squadron.  64 Squadron in May 40, shot down by AA over Dover! Various MUs Squadrons and MUs, forced down and crashed CAT 2 when with 222 Squadron in Oct 40.   Struck off Charge Jan 41.  Then to 58 OTU and finally School of Technical Training in Jan 42.  (Morgan and Shacklady).

 

 

 

And the slightly dodgy undersides.

 

Build Notes:

 

Airfix 1/72 

 

Some not very good Pavla resin bits on the undersides.

 

Freightdog models early Spitfire pitot

Eduard Ring sight (tiny)

Iliad Decals Pre war Spitfires

Airbrushed Vallejo Dark Earth and Dark Green, Tamiya Aluminium.

Vallejo Flat Matt.

 

Scratchbuilt:

Guard on fin

Bead Sight 

Aerial wire.

Put in Browning stubs in wings, removed volt regulator in rear cockpit, removed heating tubes in radiator.

 

My first WIP and finish on Britmodeller.

[Johnson]

That looks really great OH, your build turned out very well and I like the oil streaks underneath, just right.

 

Those early 19 Sqn Mk.1s look so good with their big numbers on the tail. Another Mk.1 I'll have to do someday!

 

Best regards,

[Cookenbacher]

Congratulations on your first build on Britmodeller, and a Spitfire no less!

It's looking grand in the Gallery.

[Olmec Head]

Thank you Charlie and Cookie for your kind words.