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Airfix's Spitfire F.R. XIV not quite OOB


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Hi all. Here's my most recent finished model, Airfix's F.R. XIV done up in the kit scheme for "Lazy Lady V".

 

The model was intended to be an OOB build which, for me, is pretty rare. I certainly didn't go to town adding detail but there were a few things that bothered me that I had to correct. The changes to the base Airfix kit are:

1. Discarded the wrong gun sight and scratch built a more appropriate gyro sight.
2. Drilled out the lightening holes in frame 11
3. Added shoulder harness support bar and seatbelts
4. Filled in the narrow collars on the cannon fairings
5. Gun camera port in starboard wing root drilled out.
6. Spinner fastener holes drilled out.
7. Fishtail exhausts were not used but rather the round ones were installed based on photo evidence. These were drilled out.
8. Added IFF spike antenna with scribed panel and also VHF whip aerial.

From a paint scheme standpoint, I deviated from the Airfix instructions as follows:

1. Spinner was painted red, not yellow, based on my interpretation of photos of the actual aircraft
2. The canopy frames are only silver/bare metal on the lower frames so the upper framing was painted Dark Green
3. The five "Locked/Unlocked" decals for the spinner were not used.

 

Paints are all Tamiya, applied with an Iwata HP-C Plus and an H&S Ultra. Weathering is virtually non-existent given the aircraft's newness in June 1945.

And so with that, the final pics:

 

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Thanks for looking. All comments and criticisms welcome.

 

Andy

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Great looking Spitfire. Essentially clean, subtle engine exhaust. Replicates a well cared for machine. Love it!

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Yowzah! What the others have said goes double for me! Sure wish Airfix thought to give us one in 1/72 scale and save us a lot of money buying up all the new releases, which all have some fairly significant issues. That is one beautiful XIV! :like:

Mike

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Really clean and lovely build of one of my favourite Spitfire Marks, thanks for sharing!

 

I built this aircraft in 1/72 from the Sword kit and their instructions have the spinner in red. Just as presonal preference, I think red looks better, but I would like to know why Airfix went with yellow and which is actually accurate.

 

Would you be able to share the pictures of the actual aircraft you used for your reference and painting decisions?

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4 hours ago, Vlad said:

Really clean and lovely build of one of my favourite Spitfire Marks, thanks for sharing!

 

I built this aircraft in 1/72 from the Sword kit and their instructions have the spinner in red. Just as presonal preference, I think red looks better, but I would like to know why Airfix went with yellow and which is actually accurate.

 

Would you be able to share the pictures of the actual aircraft you used for your reference and painting decisions?

Thank-you Vlad and to all who have reacted.

 

Unfortunately I can not post the pics I used as they were scanned for me by a member here from Volume 4 of the 2nd Tactical Air Force by Chris Shores. There are two pictures and the full on b&w side shot allows one to compare the spinner shade with those of the fuselage roundel and, in my opinion, the spinner is much darker than the outer yellow band of the roundel and is closer to the the centre red dot. There is another shot from the front quarter showing the spinner related to the yellow prop tips in the same light and, to my eye, there is no evidence to support the spinner being the same colour as the prop tips. I don't know why Airfix went this route and I think that Sword's profile, which I also used in my decision process, got it right.

 

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