Spitfire

[ruth]

Hallo

My objective is to create a real a living aircraft. Not just a nice sprayed and nicely painted a/c. I want to make it real.

·        At the beginning oil in panel lines

·        I started with oil dots in white, brown and black.

This you can see yet!

·        The next step will be some spraying. Here shading of distinctive panels, in a lighter tone in the center.

·        Some darkening of panel lines by spraying transverse in against flying direction

·        Some silver paint at often-accessed areas.

Do you have some additional ideas?

Happy modelling

 

 

 

 

[Peter Roberts]

That is a great looking model! Nice job!

 

The only thing I can suggest is to Google and check photos. One obvious thing with Spitfires was a tendency for wear and tear at the wing root where the pilot and ground crew stood as the pilot entered and was strapped in. Was this bare metal or primer (I think the primer was light grey)? Or a bit of both?

 

There wasn't typically a lot of exhaust staining, but there was some cordite staining on the lower wings from the shell chutes. Spitfires were also renowned for oil leakage from the engine that stained the lower cowl and wing centre section, but this could vary from squadron to squadron depending on effort and/or time to clean aircraft.

 

Your aircraft is an early Spitfire possibly operating from a sealed airfield surface. (others may know more here) Aircraft operating from fields may also have soil staining on lower surfaces - this would also likely be cleaned but again would be dependent on time to do so.

 

HTH

 

PR

Edited October 24, 2020 by Peter Roberts

[Troy Smith]

4 hours ago, ruth said:

Do you have some additional ideas?

study photos.  

there is a flickr stream here of ww2 eras colour images

https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=spitfire&user_id=8270787%40N07&view_all=1

 

Note, you are building a pre war aircraft, bear in mind, the RAF at that time was still a small professional peacetime airforce, so these Spitfires were new, and were very well taken care of.

Gunnery practice was very rare,  and oil and exhaust stains were cleaned off after flying.  

 

amazingly enough, there are a few pre war images

Spitfire Mk.I by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

Early Spitfire at Hornchurch  1939. by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

Spitfire  Mk. I by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

So you really need to go very easy on weathering in this case. 

 

here's the real K9987

 

note the serial is also repeated in maybe 2 inch high characters on the fin.

 

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/01-Supermarine-Spitfire

 

which has a lot of very useful information.

One thing that did happen was roundel were resized with the Munich crisis, and you get traces of overpainting and non standard sizes as result. 

this is the factory scheme, to show how K9987 would have looked upon delievery

 

 

 

HTH

[ruth]

Thanks for these great pics.

A good guide for the next weathering steps.

Happy modelling

[FinnAndersen]

The question of accentuating panel lines is a controversial one. Some fill in with black oil, some do not bother at all.

 

What I have done is to move away from the jet black lines (which when done properly look terrific, but are inherently unrealistic) to something barely visible.

My latest models have thus had a treatment of darker green oil in the green areas of camouflage, darker grey in the grey areas - you get the idea. 

 

I have never perfected the technique of "spraying transverse in against flying direction" as panel lines generally go in all directions, so I could not find out what was the "flying direction".

 

HTH

Finn

[Tigerman60]

Ruth,

 

Very nice Spitfire.

I agree with Finn. Build a KP Spitfire Vb. Do some oil dots in different green and gray colors. Nearly no panel line treament and some exhaust stainig to a minimum.

 

Han

[Ed Russell]

Pretty much everything you need is in Troy's photo of K9987. It only lasted a few months in service, virtually all in peacetime, so would have been looked after and would not have been very weathered. Note the exhaust staining, the minimal chipping near wing root, the absence of thick black panel lines and the absence of lighter tones in the centre of panels. It all depends on your eye and your definition of realistic.

[ruth]

Well, after the next steps now. Have a look.

Let me know your opinion!

Happy modelling

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FinnAndersen]

I'm with Ed Russel, so please do not overdo this one. It would have been kept very well, being prewar. 

 

When you state that you want it "real", I take it that you want to make an accurate representation of a real aircraft, so why all this weathering when it probably wasn't on the real object?

 

Your skills lack nothing (what we see is certainly well done), but sometimes the real skill is not to use the skill.

 

HTH Finn

 

FWIW: There's a section for such posts called Work in Progress, perhaps you could have gotten further tips and tricks if you had posted there: 

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, ruth said:

Let me know your opinion!

Happy modelling

 

wheel wells.

Much debated, but this is a still of a training film of a factory fresh Spitfire. the outer wheel part is the underside colour, and the inner leg part is the internal colur

Spitfire Mk.I maintenance film UC well colour by losethekibble, on Flickr

 

panel line wash.

A dirty grey, or Paynes grey oil wash adds some shadow, without making it look like a die cast

 

this a dirty grey oill wash (mix of black, burnt umber and white oil paint, thinned with lighter fuel)

50620615 by losethekibble, on Flickr

 

this uses Paynes grey

50620040 by losethekibble, on Flickr

 

though a lot came off when I removed the wash.   The above are 72nd, and brush painted.  

 

Again, relevance to subject,   I just saw a Spitfire in RFI, very well made and great techniques, but a airframe with a years worth of weathering and no touch up from the ground crew, on a plane that as depicted was a month old....

 

OK, look at this one again, very carefully

 

Note the oil drips down the UC doors, and the small oil stains round the middle cowl fasteners by the oil tank,  these got wiped off but would leave a glossier patch  and the occasional scratch on the fastener screws heads.

 

For a pre war plane, it needs to be subtle. 

 

HTH

 

 

[SafetyDad]

Great pictures and analysis Troy - thanks!

 

SD

[Troy Smith]

On 24/10/2020 at 08:52, ruth said:

Do you have some additional ideas?

study photos. Carefully. 

 

Rather than clutter your RFI of the 19 Sq Spitfire,

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235083791-spitfire-mki-k9795/

 

two specific points,  which are visible in images I posted, which I have reposted below. 

 

1. Exhaust vary in appearance, depending on age, but they are not rust coloured,  but start out as steel, and discolour with heat, and in time, get some rust. 

2. gun ports,  pre war the RAF did very little gunnery, and it was a nasty shock to find guns freezing up at altitude, and ingress of cold air and dirt was solved by the interim of doped on piece of fabric,  But pre/early warm,  Spitfire had open gun ports, and had flssh suppressors fitted on the outer two guns, which protrude from the wing.

The use of a roll of sticky backed patches like large sticking plasters,  was a wartime developments.   I can you a film of gun rearming if interested. 

 

HTH