1/72 Airfix Spitfire Vc - 2 Sqn SAAF - Now Completed

[Olmec Head]

Having just built the Sword Spitfire Vc for the ANZAC GB, I thought that I would have a go at this GB.

 

I am looking to build this Aircraft:

 

 

Which was JK815 of 2 Sqn SAAF operating over Italy in later 1943.  It was refitted in Malta with a 4 cannon armament and a centreline bomb fit.  There has been some good information about it on Britmodeller previously.

 

and some questions that I have recently asked:

 

 

Anyway here is the obligatory sprue shot of the new Airfix Spitfire Vc as a starter:

 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Olmec Head
finished

[Olmec Head]

Quick Update:

 

I have put together the cockpit and some small additions to fill it out a bit.  I always forget that you cannot really see that much in a Spitfire cockpit even with the access door open and the canopy, so the kit's detail is probably not that bad for the scale, but it could do with the 02 hose which is prominent, so I added that.  I used a Quickboost seat which looked better than the kit seat, but may be slightly too large and obscured most of the added detail on the port side.  Also the engraved sutton harness is a bit iffy on the seat, but looks good if you squint.  I thinned down the back armour, but the angle is too shallow on the kit and leaves too much gap between that and the head armour.  Otherwise the 'cockpity' bits went together and fit within the fuselage, not always a given with Spitfire kits!

 

 

Next is to stick more bits together.

[Col.]

You're off to a good start with this one and an appropriate beverage for the task

[Olmec Head]

Return of the Spitfire Spreader Bar

 

The assembly of the wings tail and fuselage was reasonably easy although I did not get the seamless wing fuselage fit of other builders of the new kit, It wasn't too bad.  One aspect I did find was that the cockpit bathtub 'draws in' the lower fuselage slightly so a wing gap occurs.  I used the old method of the fuselage spreader bar to open up the fuselage a bit and get a better wing to fuselage fit.   The Vokes filter fit is again good, but not brilliant and needed some adjustment as the again the fuselage was tighter than the filter.  Again I fitted one side let the glue dry and then spread the fuselage to match to the filter and clamped it strongly.  I suspect that if you built the kit very carefully then the small anomalies would disappear.  I added the upper fuel filler, which is an odd omission.

 

 

The Airfix approach to the cannon fit is very good and allows a good way to ensure that you don't have to fill and sand the gaps. I am looking to put on the centreline bomb which was 250lb not 500lb in the photos and so I have added a simple cruciform attachment for universal bomb carrier off an Airfix Blenheim .  Its a bit crude , but the bomb should hide it.

 

 

I used Halfords primer because it is cheap and usually goes on well.  Next stage is to put on some extra fastener detail around the cowling and then painting.

[Col.]

Good progress again  

[Olmec Head]

Now with Added Paint

 

I used Vallejo Azure Blue for the underside (after a bit of obligatory pre-shading):

 

 

 

I am not sure how accurate the colour is, I thinned it back with white as it looked too bright.  One thing I can say is that each time I use Vallejo Model Air I become increasing frustrated with them.  They seem to clog up the airbrush tip and make a simple spraying job difficult.  I persevered with applying Vallejo RAF DE next:

 

 

 

 

The clogging on this was horrendous, and I ended up throwing out the bottle and had to fully strip down and clean the complete airbrush.  It is a pity as I started off well with the latest Vallejo Air paints, but they are now getting to be unusable for me. 

 

So I switched to Tamiya for the mid stone which was not an exact match, but looks good enough and at least sprayed without swearing!

 

 

The wrap around wing leading edges were probably underside colour, or might have been yellow ident markings or another colour.  The cannons will need painting DE and the cannon covers are another colour again as below:

 

 

These could be repainted DE or possibly Dark Roundel Red based on similarity to the spinner ( @tonyot 's idea) or maybe DG, originally I was going for DE but the contrast is significant in photo, I might go with a dark green for a difference. Although the dark red has an attraction.

 

The aircraft has some additional repainting where the aircraft i.d code letter was presumably redone:  

 

 

Again this could be a different shade of DE, I am going to use a middle stone overpaint, although the contrast is a bit strong compared with the rest of the mid stone paint.

 

Then there are the red elevator tips.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Olmec Head
redid links

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice work

[Olmec Head]

Now Finished

 

I used some alternative sqn codes from an old Sky Models set that I had for DB-R to build JK815 as it survived the war.  The Airfix SAAF aircraft markings were for an aircraft that FTR - which I try to avoid building out of superstition. 

 

DB-R was also the marking for the old Airfix 'Lancaster wing' Spitfire Vc and I realised that I had those markings in the stash, but I decided they might be a bit old and iffy.

 

 

I used an old Eduard 250lb bomb for the ordnance and the entry door was also Eduard,  I replaced the clumsy antennae with a resin version and the canopy was an old Tamiya canopy with some plastic card added to lengthen it to fit to the rails (with some fiddling).  The Kit open canopy is very clumsy and overscale. If I made the kit again, I would use the closed option.  The wheel hubs were old Airwaves which fitted exactly - they were designed for the old 1/72 kit!

 

 

I decided to do the cannon covers as Ocean grey, as an option to the probable Dark Earth re-spray or possible insignia red.

 

 

The original had some repaint at the rear, so I tried to recreate that with another shade of brown, it is quite distinct on the original aircraft's photos.

 

 

The Airfix kit goes together well with no gotchas, which is unusual for an Airfix Spitfire!   The design of fitting the windscreen to the fuselage is good, the gunsight is the old round type, but I decide I could l live with that!  the Rotol prop might be slightly oversized.   Interestingly the upper nose is slightly narrower than the current Airfix 1/72 Spitfire Mk 1 kit, which suggests that the original Airfix Spitfire 1a kit had the correct nose dimensions.

 

And the underneath, balanced on my wife's yoga candle:

 

 

[Col.]

Nice result