Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk.1

[Bill.B]

This is the latest Spitfire offering from Tamiya and is probably their best aircraft kit to date IMHO. The kit goes together very easily (as might be expected) and has some nice details, but considering that a pilot is included there isn’t an option to display the model ‘wheels up’.  Unfortunately some careful cutting and fettling is required as frustratingly the wheel bays aren’t deep enough to accommodate the wheels ‘up’. Because of this the wheels need to be reduced to nearly half their thickness before the undercarriage doors will sit flush. The chrome metal stand is made by Geminijets and it’s only required to drill a suitable sized hole in the wing thus enabling the Spit to be safely mounted. Paints are Tamiya acrylics, various oils and final Matt varnish are Newton & Windsor, and the 3 aerial wires are Uschi van der Rosten thread.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with the final result, but I’ve since realised that maybe the oleos needed extending slightly as they are probably moulded in a ‘weight on wheels’ guise. 

 

 

 

[Gordon J]

Cracking Spitfire.

 

An ingenious way to display the model and an in-flight Spitfire is without doubt the best looking thing ever.

[reggie78usmc]

looks amazing!

[Gary Brantley]

Love it!   Great in-flight model!  

[mick]

great work

[F-32]

You've done a great job on that, looks awesome

[Spitfire31]

Superb Spitfire display!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

[Herrick]

Excellent! Love the fact that it’s in-flight. Lovely work. 

[Bill.B]

Thanks for all the kind comments. 

[Murewa]

Beauty. I've always built wheels up and put on stands in a similar fashion. I've used prop blur a lot, always thinking a bare spinner would look a little out of place and not liking the resin disks. I must say though, this make me reconsider. Perhaps I'll try just a bare spinner on an upcoming build. Current build has two spinner options so I might try both and see which I prefer. Cheers.