Supermarine Seafire MkIII

[825]

I'm going to build a couple of Aeronavale Seafires. The first is MkIII from Octopus, who I think became Pavla looking at the style of the boxing. The other build will be a Sword MkXV. 

 

 

This kit has a single sprue which has nice detailing but a lot of flash and ejection pins. The reinforcement around the radio hatch is more than a bit heavy handed. 

 

 

And some very nice resin, along with a couple of vac form canopies. 

 

 

A number of options, RCN, FAA (with the short lived post war equal size roundels) and the Aeronavale version. 

 

 

And a fairly full instruction booklet. And a largish sheet of transfers. But no stencils. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[825]

Some paint on 

 

 

it brings out the detail on the resin really well

 

 

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Excellent choice … I have the same kit (different boxing) so do you mibd if I follow along ? 

[825]

On 7/31/2021 at 9:16 PM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Excellent choice … I have the same kit (different boxing) so do you mibd if I follow along ? 

Not a problem, I suspect it'll a little on the challenging side so please dip in with any thoughts, comments or suggestions. It's a real mixed bag, gloriously beautiful resin and fairly industrial flash ridden injection parts with massive sprue gates. 

 

Anyway I've got a bit of paint on. 

 

 

I also thinned down the reinforcement around the radio hatch

[Wez]

Your thoughts echoed mine about the reinforcement around the radio hatch, I was going to ask if you were going to do anything about that, the answer is obviously yes!

 

Welcome to the GB and good luck.

[825]

On 7/31/2021 at 9:16 PM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Excellent choice … I have the same kit (different boxing) so do you mibd if I follow along ? 

The painting and cleaning up is coming along but you can see here some of the challenges. And I've already tidied up the other sprue gates. All on the leading edge of course. You can see what was cut off before getting the sanding sticks out. 

 

[825]

Cleaning up the bits has taken a long time, there was tons of flash, massive ejection pins and the wings have massive trailing edges so a lot of sanding was done to trim them down. I recall building a Pavla Martinet a couple of years ago where the trailing edges were about a scale foot thick. You'd get away with it on a target tug but Seafire trailing edges were razor thin so the work was needed. 

 

The interior is lovely but still needed a lot of trimming to get it to fit and go together. Here's where we are today. 

 

 

 

[Procopius]

God go with you on this one, it's one of the worst kits I've ever owned.

[825]

16 hours ago, Procopius said:

God go with you on this one, it's one of the worst kits I've ever owned.

PC, It's not the worst I've done but it's a real challenge. Absolutely gorgeous resin but pretty rubbish injection moulding of the basic parts. Don't worry, I'll knock it into something presentable, even though it wil probably be nowhere your standard.

 

Pavla/Octopus kits are a challenge but I won't let them beat me. Though I do have the vac form canopy to do. 

 

I trust you and yours are well and bearing up in these difficult times.  

[Procopius]

3 hours ago, 825 said:

PC, It's not the worst I've done but it's a real challenge. Absolutely gorgeous resin but pretty rubbish injection moulding of the basic parts. Don't worry, I'll knock it into something presentable, even though it wil probably be nowhere your standard.

 

Pfft, don't sell yourself short!

[825]

On 8/31/2021 at 3:13 AM, Procopius said:

 

Pfft, don't sell yourself short!

Thanks PC

 

i keep having problems with the interior, it is just a little too wide and ill fitting, it looks great but I suspect little will be seen. It also keeps falling apart, the seat keeps falling off in particular. It might be the cyano is going off a bit. Mind you it still glues my fingers together!  The IP needed sanding down for the fuselage not to have a couple of millimetre gap. 

 

I decided to bite the bullet and close the fuselage up and insert the interior afterwards. 

 

 

Despite allmthe fit problems ive had so far, the fuselage goes together really well. I know I used a fair amount of tape to hold it. But the seams are minimal, a little bit of filler and a small amount of sanding and polishing gives a nice finish. 

 

[825]

I've spent the last week or so fighting the cockpit, the resin looks lovely but it just doesn't fit together well in the space available. I think I've got there in the end, loads of detail has been scraped off, sanded down, glued and glued again. And at the end of the day almost none of it can be seen. 

 

 

 

And some of the rear of this needs thinned down a lot so the lower wing goes on. However, I'll leave the cyano a good day to cure first. 

 

 

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Im sure it looks good sorry to hear about the fit issues. 

[825]

1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Im sure it looks good sorry to hear about the fit issues. 

It's mainly down to the unnecessary excess of resin. It's all beautifully moulded but too large for the space inside the fuselage. And you can see hardly any of it. Once I've done my usual bodge of the canopy even less will be seen. 

 

The fuselage sides went together beautifully with hardly hardly any filler needed. The trailing edges are a bit thick and I have thinned them down somewhat but probably not enough. 

[Grandboof]

What you can see of the interior looks fine . 

Martin H

[Bertie McBoatface]

That tiny cockpit is always a bind with the Spitfire. 'Specially in 72.

[825]

On 10/4/2021 at 8:57 AM, Grandboof said:

What you can see of the interior looks fine . 

Martin H

It does Martin and what you can't looks even better, and caused all the fit problems. I'd rather Octopus had concentrated the longeron, radio hatch and arrestor detail rather than lots of resin that's both unseen and causes problems. 

On 10/5/2021 at 5:47 PM, Bertie Psmith said:

That tiny cockpit is always a bind with the Spitfire. 'Specially in 72.

It's more causing fit problems Bertie rather than the detail. 

 

A little bit of gentle trimming was necessary before glueing the wing underside on. I also had to physically bend it, to get it to approximately conform to the fuselage shape. As moulded it was dead flat. And loads of tape to get it to mate. 

 

 

The front was fine (actually excellent by Octopus standard) but the rear has a bit of a gap despite loads of tape and being left for 48 hours to firm up. 

 

 

Far too big to get away with a smear of filler. So back to the dreaming board. 

 

 

[Grandboof]

Just a suggestion Place over hot or boiling water to soften a bit then a quick taping to hold in position while it cools . Be careful though to much can damage .

Martin H

[825]

1 hour ago, Grandboof said:

Just a suggestion Place over hot or boiling water to soften a bit then a quick taping to hold in position while it cools . Be careful though to much can damage .

Martin H

Thanks Martin, I did think about that but decided to use multiple glueing, sheer brute force and tape. It's worked close enough to get something that's reasonably acceptable. This is after the second glueing. 

 

 

 

Needed a little little bit of plastic strip to fill the gaps but this can be fettled into a decent shape. What's more worrying is the hole for the arrestor hook, there's a beautiful piece of resin but the hole is not even an approximation to it. 

 

[825]

Went for it and glued the upper wings on. Doesn't look too bad for here. 

 

 

I did spend a lot of time sanding the trailing edges down and overall they don't look too bad. Though there's a miss match at the wing tip. I don't know if it's the upper wing that needs trimmed or the lower filled. Time to check the plans in the Warpaint book. 

 

 

And the arrestor hook hole looks better but still needs trimming. And something to stop the resin part falling in. 

 

 

[825]

The underside parts added on including the arrestor hook. The hook fitted beautifully after careful trimming of the hole for it. Most of the other parts needed a little filler to close little gaps. I also filled the poor wing joint. Empanage on as well. Looks like a Seafire now. 

 

[825]

Underside painted now and not looking too bad. 

 

[825]

First coat of Dark Slate Grey on and it's starting to look like a Seafire. There's the obligatory faint seam along the cowling top which I'll address when the paint dries. But looks like we're on the home stretch now. 

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

10 hours ago, 825 said:

it's starting to look like a Seafire

Yes it is, I have the same seam issue’s occasionally. They can be annoying.  

[825]

On 10/23/2021 at 8:25 PM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Yes it is, I have the same seam issue’s occasionally. They can be annoying.  

I think it's almost inevitable on a Spitfire/Seafire due the flat nature of the cowling. It's gone now with some Mr Liquid Putty and gentle sanding and polishing. 

 

Upper surfaces painted and the initial transfers on. The Octopus transfers are a little on the thick side but go on fine and have settled with a bit of Micro Sol. However, they are a little 'dull' and the white is particularly thin looking. I'll see how they are after settling. Also it's a fairly well used machine in a war zone so it may be OK. I've got some Techmod transfers left over from a Sword boxing and they are really nice, so may use them instead.