Rareplanes 1/72 Supermarine Spiteful (£5)

[AdrianMF]

Tailplanes on and all the bits prepared:

 

I’m minded to replace the undercarriage legs and doors. I have some Oyumaru moulds for propeller blades, as @JOCKNEY will know, but they are too big for this one! I need to make some moulds for the propeller blades and then it’s Milliput time!

[JOCKNEY]

Thanks Adrian, I promise you lots of mentions when I build my Moss and Bear in their respective GBs.

Great to see the progress on the Spiteful.

 

Cheers Pat

[AdrianMF]

It turns out you can spend an awful lot of time making an air intake:

 

This one started life as a slice off the bulged nose wheel door from the old Airfix Phantom.

[JOCKNEY]

5 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

This one started life as a slice off the bulged nose wheel door from the old Airfix Phantom.

 

Can't be, shouldn't it have about 15 decals on it then ? 

[AdrianMF]

So we now have ten blades, a filled aeroplane and a spinner that’s 90% Milliput:

[AdrianMF]

One last piece of craziness for tonight:

 

I carefully extracted the blades from the moulds while they were still cheesy and I have pressed them on to pieces of balsa cut with a twist to make them look more realistic. That’s the plan, anyway - tomorrow will tell!

[AdrianMF]

Propeller done, radiators on, tail wheel doors added:

[stevehnz]

That is looking a bit WOW, keep it up Adrian.

Steve.

[AdrianMF]

I’ve been drafted into laptop maintenance, fridge defrosting and shelf repair, but every time I pass I get another coat of those late war bits of colour that I would otherwise forget until the dark stuff had gone on:

[AdrianMF]

3 hours ago, stevehnz said:

WOW

The blades are very fragile, despite being reinforced with medium CA at the root and doused with thin CA just about everywhere else:

 

 If I ever drop or mishandle this there will be another exclamation in capitals, and it won’t be “wow”…

 

[AdrianMF]

Wheel wells look a bit busier. Cannons are very expensive aftermarket replacements (unless you skip the cocktail and just buy the stick):

[GREG DESTEC]

Lovely work Adrian, your Spiteful is looking the business 👍

[PlaStix]

Hi Adrian. Absolutely brilliant modelling!! Your additional work on an already difficult (vacform) kit is astounding!! I am well impressed!

Kind regards,

Stix

[JOCKNEY]

On 08/08/2021 at 19:31, AdrianMF said:

Wheel wells look a bit busier. Cannons are very expensive aftermarket replacements (unless you skip the cocktail and just buy the stick):

Did you enjoy eating the cheese and pineapple off them first ?

[AdrianMF]

57 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

vacform

The "vacform" part hasn't been so bad - for a vac it's a really nice kit (but apparently has accuracy issues).

 

43 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Did you enjoy eating the cheese and pineapple off them first ?

Not since the 70's, which come to think of it is about the last time I saw a grapefruit half!

 

Micro-progress. It looked a lot neater in my head before I did it, I over-trimmed the canopy slightly and I think I'm going to need a scrap of 5 thou or some paper to build the sliding canopy frame back up:

[AdrianMF]

Not much this weekend, but I’ve traced out a rough template for a paper canopy frame to tidy up the edges:

 

The weekend was taken up with a family reunion in Cambridge, and as a reward for being good all weekend and sitting quietly through outdoor Shakespeare (on the ground - ouch) we stopped off at Duxford on the way home, where this little beauty was in the restoration hangar:

[Richard Tucker]

On 7/31/2021 at 3:25 PM, AdrianMF said:

This one only dropped through my letterbox from eBay on Thursday. It’s not “collector price” because the packaging has been savaged and the spinner and wing roots have suffered from attic rash:

 

I was just looking at it with a scalpel in my hand, and this happened:

 

I have a Frog Spitfire XIV+V1 kit that I can take mouldings from if the propeller and wheels don’t work out:

 

The canopy is not yellowed (good) but it doesn’t have a clean edge to show where to trim it (bad!). I thought at one point that I had messed it up but it suddenly fell into place after a bit more trimming.

I've just seen this and have been reading through. You've blitzed through this as if it was an Airfix kit   I wish I could get the enthusiasm to have another look at the Westland Welkin Vac I have started.

[AdrianMF]

3 hours ago, Richard Tucker said:

I wish I could get the enthusiasm

Don't worry Richard! I have my own Shelf of Shame going back multiple years, which I camouflage by calling it the "Shelf of Long Term Projects"...

 

All my quick builds are in some way a displacement activity from resuming one of the lifers.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[JOCKNEY]

2 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

All my quick builds are in some way a displacement activity from resuming one of the lifers.

 

Oh boy, ain't that the truth !

[heloman1]

Adrian, what a choice, I've just picked up on your build. I remember when I used to visit Model Toys in Portsmouth. Mike Keep the owner stocked Rareplanes. I think I have the Seafire 47 in my vac stash.

Looking good.

 

Colin

[Mr T]

A very nice build coming along Adrian, those Rareplanes kits were are nice. I built the 224 earlier this year and more recently the Box-Kites Miles M20, which I must photograph. 

I think he must have reworked the mould as my kit had basically standard Spitfire tailplanes, whereas yours seem to be a bit nearer the real thing. 

[AdrianMF]

12 hours ago, Mr T said:

he must have reworked the mould

I’m not sure on a casual inspection whether the tailplane is any bigger than my Airfix Mk24, to be honest. From what I’ve read, it seems like the Rareplanes and Pegasus kits have quite a few accuracy issues, but I’m sufficiently unfamiliar with the subjects to just build what I’ve got. I plan to do a family lineup when I get done so I guess we’ll find out then…

 

12 hours ago, Mr T said:

Rareplanes kits were are nice

They are! I’ve built two now, and they were definitely a cut above the two other vacs I have built.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

[Troy Smith]

3 hours ago, Mr T said:

I think he must have reworked the mould as my kit had basically standard Spitfire tailplanes, whereas yours seem to be a bit nearer the real thing. 

 

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

I’m not sure on a casual inspection whether the tailplane is any bigger than my Airfix Mk24, to be honest.

Should be the same size, as the Spitfire 24 had the tail unit designed for the Spiteful,  this was finally a solution to the problem of control that was causing problems for later Spitfires with longer noses and more power.    

[Mr T]

Sorry, I was not being very clear. My Rareplanes Spiteful had tailplanes that were the same size as Spitfires prior to the Mk22/24. I always think of Spitfire 22/24s as having Spiteful tailplanes. 

[AdrianMF]

On 19/08/2021 at 18:45, Mr T said:

My Rareplanes Spiteful had tailplanes that were the same size as Spitfires prior to the Mk22/24.

Looks like they fixed it. Here’s a FROG Mk XIV tailplane for comparison:

 

I’m assuming the FROG ones are not undersized

 

And I’m back at the bench this weekend so I’ve managed to add the canopy frame from paper and make some undercarriage legs from Albion Alloys slide fit tube: