A Debatable Spitfire Not as debatable and now finished.

[Olmec Head]

Yes another Spitfire Build using the 1/72 Airfix Spitfire Vc.  I am not sure how it will end, that depends on time and it running out.  I feel that I am already behind the drag curve by starting on Boxing Day.

 

The kit bought from Newark Air Museum:

 

 

[Olmec Head]

Time Compresses and Stretches

 

 

And a start at 10 minutes to Eleven in the morning.  The watch is a Vostok Amphibia dive watch with Russian Airborne emblem.  I bought it last year straight from Russia.  They are still using a 1960s auto movement and have 200m depth rating.  And only about 70 quid imported via Ebay.  

 

Oh and the Spitfire, I forgot about that:

 

 

With an Aldi Chocolate reindeer that looks very similar to their Easter bunny.

[Olmec Head]

Cockpit Rabbit Hole 

 

I tried to keep the cockpit work down as it won't be seen, but it still used up a hour-ish.  

 

Anyway, It's now a Lunchtime stop, with my wife getting increasingly impatient, it’s a pause with the cockpit done now  and the fuselage put together at 1:25pm, so time used so far is  2:35.  Next will be wings tail etc. 

 

 

The cockpit is easy to assemble without the usual Airfix tightness and hopefully the fuselage will not have large seams to fill.

[Olmec Head]

Day One Done

 

Restarted after Boxing day quick lunch.  14:17 start and the Vostok is quite accurate so no cheap watch jokes.

 

 

 

Fuselage done with probable seam to sanded at the nose, but later.  

 

And later after 1 hour 43 minutes.

 

 

So finished before grumpiness set in for day one.  I'll say 1600 hrs finish, the wings are on and the tail along with the Vokes filter being clamped onto place.  The fuselage nose is slightly wide for the filter and so I hope that the clamping will ameliorate this.  The wing to fuselage fit is effective, I remembered to split the fuselage away from the cockpit 'bath' slightly as that draws the fuselage in too much and leaves a gap at the wing-root.  The lower wing just needed a small bit of plastic card to fill a gap at the back join.

 

Day One, time spent:  4 hours eighteen or so minutes.

 

And a bottle of Lincolnshire Bomber County Bitter to finish.  Pork Pie for Dinner.

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Olmec Head
finished

[Foxbat]

2 hours ago, Olmec Head said:

And a start at 10 minutes to Eleven in the morning.  The watch is a Vostok Amphibia dive watch with Russian Airborne emblem.  I bought it last year straight from Russia.  They are still using a 1960s auto movement and have 200m depth rating.  And only about 70 quid imported via Ebay.  

 

Got to love a Boctok I do and have had several over the years all with different dials. Still got one plus a Chaika which uses the movement from a ladies watch plus a big spacer to fit the man size case - it's wafer thin, probably thinner than you could make a battery plus mount for a quartz watch.

 

Spitfire is looking good too.

 

Andy

[Olmec Head]

2 hours ago, Foxbat said:

 

Got to love a Boctok I do and have had several over the years all with different dials. Still got one plus a Chaika which uses the movement from a ladies watch plus a big spacer to fit the man size case - it's wafer thin, probably thinner than you could make a battery plus mount for a quartz watch.

 

Spitfire is looking good too.

 

Andy

Thanks Andy good to hear from a Vostok enthusiast, I may use a Komandirskie tomorrow, if I remember to wind it up.

[Olmec Head]

Day Two - Delayed Action

 

‘Are you doing that silly Spitfire again today?’ asked my wife, so instead of an early start we went for a walk in the gloom and muddy tracks, avoiding being run down by the local hunt and their dogs.

So it’s a later start after lunch.  I did do some filling and sanding in the morning, but not much, say 30 minutes.

 

 

The watch is a Seiko 6105 ‘Captain Willard’ Chinese copy with a Great Wave of Kanegawa face that I put in.  It’s a bit scratched due to the amount of fiddling that I have done with it.  I have also put in a traditional Christmas Covid handwash.

 

The Spitfire has gone back to my original idea of a simple aircraft.  I was changing it to Beurling’s UF-S, but that was going to be a bit of a push.  So I reverted back to a Malta single blue type from Cauchi’s ‘Malta Spitfire Vs’.  A very good book and the aircraft is T-A of 249 Sqn painted all over in a dark blue. 

 

 

 

So after a bit of airbrushing, I got a Malta Blue Spitfire:

 

 

Sadly in putting a nose fuel tank filler cap with a beading tool, I opened up the nose seam , but too late now.  The kit aerial is very agricultural, but I went with it, trying to use the parts from the kit.

 

So Day Two is 30 minutes of sanding (of which I spared you a photo) and one hour of painting.  It was nice to do a Spitfire that didn't need masking off and camouflage demarcation etc.

 

So that makes 1 hour 30 minutes for today.  Not much compared with others work on the GB, so markings on etc tomorrow for the deadline.

[Olmec Head]

Double Post

Edited December 27, 2021 by Olmec Head
double post

[Olmec Head]

Get on with It!!

 

After dinner, my wife said: 'Why don't you get on with your Spitfire and stop wasting time'.  So I gathered together some decals for the markings as obviously the kit SAAF and USAAF versions weren't any use for a Malta Special.

 

 

The sqn codes were Sky, not grey as in the profile as I only had 18" lettering in Sky.  That said, the colour is a bit debatable as with about anything to do with Malta Spitfires.  I was going to do some proper a/c serial numbers built up from individual decals to match the profile aircraft number, but that is the way madness lies as I find each time I do it.  Such hubris was averted when one of the sqn code decals broke and I had to sweat peeling it off my finger and redoing it (as I had no spares) - life on the edge -raw modelling!  Learning from this, I took the easy option and so I then stuck on some codes from an old Tamiya Spitfire Vb that looked similar.  The other markings came from a Sword Spitfire Vc sheet.  Best thing is of course no stencils and walkway lines!  I used Lakeland Future style polish to stick the transfers down,  Hence the sploggy look.

 

 

So one hour of simple (!) decaling to add to the day two total  gives 2 hours 30 minutes and a running total of 6 hours 40 minutes over the two days.

[TonyW]

That's a beautiful scheme. The decals really bring it to life.

[Olmec Head]

Day 3 Most of the last bits get put on

 

I started earlier today for the last push.

 

 

Today's watch is a copy of an old 1963 Chinese watch built for Chinese Airforce aircrew now know as the Seagull 1963.  It is a column wheel chronograph and the Chinese company that originally built them bought the mechanism from the Swiss in the 1960s.  Mine is a copy bought from Ali Express in China and took 6 days from ordering to delivery to the UK.

 

And two hours later...

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I made a mistake with the closed canopy and didn't remove the necessary extra cockpit sides needed.  It took some of the two hours used today for me to work this out by referring to the instructions!  Now I have to dig out the open canopy parts and try to pain them and then affix them.

[Olmec Head]

Finished - Spitfire Vc of 249 Squadron - Malta

 

 

 

The Airfix kit open canopy is egregiously bad, so I used a spare canopy, which was still over-large, but not as bad.