Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito PR.IV

[Stew Dapple]

Here's my latest - and only my second - completion of the year, the Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito PR.IV as DZ383 of 540 Sqn RAF at Benson, Oxfordshire in 1943. My Dad mentioned that he likes Mosquitos so I thought I'd build one for him, my first thought was the HK Models 1/32 Mk.IV but it quickly became pretty obvious that 1) I wouldn't be able to transport it up to Aberdeenshire on the train and 2) if I did he'd have nowhere to put it  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I opted for the Tamiya 1/48 kit as being large enough but not too much. It was a nice kit to build, apart from the transparencies which gave me quite a bit of grief. I used the Eduard T-face interior and exterior canopy mask set - the exterior matching the interior exactly, so I had to do a bit of extra masking so that the internal framing to the rear of the main canopy remained internal and wasn't duplicated on the outside - the Eduard 3D printed instrument panel and radio gear (lovely, but you can't see it at all) and the Eduard resin wheel set (couldn't face trying to clean up the central seam of the kit parts with all that block tread and all). It may be that the internals would have been more visible if I hadn't used the Tamiya crew figures but they were very nice and painted up okay so I didn't want to leave them out.

 

I replaced the pitot with Albion Alloys Brass tube 0.3mm inside a sleeve of Aluminium tube 0.5mm and drilled a hole in the fuselage side for the camera window that isn't represented in the kit - I may have done this slightly too small but I felt better with it than if I'd just left it out. I also drilled out the indentification lights under the fuselage and glazed these with Micro Krystal Klear topped off with Tamiya Clear Red, Green and Orange as appropriate. I added the R/T cable from some fly-tying lycra thread, tinted with some Citadel black wash to tone it down a bit.

 

It was finished in Colourcoats ACRN14 - PRU Blue overall and I used the kit decals apart from the red 'KEEP OFF' boxes on top of the radiators, these came from the Barracuda Mosquito stencils set. They all worked fine apart from the serial which on drying out developed a strange kind of semi-silvering which shows from certain angles and not from others. I opted not to use the majority of the stencilling as some of it appears to be absent from the original aircraft - true, you only see it from one side but it looks suspiciously clear of trestle position markings etc. The final coat was some AK Interactive acrylic varnish, a mix of Ultra-Matte and Satin.

 

Anyway I'm reasonably pleased with it and I hope my Dad will be too. The Mark IVs were in my opinion the best-looking of all the Mosquitos and the Photo Recon ones in particular do look lovely in their PRU scheme.

 

Thanks for your attention  

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

 

 

 

 

[Cklasse]

Lovely mosquito, nice colour. Is there a work in progress post?

I have no idea how big is the mosquito other than it should be about the size of the F16, and a longer wing (which is expected of a ww2 aircraft). 
With this in mind and knowing there is limited space at home, I still hand carry back a Tamiya 1/32 Mosquito. Beautiful plane.

[mick]

great work

[Andy H]

Always nice to see a well turned out Mozzie - good stuff! 😎👍

[triumphfan]

Lovely build, well done. The Mosquito is a beautiful aircraft and the overall PRU Blue just enhances that in my opinion.

Hope your Dad loves it too.

 

Atb, Steve.

[Duncan B]

Nice work Stew and I'm glad to hear that at least this build is going to survive longer than the trip to the charity shop. I must pull you up on the glass nosed Mossies being prettier than the gun nosed ones though, did you not grow up watching 633 Squadron over and over again like the rest of us?

 

DB

[Stew Dapple]

Thank you gents

 

10 hours ago, Cklasse said:

Is there a work in progress post?

 

Sorry no, mate, I just did it for kicks in my spare time  The wingspan is about 330mm, nose to tail it's about 250mm.

 

5 hours ago, Duncan B said:

I must pull you up on the glass nosed Mossies being prettier than the gun nosed ones though, did you not grow up watching 633 Squadron over and over again like the rest of us?

 

Thank you Duncan, while we shouldn't argue matters of taste... weren't the 633 Sqn Mossies glass-nosed painted over with fake guns fitted?  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

[spitfire]

Nice one, it looks great in PR colours, I remember building a pair of 1/48 Mosquitos a long time ago and thoroughly enjoyed building them.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis.