1/48 Spitfire PR I - Build diary

[Jim Kiker]

Hi all,

This will be a "build diary" of the corrections, updates, and conversion of one of Tamiya's 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk I kits into N3071, one of the first two Spitfire PR I's and the first recce Spitfire to be flown operationally. Since this project is now complete, I am presenting this as a build diary rather than a true "work in progress." Having been in the reconnaissance business, I have been doing reconnaissance a/c for a while now; doing recce Spitfires dates back about 11 years. My buddy Wally steered me into Ed Powles' PR XIX; having had the opportunity to speak with Mr Powles directly was a special treat. That was my first recce Spit build, and much to my surprise, it turned out to be the first of a number of them. Here is a picture of the finished PR I; this angle tends to exaggerate the length i added to the fuselage, but it does illustrate the shape changes I made very well.

Thanks to input and information from several sources here and elsewhere over a period of time, I found that there were two main areas I wanted to work on; first, to improve the Tamiya kit, and second, to convert it to the PR I configuration. I began with the kit improvements. There are three areas that I feel the Tamiya kit falls short. First, both the leading edges (to a small extent) and the trailing edges (to a larger extent) are over-exaggerated. Second, the fuselage is approximately 2mm too short. Third, the upper forward engine cowling is rather too blocky. That is, it looks nearly flat across the top in cross section, where it should be more of an oval shape. A fourth area for me is that pretty much all Spitfire kits I have seen, indeed most model kits I've seen, have the landing gear too long and hence, they sit too tall. There are other more minor thing which can be addressed, but these make a big difference in the "feel" of the finished model.

Starting with the wings, looking at them from the top,the trailing edges appear too bulbous. If you look at the mid-span about where the break between the ailerons and flaps is, they are about .8 mm or 1/32" too wide in chord. I chose to leave the outer end of the wing and the wing root unchanged, take off the 1/32" in the middle, and reprofile from there. The leading edge of the wings in this kit appears to bulge forward a bit as well, rather that running straight out and then arcing bck to the wingtip; this worked out to about .030" to my eye. Here is a drawing I found on the internet, not the best, but it shows the elliptical curve of the Spitfire's wings pretty well.

I sanded the trailing edges back and re-profiled the shape, thinned out the trailing edges, glued the wings together, and was able to sand back the leading edges after assembly (which actually came later, by the way). Here is what these corrections look like. I compared the reworked Mk I wing with one of Tamiya's MKVB upper wings (the tan plastic).

I think this first correction goes a long way to improving the look of this kit. Next up: lengthening the fuselage!

Cheers, Jim

Edited April 27, 2010 by Jim Kiker

[Antoine]

Hello Jim,

PR aircraft fan here.

I'll follow your thread from close-up.

[Jim Kiker]

Hi Antoine,

Welcome aboard and regards to all!

Today we move on to the fuselage corrections. The Tamiya kits are a bit over 1/16" too short according to my information, so I decided to add the length by using the rear fuselage pieces from one of the ICM series of Spitfires. I cut the Tamiya fuselages towards the rear and in a place with no vertical panel lines; I find it easier to repair the splice off of panel lines rather than along them. I glued a series of plastic strips running fore and aft inside the Tamiya pieces. I taped one of the Tamiya fuselage pieces to an Airfix unit as a way of managing the correct length, then measured, cut, and glued the ICM unit in its new place. I let all that set up, then used the completed half to repeat the process on the other side. The cuts worked out to have the same vertical height along the cut for all four pieces. Alas, the cross sections did not line up completely. This was not a big surprise since the ICM fuselage is a bit more slender than its Tamiya counterparts, but it did take some work to bring them together.

Here is a picture of the completed surgery; this was taken later in assembly.

Here is a later picture of the inside of the surgery, showing the multiple pieces of strip I used. The use of many small pieces makes it easier to conform to the curvature compared to using one long strip, and it also makes for a stronger joint.

The next two pictures show the edges of the joint that needed thinning down. Before doing the thinning, I flooded the area inside with CA glue and let it harden for a day or so. This gave me a hard additional layer of material to work against. Spit boffins like Roy Sutherland and Bruce Archer have pointed out that the Tamiya fuselage is a bit chunky along the rear wing root area; they are certainly wider than the ICM pieces there, so I sanded quite a lot of thickness away there, leaving the line of the wing root fairing intact.

After the fuselage sections were sanded fairly smooth, I used CA glue in the joint from the outside as a filler, sanding it within a few minutes of application. I found I needed to fill, sand, and replace some of the panel lines since they do not line up exactly. Again, I used CA glue, applied with a pin into the lines. Applied this way, the CA sets rapidly so after a minute or less, I could sand down the old lines and rescribe new ones. Be aware that thin applications CA will harden very quickly, and must be worked immediately. If you wait even an hour or so the CA continues to harden and becomes much harder than the plastic, making it very easy to gouge out the plastic while trying to work on the CA.

Here are a couple of comparison pictures showing the lengthened fuselage compared to an original. Note that while 1/16" isn't a lot, it does make a very noticeable difference, in part I think because it moves the horizontal tail planes back.

Well, that's all for today; next up, we'll get to the modifications for the reconnaissance role.

Cheers, Jim

Edited April 28, 2010 by Jim Kiker

[TheModeller]

I have to say Jim, impressive kit-bashing! I'd kinda settled for the Tamiya Spit without the surgery 'cos its the best of the bunch when it comes to early Spits, and the fit is near faultless, I'd thought about trying a mod with the ICM fus' but gave up when I decided that the ICM was a bit skinny.

In fact the combination looks excellent and I'm kicking myself now for not trying it sooner!

Just a thought seeing the photos you've done, would it have helped with the difference at the fore/aft join if you'd scored horizontal lines inside the ICM part? The plastic is quite soft, with a little manipulation a cleaner seam might have been possible, what do you think?

Well done!

Edited April 28, 2010 by TheModeller

[jenshb]

Impressive work smoothing out those different levels between the ICM and Tamiya kit parts. WIth the benefit of hindsight, would it have been easier to use the fuselage and wings from the ICM kit, and then just the nose, oil cooler and detail bits from the Tamiya kit?

Jens

[Jim Kiker]

Hi gents,

Thank you for the comments! With 20-20 hindsight, you are likely correct with the idea of scribing some lines into the ICM parts; and they really are pretty soft as you described. I find it interesting that no two kits seem to really match in their outlines and especially in their cross sections, particularly with the Spitfire. An elusive shape, to be sure.

Sometimes I find that I get something in my head and I tend to ignore other paths. One could certainly use an ICM kit and swap out the nose. Two things run against that for me; first, the ICM fuselage is a bit skinny; I have read that it needs an .040" spacer, tapered along the spine, from the cockpit back. The other thing is that the Tamiya kits have a wonderful system of tabs to provide a problem-free wing to fuselage joint, not to mention that they also have noticeable twist and washout built into the wings. I really appreciate that, and those are the reasons I kept to the Tamiya kit. I also think that the ICM kits feature a slightly deeper curve in the very front of the fairing into the vertical fin. At least compared to the Tamiya kits (and that's really not the comparison one should make), the ICM tail fairing looks a bit lower and with a different line to its curve. That said, I now think there is at least one other way to do this, and that is to make the same cuts I made, make the interior strips longer, and just use the Tamiya tail and fill in the width of the joint with some more strip and putty. That would make fitting the horizontal tail planes a bit easier as well.

Your mileage may vary, of course; I just really like the way the added length enhances the look of the Tamiya kits. It is almost too bad these kits have been around a while; a well-done lengthened rear fuselage piece in resin would have been a fairly easy thing to do (I think) and would perhaps have been very popular had it been done earlier in the run of these kits.

Cheers, Yoda aka Jim

[ollieholmes]

Im following this with interest as i have plans one day to do all the Pr Spitfires in 1:48.

[Giorgio N]

Very interesting build ! Love the subject and like the way you're working. I agree with you that the added length is worth the hassle.

Will follow this with interest !

[Jim Kiker]

OK Troops,

It's time to get this bird Cottonized. Sydney Cotton had been employed as a British spy before the war started, flying over Germany on "business" and taking secret photographs from his Lockheed Model 12. After the war began, he was brought into the RAF and given command of the fledgling RAF aerial reconnaissance unit. He and his small team were eventually loaned two standard Spitfire Mk I's in the fall of 1939. The team sprang into action to convert the two aircraft into recce birds. They removed all the guns and ammo, and sealed the gun ports and the shell chutes. Armor and radios were also removed. They then used Plaster of Paris to seal all of the joints on the wings- all the access panels and all of the normal panel lines. Everything was sanded smooth and the aircraft were repainted in Camoutint. Hence the common nickname for this process, "Cottonizing." Initially, two cameras were mounted into the Spitfire's wings, one on each side and located in the former ammo storage boxes between the two inner machine guns.

In modeling terms, I eliminated all the panel lines on the wings except for the cameras and selected inspection doors and panels. Having done several recce Spits, my usual drill is to use CA glue to fill in the panel lines. I use a pin as an applicator and apply perhaps an inch or so into a section of recessed line. I let it dry less than a minute and sand it out. If there is any line repair work to be done, I also do the rescribing immediately. The CA glue will continue to harden and once it gets harder than the plastic, it becomes very easy to gouge out the plastic around a CA'ed line. Sometimes I will put a piece of tape over adjoining lines that will remain in place to help keep them cleaned out as I sand back the CA.

Here is a picture of the inside of the wing while the recce mods were in progress. The shell chutes got some sheet plastic backing and the camera ports have been opened up.

During fry fitting I found that there is a gap around the wheel wells, which has been the case with all of these Tamiya Spitfire kits I've worked on. This time, I drew the wheel well shape on a piece of .030" sheet plastic held over the opening. I cut the sheet slightly away from the line, then glued them on top of the wheel wells. Once dry, I then carefully opened up the sheet to match the opening. Finally, I test-fitted the upper wings and sanded the new wheel well edge down until the upper wings just fit.

Here is a picture of the lower wing plus one of the uppers.

I also added the hot air vents, made from plastic tubing that was shaped into a wedge and just glued onto the surface. Thinning out the rear edge leaves a nice dark shadow to replicate the opening. These vents were left in place and used to heat the cameras; this was one of the innovations Mr. Cotton had already tested to keep the camera lenses from frosting over at altitude. I like to use automotive sandable lacquer primer in cases like this; here in the U.S. it comes in gray and white. I sanded everything out, which reveals any high or low spots. Repeat the entire process until everything is smooth and even.

I don't have a picture of it, but I used some 1/8" plastic tubing to simulate the camera lenses. I cut pieces off and fit them into the camera opening and glued them onto the inside of the upper wings before assembling the wings. I thinned the inner edge of the tubes before gluing them in. I then painted the area painted the area and added drops of clear 5 minute epoxy for the lenses. Beyond the camera fit, I built the interior without any seat or head armor and removed the raised mount for the aerial as well as the aerial post on the rudder; the antenna post hole was filled after the fuselage was assembled. Naturally, the gun sight was omitted when the time came.

Well, lots of words here and not many pics. Once I got rid of the panel lines, the camera mods were a snap by comparison! Next time, we'll tackle the interior and other areas ripe for some extra detailing.

Cheers, Jim

[KLP Publishing]

Nice tip on deepening the wheel wells Jim!

Kev

[AnonymousAA72]

Very impressve work there Jim, I understood the need for the wing corrections but not the fuselage lengthening. Very informative!

[jenshb]

Taking the time to eliminate the panel lines emphasise the clean lines of the Spitfire, but also the character of the subject. Although I understand the reasoing behind removing the head armour for weight saving, wouldn't this also potentially cause dicomfort for the pilot by not having any support for his head?

Jens

[Jim Kiker]

Hi all,

Thanks for the kind words and I am glad folks are getting some useful tips from this. Bill, I agree completely with you on the length. I like the results and I can see it because I have studied the subject aircraft a lot. On the other hand, it is a PITA to do! All presented from the perspective of what I did, not necessarily what anyone else should do. Jens, you raise a good point. From the few pictures I have, the headrest was retained; only the armor plate was removed. More to come!

Cheers, Jim

[Edgar]

This appears in a 1946 book, on the Spitfire; I can't say, though, if it was the original fit, since it appears to have D-day stripes.

Edgar

[popeye]

Hi Jim.

Can't find the fitting expression in English but this is exactly the kind of informative build report/diary I'm finding interesting, useful and worth collecting, even if I am not building quarter scale !

Looking fwd to more of the same, thanks.

popeye

PS: you got mail

[Jim Kiker]

Hi Popeye and all,

Actually, I thought you expressed the thought very well and I'm glad that this diary may prove useful to you in the future. This is the type of article I enjoy as well, so it seemed natural to emulate the things I like to read!

For the build process on a project like this, I like to do as much of the "grunt work" of major changes/updates to the airframe as I can before starting assembly. Thus, I did the fuselage lengthening and all of the wing panel line fillings and the camera mods before starting the assembly. With any model, I recommend a dry fit of all the major airframe components before assembly anyway. As I worked through the big stuff, I also planned the more minor items and details like the cockpit and landing gear. Also at this stage, I decided to use the kit horizontal tails and mate them to the ICM fuselage. The Tamiya pieces were just better looking to my eyes. I cut off the elevators as well. I later used resin elevators and dropped them, attaching the pieces with steel piano wire stiffeners. The resin rudder went on much later but also has wire stiffeners; I normally use CA glue on these resin/plastic joints, but it can be brittle and the wires help keep things from flexing and breaking off.

All right then, let's get on to the cockpit. I like a level of detail that gets up to perhaps 80% of the real thing. This is one of my "things," as is the landing gear/wheel wells, but not everyone is into it and that's fine by me. Back when Roy Sutherland had his Cooper Details company, I picked up one of his cockpit sets for the Spitfire Mk I- Mk V. This is out of production now, but I'd love to see him bring it back at Barracudacals. Roy's side panels extend down and there is a realistic inward curve to the false bottom; beautiful stuff, but somewhere along the line those pieces went missing. I decided to use the kit side walls as given and add the dimensional pieces from the set. This set also has a very nice seat and photoetched instrument panel pieces plus a film for the instruments, as well as additional details. I also used an Eduard Zoom set for some pieces both in and out of the cockpit. If you scroll back to the first set of pictures, there is one showing the inside of the two fuselage halves plus the resin and PE bits without paint. To all that, I added the back end of the shoulder harness that leads to a common fitting and the dual-wire attachment that runs back into the upper fuselage behind the cockpit. I also added the pilot's oxygen bottle on the right side of the fuselage from a piece of the parts sprue.

This was a new aircraft, so like the exterior finish I did a minimum of weathering to the cockpit. I painted the interior sidewalls off-black, painted from bottom. I then painted the Interior Grey Green from the top, leaving a dark shadow along the interior stringers and bulkheads. Some areas later got a dark wash along the bottoms and side of the raised detail as well.

The instrument panel pieces were painted off-black, the instrument films glued behind, the clear markings for the instruments were painted off-white from behind, and they were mounted to the kit instrument panel. As an early Mark Spit, the seat was metal instead of Bakelite/Tufnol/Plastic/phenolic resin- meaning it was painted IGG instead of ruddy brown, and with a brown leather back pad and tan leather straps. Here is the completed instrument panel; the seat has been attached to the bulkhead. I also drilled out the lightening holes in the two bulkhead pieces. In this picture the seat assembly is just sitting on a chunk of resin to prop it up.

I normally use enamels or lacquer paints, so interior parts get a coat of clear gloss acrylic to form a barrier, washes are added as desired, and finished with a clear flat coat. I used a spare brass belt buckle to make the rear harness assembly, added a plastic disk, and ran a piece of thread for the attachment wires. The thread was coated with white glue to eliminate fuzz and painted. I have found that when sliding the interior assembly up into the fuselage on these Tamiya kits, it will tend to slide too far up at the rear, causing fit problems with the rear canopy section. I taped the rear canopy in place on the fuselage and then glued the cockpit into place. I used vacuform pieces for all of the canopy bits this time, so I slid the cockpit assembly in until it touched the clear plastic. This left a small gap between the pieces at the end.

I like to paint the vertical frames on the fixed canopy pieces and glue them on before adding the wings. In this case, the Falcon windscreen was not a great fit (likely my own fault), so it took some tender care to make right. I painted the interior frame color first, then the exterior color. The wings were also together by now, the elevators were glued on, the horizontal tails had had their fit tweaked to get a close fit, so the airframe went together quickly. Here is a shot of the completed airframe before exterior paint.

I filled in the kit's canopy rails; they sit a bit too high, and they will not be visible if you display the canopy fully open as I did here. I used the kit spinner and back plate, combined with a cleaned up prop from the spares box (Monogram Mossie kit), shortened a bit and slightly re-profiled. This gave me a solid one-piece prop with no need to fit individual blades to muck up.

I've always thought pretty much all Spitfire kits sit too high, plus the legs seem a bit thin to me. So I used 1/16" tubing, bent to form an axle and running into the wing mounts, with a telescoping 3/32" piece for the main strut and a small piece at where the axle tube "bends" at the bottom to form the hub assembly. These were detailed out and the brake lines were added to the wheel covers. I don't have any in-progress pics of these, but if anyone is keen on them I can try to add a picture or two of the completed installation. I use clear 5 minute epoxy for attaching these struts, which gives a strong bond but allows me to get both struts fitted and aligned before the glue sets up. In this case, the gear was detailed, assembled, painted, washed, and clear flat coated before they were added at the end of the build. Next up- painting and finishing!

Cheers, Jim

[ben_m]

Hi Jim,

Great build of a subject I have a lot of interest in. I have a project to make all the aircraft of the Photographic Development Unit at Heston in February 1940. What colour did you paint the wheel wells and insides of the gear doors? I think that on N3071 that they were left in white on one side and black on the other- the underside colours before conversion.

[Antoine]

Every bit of this topic is highly interesting, Jim.

Keep it running, I've at least four PR spit projects for the future!

[Jim Kiker]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Hi all,

I think we will be wrapping this one up on this go around. "All" we have left is the painting and finishing! ;-)

You recce types will no doubt have there two pictures, for just so you can see where I started from here they are. First up is a picture of the right front of this plane, taken on the occasion of it's first operational mission in late November 1939. The second picture was taken in December 1939 from the left front; I lightened up this image quite a bit, revealing the large roundels on the lower wings. I think the camera port is barely visible in the blue ring, indicating how far inboard the roundels were.

This first pictures shows several important features. First, my conclusion is that this aircraft carried an armored windscreen. It does not match up to existing information that I know about, but I think I am correct in this direct observation. Next, no antenna or wire, as is to be expected. Next, the fuselage roundel appears to be relatively small or at least no huge. Also note the lack of chipping and no exhaust stain to speak of. Last but not least, the right landing gear strut, interior of the wheel cover, and the wheel hub are all light, most likely in white.

Why white? Because the second picture clearly shows the left landing gear strut, interior wheel cover, and wheel hub to be dark, indicating black, and therefore indicating the right side gear color was indeed white. While neither picture shows the serial number, unless it was painted in a light gray and in small size, I do think that these pictures show the lack of a standard sized serial in black (night). We do know that it was common practice among Spitfire squadrons at that time to have the serial numbers painted out; so my modeler's choice was- no serial number shown.

So then, on to the painting. I use enamel and lacquer based paints, thinned with lacquer thinner or Zylene depending on the paint and a little experimentation. I started with Humbrol #90, an old tin; however, I did blue it up some some while keeping the tone the same. I think any shade of Sky will do; based on Nic Millman's excellent research we know that this Camotint shade would have been the same basic mix as the later color we know as Sky. I also added a little Model Master Metalizer Sealer in the airbrush, since I wanted a gloss coat when I was finished. Here is a picture of the underside with basic paint applied.

Note that I painted the wheel wells in black/white. This is also a modeler's choice; I haven't seen a definitive picture. Some Spits with black/white on the bottom sported painted wheel wells to match, some didn't. I went with the former. Applying logic, which is of course dangerous, I assumed that the real aircraft, when painted, had been jacked up, the wheels tucked up, and some simple masking done over the exposed portions of the wheels. I used a spare pair of covers and taped up some tires, taped them into place over the white and black wells, and painted the exterior color, leaving a soft edge along the outer wheel wells. Your mileage may vary- it's just the way I did it.

My usual method for finishing from there on out is to use clear gloss acrylic (actually Future in this case, a departure for me), then the decals, then another coat of future to seal things in, panel line washes and weathering, and a final coat of clear flat acrylic to seal the deal. I used A type roundels from Phantasy Printshop, X-tra Decals, and some bits from Aeromaster. The lower roundels also feature an larger, non-standard size of red center which I replicated. I wanted a glossy finish but not showroom wet; just waxed, so after the final clear coat I polished the surface out with Novus plastic polish. This evened out the clear coat and gave me a somewhat shiny finish, which was exactly what I wanted. The previously painted spinner/prop, landing gear, the tail wheel, and the sliding canopy were added last along with the pitot tube, and she was done.

I hope you've enjoyed the journey, I surely did!

Cheers, Jim

[ben_m]

Jim, A very accurate build of this aircraft. I only wish I had known everything I do now before I had built my version in 1/72. I will re-build this aircraft with the AZ Spitfire PR I G kit at some point. Thanks for your build report!

[popeye]

Thanks Jim -

very enlightening and a superb result to boot - congrats

Pls let's see more of the same !

popeye

[jenshb]

It's been interesting to follow your process and the model captures the character of the real thing in all areas I can see. Well done!

Jens