1/48 Tamiya Mk-1 Spitfire - Al Deere - Kiwi I

[Calum]

Thought I'd try a quick simple build whilst on holiday.

I'd just received these decals so I figured on a simple Tamiya MK 1 Spitfire. I've promised myself I'm not getting hung up on the details...

Painted the interior Model Master RAF green, a bit of a wash and some detail painting. Didn't even bother with dry brushing.

Unfortunately Tamiya don't give you a decal for the panel so I resorted to punching out Mike Grant decals. Tiresome and I'm not that happy with the result. But liek I said I'm not going to sweat it. I replaced the seat with an ultracast number. ANd I wish I'd bothered with the piece of structure that should be behind the seat. Not sure why Tamyia missed this

Broke of the resin back of the harness to reposition it (This is why I should have built the structure and extend the harness with Tamiya tape. Again I didn't bother with the dry brushing and just applied a oil wash.

Fuselage when together with few issues.

Now anyone who has built a Tamiya Spitfire my have found if they push the cockpit assembly all the way in the top of it sits higher than the rear cockpit glazing. To stop this form happening I tape the clear piece to the fuselage and then insert he cockpit.

This does show up that the clear piece is a bit wider that the fuselage in this position. But as I'm going to open the cockpit I'm hoping this won't be to visible.

I also needed a bit of filler to add a bit of material in that wing root.

Fit of the wings is very good except for the 2 spots noted in the images below. The rear problem was due to my ham fisted-ness but the front part sat up a little higher than I think it should. I ended up re-scribing a bit of the back join, which thankfully didn't take long. The front section was solved with dry fitting and little bit of sanding and super glue to fill the gaps.

Finally I cut of the solid plastic actuator rod and replaced with a piece of evergreen rod

Edited July 12, 2010 by Calum

[keith in the uk]

Nice work so far allthough i think the seat should have some armour plate behind it

[Calum]

Nice work so far allthough i think the seat should have some armour plate behind it

Yeah it should. It's in the VB kits but not the Mk 1 kit. Not sure why. It is starting bother me, I really wish I'd put something there now

Guess it shows they (Tamiya) aren't perfect

Edited July 13, 2010 by Calum

[AnonymousDFB1]

Nice progress I love this kit.

[robw_uk]

great start - and nice cockpit....

[Calum]

The lack armour of plate finally annoyed me enough.

I've scratched a basic rendition of the plate. Not that accurate but it does look better

Edited July 14, 2010 by Calum

[Dave Gibson]

The lack armour of plate finally annoyed me enough.

I've scratched a basic rendition of the plate. Not that accurate but it does look better

Hi Calum,

Are you going to add the back armour too? I can scan the shape for you.

Dave.

[Calum]

Hi Calum,

Are you going to add the back armour too? I can scan the shape for you.

Dave.

Hi Dave

Where does it go?

I can't get the window off so unless I can easily get it through the cockpit opening as it stands I'm going to leave it

[Dave Gibson]

Hi Dave

Where does it go?

I can't get the window off so unless I can easily get it through the cockpit opening as it stands I'm going to leave it

Hi Calum,

It fits behind the seat, so you don't need to remove the rear glazing.

If you can remove the seat, it would be good. If not, there are still good possibilities.

Send me your email address and I'll get some scans and ideas to you. You'll just need a bit of 10 thou sheet.

Dave.

[Calum]

Onto the paint. the underside is one wing black, one wing white and the rest silver dope.

Firstly paint everything black. (I like to paint white over a black base).

I used Mr Color Tire black, which is more a very very dark grey. The black wing is masked over in the following image.

next is the white. for this I used Mr Hobby "off white". I use it for white as it's not plain white. This is the first time I've used it on such a large surface and I'm not convinced (the picture look worse than it is). I may whiten it up a bit later

No onto the silver dope. First coat was Alcald aluminium but it was a bit grainy. As usual silver showed up those tiny flaws that you always miss. so after fixing those I re-coated with Tamiya As12 decanted from the can and sprayed through the airbrush. I don't know how silver silver dope is supposed to but this is quite silver.

Onto the upper surfaces tomorrow. No preshade, can't be bothered with the hassle of painting camo and trying to maintain pre-shading.

[KLP Publishing]

Nice work mate.

next is the white. for this I used Mr Hobby "off white". I use it for white as it's not plain white. This is the first time I've used it on such a large surface and I'm not convinced (the picture look worse than it is). I may whiten it up a bit later

Funny you should mention this. I've just used this same paint on the under surfaces of my Wildcat, and for similar reasons to you. I've also not used it on such a large area before, and also remain a little unconvinced. It's great as a 'scale white' in small areas, but somewhat counter-intuitively, it seems to 'grey out' over a larger area. It also seems to have a distinct green cast to it. I think next time I might experiment with using straight white, and then post-shading with some off-white.

Looking forward to more!

Kev

[Calum]

Nice work mate.

Funny you should mention this. I've just used this same paint on the under surfaces of my Wildcat, and for similar reasons to you. I've also not used it on such a large area before, and also remain a little unconvinced. It's great as a 'scale white' in small areas, but somewhat counter-intuitively, it seems to 'grey out' over a larger area. It also seems to have a distinct green cast to it. I think next time I might experiment with using straight white, and then post-shading with some off-white.

Looking forward to more!

Kev

Agreed Kev, it does have a real green tinge. I will likely post shade with pure white prior to decalling

[Calum]

Got some paint on the upper surfaces.

I first painted the entire upper surfaces Dark Earth using Tamiya dark earth decanted from the aerosol can and sprayed through the airbrush. I'm doing this more and more as it's a pretty cheap way to buy paint, each can will fill 6or so little Tamiya Bottles, and they only cost $12 as opposed to over $4 for one of the bottles ). Plus I like the Lacquers they go on nice and thin and dry fast.

I used mask made of paper from the Tamiya VB kit for the A scheme. The Decal instructions showed a slightly different interpretation of the A scheme so I modified as required. The green is the new Tamiya RAF Dark green from the bottle

A few touch ups and then some thinned tan sprayed randomly to break up the colours. Then a gloss coat of Tamiya Clear thinned with Mr Color Levelling Thinner.

Onto the decals

Edited July 31, 2010 by Calum

[Calum]

Decal disaster no 2. Like Corsair something went wrong with the decals. I think I didn't leave them long enough for the decal solvents to go off (only a few hours). This combine with the clear coat destroyed the upper wing roundels and deformed the fuselage roundel on the right hand side

I have spares for the wins but typically the fuselage is a odd size (I've only seen on this particular sheet). I guess I'm going to have live with it

[Calum]

The repair begins...

First attempted a mask. It probably would have worked but I don't have a good match for roundel blue. Even Xtra Colour RAF Roundal blue doesn't match. As the paints I'd used were all enamels I could easily remove them with mig thinners.

I then used some Mr Color thinners to remove the roundel on the left wing. it also attacked the underlying paint which was expected. Using micro-mesh pads and cloths I sanded it as smooth as I could and then I hit it with some Alclad Micro filler. For the other wing I decided just to sand it as much as I could to smooth it out and apply a decal over the top of it. if this doesn't work I'll repeat the process I used on the left wing

I've re-scribed the lines to remove the paint etc from the lines. I sanded the micro filler and the other wing to get it as smooth as possible The decals I'm thinking of using are the Kit ones so are quite thick.

On the left wing I then re painted the brown. Grabbed the paper masks and re did the green. Finally I hit it with a clear coat of Tamiya thinned with levelling thinner. That will be it until tomorrow night.

Bought some masks to try masking. Wrong size

Tried home made ones but they didn't work out. As I'd used enamels I easily removed the paint with Mig thinners (A low strength enamel thinners) the Tamiya clear coat protected the underlying paint pretty well so only a bit of touch up was needed.

I've decided to live with the roundel left side.

Went back to decals from another Aeromaster Spitfire sheet. These performed perfectly.

Added some patches for the guns form spare decals. The following photos show her with the final gloss coat prior to post shading.

[Bennygman]

Great recovery

This is looking quite lovely

Steve.

[AnonymousDFB1]

Nice save Calum