Matchbox 1/32 Spitfire Mark 22/24

Thanks!

Wow, it's really looking good. Great job.

I am really impressed with the decals.For 30 year old,unbagged markings they went down very well and seemed to respond to Microset.    They did take a long time to release from the backing paper.    

Mounted up the blades and spinner.The modification was well worth the effort.!        

Thanks!

Looking good!

Mike

I found a major design flaw /weakness in how the prop blades are supposed to be attached to the backing plate.The glued butt joint will never cut it!i drilled a hole in each propeller blade and drilled 5 holes in the backing plate.I epoxied a short length of copper wire into each hole in the backing plate.When the epoxy cures the blades will then be attached.          

Peeled the masking tape from the canopy and re rusted the exhaust headers using Testor's Rust followed by Burnt Metalizer.    

I painted the spinner by first primering and then airbrushing the blue.I waited an hour and put the spinner nose down in a circle template and airbrushed Tamiya Flat White.  

Laid down the Ocean gray and dark green cammo.       

The cowl fits fairly well,but not perfectly.     

fit was ok  but not perfect.Some filler will be necessary.       

The wing fillets fit quite well!     

Joined up the wings to the fuselage.In nearly 40 years of scale modeling,I have never seen anything quite like this wing structure.I really like it! Talk about thinking outside the box!    

I like the 3 piece design of the lower wing sections.Much more thought was given to the design and much better than the usual stick the wings into the side of the fuselage routine.Pretty advanced feature at the time this kit was tooled.     

Yes!Just some minor seam work that i usually have to do with all of my aircraft builds.The Williams Red Lion needed much more!

Looks like she's coming together nicely.

Put together and installed the vertical and Horizontal stabilizers. That is one tall tail!  

Put the fuselage halves together.Fit was good but some filler may be necessary.    

The inclusion of the fuel and oil tanks is a nice touch,but will be hidden when I join the fuselage halves.Fit is again quite nice.     

Yes!might save a bit of body work!

Yep. Matchbox always moulded their kits in 2-3 colours to add interest for kids who didn't want to paint their models.

I just remembered something else about this kit -  the upper wing root area has insert pieces to form the curvature between the fuselage and wings. Take a little time there to make sure the alignment is right.

I forgot to mention something rather odd about this kit.;The sprues are molded in light gray,dark gray and black!    

Painted the engine.Kind of looks like a Griffon engine.