Spitfire GB

jbrady

The decals are on. I will never use Tamiya decals again. I hit these with 5 applications of straight vinegar and they still won't settle down. I'm going to try one more time if that doesn't work I'll cut along the panel lines and zap them again. The decals may take longer than the assembly and painting combined.

 I couldn't agree more jbrady. I order an alternate decal set for each Tamiya kit I buy simply because it isn't worth the frustration of applying the kit decals. Also I want to compliment you on your excellent freehand camo job. I mean truely well done. I need a bit more practice with my airbrush until I can produce such nice results.

                                               Joe

Joe: Thanks. This is the first time I tried to do a complete camo scheme free hand. If you got a bird with an OD over grey scheme you can try that first. Paint the gray first then spray the OD down at an acute angle from the top of the model. It gives you a nice feathered edge. For this one I used pinstriping tape (very flexible) along the demarcation lines, then worked very close to the surface with thin paint and low pressure. I bet it took less time to paint it this way than if I had masked.

jbrady: I appreciate the tip. It just so happens that I am getting ready to spray my Minicraft 1/72 PV 1 Ventura in the early Navy gray blue over insignia white scheme. A perfect oppurtunity to give my freehand a shot.

JOE RIX

jbrady:

The decals are on. I will never use Tamiya decals again. I hit these with 5 applications of straight vinegar and they still won't settle down. I'm going to try one more time if that doesn't work I'll cut along the panel lines and zap them again. The decals may take longer than the assembly and painting combined.

 

 I couldn't agree more jbrady. I order an alternate decal set for each Tamiya kit I buy simply because it isn't worth the frustration of applying the kit decals. Also I want to compliment you on your excellent freehand camo job. I mean truely well done. I need a bit more practice with my airbrush until I can produce such nice results.

                                               Joe

I was thinking it was just me that was having problems with the decals. Nice to know for next time. Usually I dont have a problem with tamiya decals but this time I did. Loved the ones on the Corsair.

The decals defeated me. I think part of the problem is that for the rondells and the fin flashes there are two decals one on top of the other. I would advise that anyone building this kit use only the rondells unless you build a version with a black underwing.

Should have this one the shelf in a day or two... some weatherining and chipping add the final bits

Day 4....

Jgeratic and greenshirt- Thanks again for your help. Between the sites you listed and some googling, I have come up with a final plan that I am pretty happy with. Several sites have info about the PR's, unfortunetly some of it is conflicting, so I am again going with "what looks right."

That being said, this is mostly what I am going for:

Overall the pale pink color, with no roundels on bottom. The only modification I plan to this is I have read that several PR's did not have a designation code on the fuselage at all. I may go with that plan just for simplicity.

Some noteable mods to the plane are obviously the camera holes, one on the left side and two on the bottom. Also the lack of a radio antenna, as the radio was removed in many PR's to not only make room for the camera, but also to enforce radio silence. One other thing is that the PR's did have an enlarged canopy, as was mentioned, and since I don't have the time or money to fiddle with the aftermarket set, I plan to just use the bubble canopy and call it close enough.

As for the build, still going smoothly. Cockpit and pilot are mostly painted, just need to do the instruments and the pilot's face. Should only be a couple more days and I can put it all in. Fiddly bits are in place and painted inside the fuselage, which is also now glued together.

Before:

After:

The red arrows point to approximately where the camera ports will be. I probably should have cut those out before gluing it together. Oh well.

One other thing to mention is I got the wheels glued up into the wing, which required a lot of trimming. I almost had to cut the struts in half to get everything to fit in the "up" position.

27 days to go....

Sub Revolution: nice subject!  Here's an online thread on that specific subject here.

Looking forward to the progress.

Tim

I'm calling this one done. Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire MK I, OOB except for scratch built belts and harness. MM Enamels throughout.

I don't know if the "Dunlop" on the tires was painted or chalked but it was there and I couldn't resist.

Can I add a MK V B done in the livery of the 4th fighter group? It'll be "Top Hat" flown by Lt Duane Beeson 334 FS out of Debden in October 1942.

Very nice results on the Spitfire, jbrady.  Really good shading and panel lines.

Nice Spitfire!

Superb job jbrady! I really like the weathering. Just enough to give a well used impression without being overdone. Do it again.

                                                          Joe

jbrady - that build turned out really well, seriously nice job. 

 I didn't get a chance to pipe in quick enough about the decal problems.  My method doesn't use any after market stuff other than future and water.  After the overall coat has dried sufficiently, I apply more future in the decal location and then wait 15 mins or so for it to set.  It should be a bit tacky still, put a few drops of water on the surface so you can slide the decal around to the proper position.  Then blot out and press somewhat firmly with a damp tissue that is folded a few times (this prevents you from actually leaving fingerprints in the fresh future.  With it being still a bit tacky it pretty much fuses the decal to the surface.

Although I didn't spend every free hour at the bench this weekend, what I did was mostly with the canopy.  I can tell you I'm tired of buffing that thing with 6 different types of grit.  After a couple coats of future I had turned the kit upside down to dry, but still ended up with a few specs of dust, some are even inside and must of droped from the interior somewhere when I had flipped it.

I've added an ultra cast propeller and was able to attach the original kit part to the back.  To help stengthen the assembly, a small hole was drilled at both the crank and back plate and a short piece of brass rod inserted.  Painted flat back for now until I get the yellow tips sprayed.  Afterwards might gloss it up a tad.

regards,
Jack

Beautiful Mk.I Jbrady! You caught the look of a new build slightly battle used aircraft perfectly.

Well, you guys who built the ICM Spits are correct- you cant get the cowling to fit over the engine without some serious fiddling and filing. I installed my Merlin into the front of my Mk VII this afternoon. Most of it fits reasonably well with just a bit of sanding... but the top portion- it just did not want to go on over the rocker covers...  So, in for a penny, in for a pound. I am gonna build and display mine with the top and one side panel off and the bottom and the opposite side on. That engine is just too sweet to hide.And now I have an idea of how to do my ICM Mk IX.

and I do not know if you recall I mentioned a disaster that had occurred earlier. During the test fitting of the engine on the motor mount into the fuselage a few weeks back I dropped everything and in a show of amazing catlike reflexes caught everything as it fell. Unfortunately my catch was at a bad angle and with too much force so I ended up bending and cracking the fuselage on both sides of the cockpit. But now that the engine is installed and the fuselage has more rigidity I glued up the cracks.

They are still fairly visible now, but some filler, sanding, and probably some re scribing will cure all that.

Thanks for the kind words on the Mk I. Now I got the BoB bug. I'm going to eventually do the Hasegawa Hurricane Mk I, but for now can anyone reccomend a good 1/48 "Emil". There seem to be a ton of them. never done a German fighter before and I figure I could start there.

Well of course you cant go wrong with Tamiya. I have built the Hobbycraft one into a very nice Emil, but it takes a bit of of work. I cant speak for the Hasegawa Emil.

I have an unbuilt Hasgawa 109E-1 and a quick compare to a built Tamiya; biggest thing I notice is the Hase has the exhausts molded into the fuselage.  The upper cowl has one less panel line and some other details looks slightly different.  The main wings also devoid of any rivet detail unlike Tamiya.  The underwing gun covers also look larger.

Might want to also consider the new Airfix tooling Bf109E-1 / 3 / 4 as it seems to be just as good as Tamiya.

regards,

Jack

Jbrady- Excellent job! All around looks great!

jgeratic- I don't know how you did it, but you pilot looks increddible. I doubt mine looks half that good.

On that note, I have the cockpit/pilot finished and was going to put it all together tonight, but I seem to have caught some kind of bug.

Oh well. It's not like I can go much further until I get my hands on some Future anyway.

Ok, so now that I am mostly feeling better and have put some thought on how I am going to do the rest of this, here is where I am:

All buttoned up and ready to go. Man that cockpit looks cramped! I'm amazed they were able to fly at all in a space that tiny.

Showing where I cut out holes for the cameras.

And finally, my very sloppy attempt at preshading. I have not done this before, so I'm hoping it turns out ok. It is supposed to look random, right?

Given my current living situation and lack of Future, I am actually considering doing something I have not done since I was a kid. Are you ready for this? PAINTING BY HAND!!!

I'm scared.

jgeratic1

I have an unbuilt Hasgawa 109E-1 and a quick compare to a built Tamiya; biggest thing I notice is the Hase has the exhausts molded into the fuselage.  The upper cowl has one less panel line and some other details looks slightly different.  The main wings also devoid of any rivet detail unlike Tamiya.  The underwing gun covers also look larger.

Might want to also consider the new Airfix tooling Bf109E-1 / 3 / 4 as it seems to be just as good as Tamiya.

regards,

Jack

Jack: Thanks for the recommendation. Just ordered the Airfix. Looks like a great kit.

Some very nice work going on here, I hope to get started on another one sometime.

For the uppers I'm trying DoogsATX suggestion of the three layer blend.   First is a coat of dark earth.  This is followed by white and yellow mixed with the base coat filling in areas between panel lines.  Then finally, to tone down and tie everything together, another light overspray of the base coat which is very much thinned.

In hindsight now, I think if after step 2  I had masked the green camou areas before applying the final brown overspray I could have skipped a step.  The dark green camou will now require the same three steps but with masks covering the brown.

The dark brown is LifeColor brand.  As I don't normally use this type of acrylic, I had to mix a different brown with white and yellow from my Tamiya palette (the two different brands don't mix well and clogged the airbrush).  Future was used for thinning.

regards,

Jack

Jack: I had the same quandry with the fading. I took the easy out and claimed it was a new airplane. I've since found a new technique to fade multi-color camo schemes. I am going to try it out on my next Spit build. The technique calls for a couple of drops of light grey or white in the first dull coat used to seal the decals. I'll let you know how it works in a couple of weeks.

jbrady - that will be interesting to see how it turns out.  I think it was in one of forums here that I had read a comment that European aircraft did not fade to the same degree as those based in Africa or the sun and salt exposure in the Pacific.

Well my fighter camou is complete, followed by two liberal coatings of future (hand brushed).  Up next is a panel wash and decals.

regards,

Jack

How well does future hand brush? I only tried it once, on a canopy, and it looked awful!

The suggested method for canopies is to dip them in a suitable container filled with future.  I did this originally but after I glued it in place, did another round of sanding and had to hand brush the future on, with no problems.  I wonder if anyone has ever tried submerging a whole aircraft in future.

When applying the future with a brush, do not overload the bristles (I used a flat 3/8" wide sable hair).  You don't necessarily need to work quickly, but you should spread out each application as much as possible before dipping into he bottle for the next round. Just as in painting, do not go back over an area that has already begun to dry. 

You will likely get a few accumulations of future on an edge.  Again do not try to even it out with the brush.  If it is still fresh use a paper towel to absorb it on the edge, but not directly on the flat surface.

regards,

Jack

Well I guess it was my turn to have disaster strike.  Things were going too smoothly and murphy's law decided to rear it's ugly head.  After applying a pin wash made of water and some dish soap, I can usually wipe the excess off with a damp cloth and water, but not this time.  Even a 50/50 mix with Tamiya thinner couldn't lift off the wash.  Against better judgement went with straight thinner. That got it, along with the future and the the underlying paint. 

regards,

Jack

Dang that sucks really bad!

That's really disappointing, Jack.  I've been trying pinwashes lately, and even though I've used dish detergent too, and a 9 to 1 ratio of acrylic paint to water, they still seem resistant to wiping off if left on more than 10 to 15 minutes.

Hope you can fix this.  It was looking very good.

On the plus side, I think you accidently discovered one hell of a weathering technique. Now if you could just cover up the spot where the bare plastic shows through...

My fix is to remove all surface paint.  I work at a print shop and was able to find an industrial type degreaser (something similar to superclean).  Originally was thinking brake cleaner, but read it eats away at the glue and would likely result in the model falling apart.

It has been a good five years since I had built an aircraft and in that time I forgot some basics.  Firstly, ten hours was not enough for the future to cure.  Secondly, since the wash was an acyrlic based paint, the protective clear coat needed to be a different medium, like Testors enamel gloss clear.

I managed to get the majority of the surface cleaned up.  I did leave the masking on the canopy and wheel wells.  I didn't dare look underneath to see if any paint damage occured here from the cleaner as I was discouraged enough as it was.  I'll worry about that later.

As for discovering a new weathering technique, it's just too hap-hazard.  Could probably get the same result (and better control) by using a fine grit sand paper.

regards
Jack