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Tamiya Spitfire Mk IX Kicked Up A Notch: Last Post


chuck540z3

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Small, reddish brown repair patches, crude yellow serial numbers on every major panel and – most intriguing – lighter instead of darkened panel lines and boltheads. Not to speak of the generally faded and washed out appearance of the colours. It *could* challenge some broadly held assumptions about how to properly represent weathered aircraft in scale modelling... :coolio:  :deadhorse:

 

Have those demarcation lines actually been painted by brush, perhaps with some wet-in-wet technique or even drybrushed? Or are they airbrushed and just rubbed down? I find myself in total ignorance about the appliance of paintjobs on these aircraft during the war.   

 

Anyway, a trove of detail, thanks for sharing, Chuck!

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Amazing reference photos - thanks for sharing.  What those shots say to me, in addition to what's been said above, is that the so-called "stressed skin" effect is very evident in 1:1 scale, and probably one of the biggest things separating a smooth, streamlined plastic scale model from the real thing. 

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Great reference photos, especially of the topside which are hard to find.  I agree with Bstarr3... I noticed the stressed skin effect too.  I know you can do this manually, but I can just imagine a manufacturer attempting to replicate that on a kit someday.

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Outstanding work so far... may I suggest a little transparent green from Tamiya on the edges of the hud to represent the thick glass slab more accurately? ;)

Cheers

Alan

 

Thanks and great idea, I will do just that.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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Outstanding work so far... may I suggest a little transparent green from Tamiya on the edges of the hud to represent the thick glass slab more accurately? ;)

Cheers

Alan

While I have to admit I did this on mine too, I used a bit of green and blue to get an aqua tint, it's not really accurate. The blue/green edge is a characteristic of tempered glass and the reflector on the Spitfire's sight wasn't tempered. It does look kind of cool though. ;)

 

Cheers,

Wolf

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Great pics Chuck!

 

As always the world of the Spitfire is murky when it comes to details. That Merlin engine is beautiful but be careful with the pipework, I don't think that represents the details for a MkIX Spitfire installation...

Don's right Chuck. The plumbing on the engine looks to me as though that particular Merlin came out of a Mossie! Great pic though!

 

Your cockpit looks amazing as well as hauntingly familiar. Are you going to add the rudder cables? Ok, I'm going to shut up now.......

;)

 

Cheers,

Wolf

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Don's right Chuck. The plumbing on the engine looks to me as though that particular Merlin came out of a Mossie! Great pic though!

 

Your cockpit looks amazing as well as hauntingly familiar. Are you going to add the rudder cables? Ok, I'm going to shut up now.......

;)

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

 

Thanks for your input gentlemen, but I'm quite aware of that, which is why I said the engine is "stylized with lots of chrome and not typical of a wartime engine".  Having built The Packard Merlin engine in my P-51D build, I often lost where a pipe or cable went with the pics I had, so this "piece of art", if you will, might show that- or maybe not.  Time will tell, but as all modelers know, you can't have enough reference pics and you need them from every angle imaginable.

 

As for the rudder cables, no.  Looking at your awesome build Wolf, I thought long and hard about it, but when I dry fit the cockpit into the fuselage I can barely see the rear of the foot pedal "pistons" where the cables go, or whatever they are, so I think I'll pass.  I have enough work ahead of me already!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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Thank you Gentlemen very much! 

 

Since I posted this update last night, I was about to glue the two fuselage halves together, when I thought I should double check to make sure I didn't leave anything out of the cockpit area before I did.  Sure enough, on the starboard side at the bottom under the oxygen tank, is a tiny little part called F56.  Looking at Brett Green's book on building this kit, both builds missed it as well, so I'm in very good company. 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Are you talking about the flare rack? If so Brett didn't miss it, it was rare on the Mk IX.

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Are you talking about the flare rack? If so Brett didn't miss it, it was rare on the Mk IX.

 

Nope.  There's a small black box on the floor behind the seat that is for the "C" version of this kit, which is a late one with narrow gun blisters and the gyro gun-sight.  Even Brett says in his book, "The flare cartridge rack (part F48) in Step 7 was not usually fitted to the Spitfire Mk IX.  Do not glue this to the front seat." (Page 16)  He did, but he found this out after the fact when it was too late.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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Part F56...... located below the oxygen bottle. This is the voltage regulator and inverter for the Mk.II gyro gun sight power supply. If your Spitfire is fitted with a reflector sight you do not need to include this part. Another trap is part F34.... located under the rear fixed glazing portion on the left hand side of the fuselage. This item is a bomb distribution solenoid unit. So F34 is not required unless your Spitfire has wing bomb racks as well as the fuselage centre line rack. Wolf is probably correct in identifying the above Merlin as coming out of a Mosquito, as not only is it single stage super charged but it also has the fire suppression pipe work on it associated with Merlins installed in Mosquitoes.

 

AndyH.

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