Sparzanza

Crazy (and good) news -- yesterday I ordered a new airbrush (Badger Crescendo 175), along with 8 new paints. The Badger from Rebell Hobby, and the paints from Alfahobby. Both packages arrived within 24 hours. I find this a little bit insane, haha! I've never had anything delivered so quickly before...

I would like some opinions... Should I satin coat this kit, or matt coat it? I love how the satin varnish looks on it, but it may not be accurate... any feedback would be most welcome.

Yeeeeah... much, much better.

Thanks Richard! I haven't done a lot to the kit yet; I am a bit short on thinner and stuff so I will have to wait until I can buy some more - but I have done a few oil streaks on the bottom, and I also decided to rub off most of the chipping on the port side wing by the cockpit as it looked very painted on and not very chipped like. I will try using a sponge with some Humbrol 11 instead and see if it looks better.

My brother thought it'd be an excellent idea to just buy me an entire new kit to get the decal sheet I needed, seeing as Airfix themselves were unable to help. So yeah, behold. A replacement B in place! I can now satin coat the kit and finalize the weathering. Many thanks, brother. Alas, with all good news there's something bad. It would seem that the Humbrol 35 gloss coat has yellowed quite a lot underneath while the kit has been standing. I do not think there is anything I can do to fix this, but hopefully it will not affect the final appearance of it too much.

I think they gave up on wooden propellers after the Mk1, but I am not 100% certain.

I'm getting a new airbrush in a couple of days, and there's a high chance that I can finally finish this kit. All it needs is satin varnish on the bottom and some light weathering; maybe exhaust and gun soot and stuff like that. I am still on the hunt for a B decal for my Mustang as well, but once I get a hold of that - satin varnish, final weathering, and she too will stand completed. They both survived me moving apartments without any damage and are currently just hanging out in a cupboard so as to not attract dust.

w/e not in the mood to look into forum changes atm

Thanks, Mark. Here're the exhausts: And dryfitted: I still haven't varnished her underneath, but I'll get around to that when I can drag myself out of this seemingly endless hole of depression I've fallen into. EDIT: Ok, now the post ignores the IMG (I can't type [ i m g ] together as an example because the forum is stupid) put before the link, and thus you end up with forked up links. Enjoy. Screw you, forum.

I painted the exhausts black, as a primer... then I painted them Humbrol 98 chocolate brown. Then I drybrushed Humbrol 55 bronze upon that... and finally drybrushed Humbrol 98 again on top of THAT. Trying to achieve a burnt iron look is very tricky, but I think I did alright. Will try to snap some good pictures in the sunlight later on.

Spots sanded smooth, repainted, and glosscoated. Applied decals given to me by my brother; from the new release of the Spit - meaning Cartograph decals. These did not fail me. Glosscoated again. Applied a wash. Satin coated. When that's dry I will satin coat the bottom. When that is dry I will do the final weathering and call it done.

Decals scraped off with an Xacto blade. You can also see the spots where I tried rubbing alcohol on them.

I use Tamiya glue and even Humbrol sometimes. But if the canopy framing is too thin or non-existant, I use Mikro Kristal Klear instead. I like the stronger glues because it means the piece will sit better, I guess. I remember using Tamiya's extra thin cement to glue the windows on both of my 1/24 Willys Jeeps, which slides directly into the framing, and there was no fogging whatsoever. It's why I've come to trust strong cement for these tasks.

Here's why I think it would be pointless to convert. The question is what exactly would the kit be if one opts not to do this? VB was it? So grey/green scheme? EDIT: no wait, 8 machineguns... Mk1 with VB prop. I guess. I am hopelessly confused.

I didn't exactly plan to acquire the kit, Plasto - so it's not a question of wanting a better kit. It just arrived in the mail, sent by my brother. I normally don't touch 1/32 stuff, but since I now have it in my possession I figured I might as well throw it together. I won't be trying to convert it into anything since there's additional stuff needed and just leave it as a Mk1/VB/whatever with a pointy propeller and stubby nosecone.

So basically no, not worth it. Thanks.

I will try to explain better. I want to know if there's any point doing the conversion seeing as the Mk1/VB/whatever parts are still clearly visible even when putting the bulges and cannons on the wings. Like I said there'll still be 4 access hatches per wing for the machineguns, instead of what I assume should be like... 3? I want it fully accurate with the parts provided, or not at all.

So there's no point trying to turn it into a proper Seafire? I'd really like to know this.

My brother recently gave me Revell's Supermarine Seafire in 1/32 scale. It's a very old box; very old release... the decals are completely shot, but the rest of the kit is intact and complete. He told me how he acquired it, but I've forgotten. Anyway. I can't exactly see what differs this "Seafire" from a regular Spitfire Mk1. Three exhaust stacks on each side, 8 machineguns, one large intake underneath, one small.. the only thing I don't really recognize is the shape of its propeller (pointy blades), nosecone, as well as the rims that looks strange. The kit includes a separate sprue with extra parts that supposedly turns it into a Seafire. This includes two teardrop shaped things that supposedly goes on its wings (after drilling holes in them), as well as a large intake that I thought to be tropical. I think there's cannons for it as well. But will attaching these items truly turn it into a Seafire? The wings will still have 8 hatches in them, just with large blomps that sits smack in the middle of everything without exactly hiding anything. I guess my question is whether there's any point of trying to "convert" this seemingly regular Mk1 or if just building as is and paint as such will suffice.

I left tape sitting over the decals over night, and not just ordinary masking tape, as it proved too weak. I used regular desktop (?) tape. The decals did not come off. I tried brushing undiluted T-röd alcohol over them, and ended up having paint removed WHILE THE ****ING DECALS STAYED PUT. The alcohol ate through the enamel varnish and into the Tamiya dark earth I had sprayed. I ended up scraping them off with an Xacto blade, leaving tons of scratches and white spots absolutely everywhere. There was no other way of removing them. I could use some more rotten piece of **** luck, anyone got some spare? While everything is already fubar for me I mean. Go on, come at me. It cannot possibly get any worse.

Thanks for the tip. It's such a shame, the decals looks brand new on their sheet - all glossy and nice.

So not only are the decals ****, they are near impossible to remove as well. They won't even be dragged off with tape, and they don't seem to react to MicroSol. I don't want to scratch them off with my fingernails or Xacto blade as it'll scratch the paint. What have I done to deserve this rotten luck I wonder?

The decals are extremely bad. The letters can't even come out in an accurate color. This is making me not want to finish the kit. Fed up with setbacks in every single aspect of every build now. Note: These decals are freshly applied. I haven't bothered running a cottonbud across them or anything yet, or even applying MicroSol. It's not worth the trouble. Putting yet another kit aside now.

Thanks Torben. Concerned about the weird spots the tape left behind underneath, I picked up the kit briefly today and tried sanding them very gently, with a fine sandpaper. I think it is fixable without having to repaint, though it will be very time consuming - and involve a lot of handling the kit. I'll give the Humbrol paint a week to dry to be safe. Then I'll tackle the bottom. The question is why did the masking tape react like this to Tamiya's X-22? I let it cure for 48+ hours. The tape is very low tac. Almost like Tamiya tape. Just a lot cheaper. All I use it for is as filler tape between expensive tape, basically... or holding stuff together. Never had this problem on enamel paint. That's what I get for trying something new I guess.

Masking is very tedious. This took a few days on and off, depending on how long I could sit down and pay attention before the heat got the better of me. I masked the basic shape of the camo with Tamiya's bendy tape. I love and hate this tape. I love it for its flexibility. I hate it for its low tac. Many times when taking a break and returning it had lifted off. I had to anchor it with regular Tamiya tape - and fill the gaps with cheap masking tape. The cheap masking tape caused a mishap on the bottom of the Spit, but more on that further down. When I was done masking, it was just a "simple" matter of spraying Humbrol 116. It was fairly painless this time around at least. No sputtering, relatively smooth spray. I sprayed one ultra thin coat, waited 2 mins, then shot another. When that was done I immediately started unmasking as I do not quite trust masking tape atop Tamiya paint. The results are pretty good so far. The masking tape underneath must have gotten stuck in the Tamiya gloss varnish as it left behind some nasty residue in a couple of spots. I don't know how to deal with this yet. Maybe it's a simple matter of carefully sanding it away. Maybe I have to repaint it. Sigh. I'll need a few days for the Humbrol enamel to dry before I can take a proper look. Thanks for dropping in.