Hot Rod Spitfire - FR.XIV (Laminar Flow Design Conversion)

[Biggles87]

Mine too. 

Edited December 19, 2024 by Biggles87

[Shoggz]

This is the moment I've been looking forward to - you turning your decorating skills to a Spit.. And it hasn't disappointed!

[Archimedes]

Fantastic work - really looking forward to the completion on this one!

 

Spitfires really are addictive…

 

Kind regards,

Paul

[scvrobeson]

Excellent paint work on the Spitfire! You are right about it looking like the hot rod version

 

 

 

Matt

[John1]

Painting continues.   My subject had the remnants of it's D-Day invasion stripes on the lower fuselage.    Pictures show them to be heavily weathered, chipped and covered with mud (the late fall of 1944 was extremely wet, turning the forward bases in Belgium and Germany into quagmires at times.    In January of 1945, 2nd ATAF issued an order requiring the removal of the stripes (and overpainting of the tail ID band with the background camouflage color, overpainting Sky spinner with black and revised national insignia on upper and lower wings).     The Aviaeology decal instructions give you an idea of how "H" looked at the end of 1944, which is the timeframe of my build (see upper profile), her look after the January repaint order is shown just below.  

 

 

Here's a nice picture that shows conditions at these bases.

 

Here's my first effort at the invasion stripes and subsequent weathering.    I used the "hairspray" method on the ID stripes.  I purposely made the borders a big irregular since it appears from pictures of "H" that they were hand-painted a bit roughly, as were many aircraft on the night before D-Day. 

 

After that, I did some initial weathering.   I used AK's "Engine Oil" to replicate the oil stains.   Shockingly enough, "Engine Oil" seems to look like engine oil!   Also reduced some of the peeled off areas on the ID stripes and added some mud that would have been blasted along the aft lower fuselage by the propwash.

 

 

 

My weathering process is a bit random.   I end up going through three or four iterations before I'm happy.   The pics above are very much a work in progress.   That said, here's a picture that illustrates the real thing (poached from another WIP on this site).   These aircraft did get pretty grimy.

 

That's it for now, thank you for all the nice comments.  

 

Edited December 20, 2024 by John1

[MikeMaben]

Progressing very nicely John .

 

Cleaned this up a bit ...

 

[Biggles87]

I like what you’ve done with the underside, very convincing.

 

John

[John1]

When possible, I try to provide reference pictures to back up my work.   Here's a great picture of a XIV at a forward base in Germany.  Given the removal of the ID band (note the characteristic darker shade of green used to overpaint it) and spinner painted black, it's sometime after January of 1945.   Note the grungy paint and the extreme weathering on the lower fuselage ID stripes.   Also note what appears to be multiple battle damage patches on the rudder, including one still in red dope. 

 

[Iain]

Weathering looks great John!

 

Iain

[Martinnfb]

Lovely work John. Joy to follow.

Cheers

Martin

[John1]

Just to add a bit of background, in response to a question I posted in another forum about the Spitfires, Kagemusha provided the following link.   It's a treasure trove of cool info (at least to a nerd like me), including a performance comparison between the Mk XIV and the Bf-109G/K, German and RAF combat report and some nice pictures of XIV's in the field. 

 

Spitfire Mk XIV versus Me 109 G/K

 

A few takeaways of interest - 

 

German reports refer to late production -109's pretty disparagingly.   The engines didn't come close to max power due to manufacturing problems and no fuel to test run them, the airframes themselves were crap (manufacturing standards were non-existent, paint was applied roughly and there were multiple instances of sabotage) and the fuel (when they could get it) was of poor quality.  They also mentioned that losses were so high by April of '45 that front line units were being issued 109G-6's pulled from training units.   RAF combat reports seem to mention a significant number of cases where German pilots bailed out but their chutes never opened.   All in all, it took a very brave individual to jump into a -109 and engage the masses of allied fighters present everywhere by early 1945.   

 

Anyway, this has nothing to do with my build but I enjoy adding background info in case others may find it of interest.  

[John1]

Weathering continues.  Using that color photo of EB-S above (and others I've come across) as a primary reference, it shows these aircraft to have pretty heavy staining on the fuselage, forward of the cockpit.   What they don't have much of is exhaust soot, maybe due to the high octane, heavily leaded fuel they used (which was dyed a bright green and was said to smell nauseating).   I started on the stained cowling panels, initially using a blackish-brown wash.  This is just the starting point; I'll tweak things as I go.   I also did some more work on the lower fuselage.     

 

 

Notice the darker patch of green on the vertical stab.  No idea if that was just a paint touch up or damage repair but it was evident in pictures of the real aircraft.   Don't worry about the green camo not lining up on the transition between vertical stab and the rudder, that area will be hidden by the national insignia. 

 

 

Lastly, sharp-eyed observers will note that I finally added the landing gear.  I used the very nicely cast Barracuda 4-spoke wheels to replace the horrid vinyl ones that come in the kit.  Only mods the landing gear were to drill out the tie down anchor point and also drill out the 4 lightening holes on the oleo's scissor struts.   Added some mud to the wheels and covers, since as mentioned, these Spits were operating from primitive forward airfields during a very wet winter.    Disregard the tailwheel assembly in the picture below, the paintwork on that is still very basic.     

 

 

That's it for now.   My game plan for this coming week is to get the weathering adjusted a bit more (especially around the wing roots), then get her glossed up and start what will be a very challenging phase - the decaling.  I still have no idea how I'm going to get the fuselage roundels over the camera housings.   Suggestions are very welcome!   Engine exhaust will be applied after the decaling process.    Only reason I'm doing the weathering at this stage is that I'm killing time until Aviaeologies' Spitfire stenciling decal set arrives.   I neglected to order it earlier in the build.  

 

 

[John1]

Working on the underside.   Added the fuselage and wing ID lights and hit them with the appropriate clear colors.    Later mark Spitfires were fitted with an "Angle Beam Approach" aerial.   This is included in the Tamiya kit (part F58 but isn't referenced in the instructions).   From a kind gent over on Brit Modeler, here's a picture of the real thing:

That was added to the lower fuselage, aft of the wings, in the pic below, it's the black oval thingy with the rod antenna pointed aft.   

 

Added a control rod for the port rudder from stretched sprue and lastly added the radiator vent doors.   The real things were thin sheet metal and LFD knocks these out of the park.  They are some of the thinnest printed parts I've seen (yet still strong enough to handle without worrying about them crumbling).   Whilst on the subject of radiators - the ones mounted on the Mk. XIV are YUUGE!   Just another touch that differentiates the beastly Griffon versions from the dainty Merlin Spits.  Lastly, I added the tail landing gear, it's the Tamiya strut (with it's embedded steel rod for a bit of extra strength), and the LFD wheel (weathering is only preliminary).     I used the LFD tailwheel gear bay doors, they are much thinner and better detailed than the Tamiya parts.   Wanted to use the entire LFD gear bay but I couldn't get it to fit properly.   

 

 

 

Not really digging the red dope battle damage patches.    Not sure what I'm going to do here... 

 

 

That's it for tonight.  Questions, suggestions and comments always welcome. 

[Biggles87]

Very realistic weathering,and it doesn’t look overdone compared to the photo.

 

John

[John1]

4 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Very realistic weathering,and it doesn’t look overdone compared to the photo.

 

John

LOL, if I saw pics of my model with no background info, I'd say it was overdone.   Someone suggested that on an FB page where I previously posted these pics.    I normally stray away from heavy weathering but I'm replicating a subject that's been documented to be pretty grimy and every picture I've come across (including my primary reference shot of EB-S, which was deploiyed to a forward base in the same time frame) backs me up.    From a general weathering perspective, I do feel that some modelers tend to go easy on the undersides of their aircraft (regardless of type / era).   Probably a case of out of sight, out of mind but if you spend enough time looking for shots of the undersides of operational aircraft, you quickly will see that most combat aircraft (and even modern civilian airliners) are pretty filthy.      I actually have come to enjoy dirtying up the bottoms of my subjects.    Had the most fun on my F-4 build from a year or so ago.   Those aircraft were pretty nasty.

 

Again, I'm totally going OT here but that's the joy of having your own thread, lol. 

 

Merry Christmas everyone!