Bob Tuck's 65 Sqdn Spitfire - Finished

[Dpgsbody55]

My Spitfire is now finished and unfortunately I go so carried away with the last jobs, I forgot to take many pictures.  Apologies for that. 

First job was to get it sitting on it's own wheels.  The tail wheel was already in place so all that remained was the main wheels.  I fitted the oleos first, but not without having to trim the fitment tabs as shown in the instructions.  After that they slotted in well, and the wheels and undercarriage doors were fitted immediately and left to dry.  The oleos were painted in Tamiya flat aluminium and Mr Color super stainless lacquer for the pneumatic portion of the legs.  Wheels were also painted in Tamiya flat aluminium for the centres and my own concoction of black for the tyres.  "Dirt" was applied to the treads and inner parts of the undercarriage doors.

 

The exhausts were fitted next, and I again fitted the early type exhausts painted exactly as before which is appropriate for these early Spitfires.  However, I aged them a bit more with dry brushing and pastels.  Then the prop was fitted after a little weathering.  Her is the underside with some weathering applied.

 

 

Next, the bead was added to the cowling then some petrol staining applied, as well as some wear and tear to the wing root and leading edges of the wings and tail plane.  Unfortunately the camera has not picked up all of that, but it's there anyway.

 

 

The last jobs were to add the sliding canopy and aerial antenna wire using EZ line.  The canopy gave me some grief as the release handle pinged off into the never never while trying to fit it.  It's not a difficult part to make, just very fiddly.  I made mine out of 0.5mm sheet styrene and shaped it with small files.  Lastly, the undercarriage down markers were added.  Just note that these are fitted at an angle and the tops of these are angled as well to fit flush with the upper wing surface, so there's a right and a wrong way to fit these markers.  And with that, it's done.

 

 

Here's the real thing.  

 

 

Some more shots of my effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These Kotare early Spitfires are a joy to build and this one has taken me less than four weeks, which is something of a record for me.  This particular plane was a project I've wanted to do since I was thirteen when I first saw a picture of it in a book given to me for Christmas 1968.  A lack of scratch building talent has prevented me from doing it up until now, so I'm very thankful that Kotare have done this kit and Art Scale Distribution for doing the decals.  Early Spitfires differed from later Mk.I's as Kotare have demonstrated with their Spitfire series.  This one differs from my first early Spitfire in that it now has a full compliment of guns, gun heating, a three blade variable pitch DeHavilland prop and a blown sliding canopy, as pilots reported banging their heads on the flat canopy of the very first planes.  Sixty Five Squadron Spitfires had all been converted from the Watts two blade fixed pitch prop by early June 1939.  Everyone understood that a war was coming, so there was much effort to get all fighters as up to date as possible.

 

 

Maybe one day I'll be able to do Tuck's last wartime Spitfire.  But in the meantime, I'll be moving on to something else; a "not a Spitfire".  But I do have other Spitfires in my stash to build, so that may well be soon.

 

You can find my RFI here.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited July 5 by Dpgsbody55

[geedubelyer]

Brilliant job Michael. 

Looks great. 

 

Well done 

[Dpgsbody55]

11 hours ago, geedubelyer said:

Brilliant job Michael. 

Looks great. 

 

Well done 

 

Thanks Guy.  Very much a fun build.  I think I got the tone of the dark earth right on this one.  But there's a couple of things I need to improve on.  The artist is always his own worst critic .

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Biggles87]

I agree, great job.

How about a photo in B & W.

 

John. 🇺🇦

[Dpgsbody55]

17 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I agree, great job.

How about a photo in B & W.

 

John. 🇺🇦

 

Thank you, John.  Glad you like it.

 

You'll find a black and white photo in the RFI, which shows a link in my final build post above.  This also contains a history of both the pilot and the plane if you're interested in either.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Shoggz]

Those Kotare Spitfires are such a joy to build, aren't they? I'm on five already!

 

..and that's a joy of a result Michael - very nice.

[Thunnus]

Early Spitfire looks great, Michael!  I like the NMF bottoms!

[MikeC]

That's a great outcome. 

11 hours ago, Thunnus said:

I like the NMF bottoms!

The undersides were painted aluminium, not left in Natural Metal Finish.

[Dpgsbody55]

On 7/7/2026 at 9:47 PM, Shoggz said:

Those Kotare Spitfires are such a joy to build, aren't they? I'm on five already!

 

..and that's a joy of a result Michael - very nice.

 

Yes, they're good modelling therapy alright, especially if you've just come off a difficult build.  You're two up on me, but I have the PR Spitfire in my stash, and the early Hurricane on order.  I'll definitely be putting in an order for the 109 when that's announced.

 

Glad you enjoyed my build.  I certainly did.  You can't have enough Spitfires on your shelves .  I have eight currently, with five more in the stash.  Another will be built after my Butcher Bird.

 

On 7/8/2026 at 1:35 AM, Thunnus said:

Early Spitfire looks great, Michael!  I like the NMF bottoms!

 

Thanks John.  I may be doing an almost entirely NMF Spitfire within the next year.  I've taken to using lacquer paints for NMF or aluminium, as they cover so well.

 

On 7/8/2026 at 12:50 PM, MikeC said:

That's a great outcome. 

The undersides were painted aluminium, not left in Natural Metal Finish.

 

Thanks a lot.  Yes, they were a silver dope, which was a hangover from the pre war biplane days.  The RAF used a similar finish on their post war jets too.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Biggles87]

On 7/9/2026 at 7:39 AM, Dpgsbody55 said:

  The RAF used a similar finish on their post war jets too.

 

And that was called it ´ high speed silver ´

 

John. 🇺🇦

Edited July 10 by Biggles87