Derek B Posted April 23, 2008 Share Posted April 23, 2008 Yeap, your right Lee - Spitfire Roman numerals did indeed stop at the Mk.XIX (for production aircraft at any rate, the Mk.XX never made it to the production line). After this, Spitfires generally became F.21, F.22, etc. HTH Derek Hey Russ, VERY nice build here, and I can't believe the speed at which you are building this beast. Keep up the good work! As a side note, the Roman numeral designations on Spits seems to have been dropped around the time the Mk.19 made it's appearance. Other Spitophiles (Ooh, that sounds nasty, doesn't it?) can ring in and correct me here- Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzlkampf Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 Okay, had to pop in and post more pics! Day 19. The dirge continues. Some shots of the fuselage before sanding, so everybody can see my putty slathering technique. Wanted to post shots of the underside around the air intake, but they wuz fuzzy. I really must get more tranquilizers to stop the nervous twitch I've developed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzlkampf Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 Different angle, then a walk-around. Didn't have to use much filler....I think I kept it under a 1/2 gallon/ 2 pounds extra weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzlkampf Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 Shot from the rear. Sheesh this plane has some fine lines. You can see how much it needs to be faired in. Kinda nice not needing tape to hold it together now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzlkampf Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 Close-up view to help everybody eye-ball how much I've got to take the filler down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzlkampf Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 One last close-up. Really looking forward to painting this beast. Thought I could use the Mk.22/24(thanks for setting me straight guys!) landing gear, cause it looks more robust...but it was lengthened for the later marks. Gave better prop clearance and strength for the xtra weight they could carry. Mk.XIV's used the earlier(spindlier) gear legs, even though it was a much heavier plane. Tires were only good for 5-8 landings! Really enjoying reading about this plane, the description "overpowered for the airframe" keeps coming up all over the place. Speaking of paint, I got some purty new jars of RAF colors now. And another dilemma. As usual, I have conflicting information(geesh, the more info I get....the more confusing it becomes). Some say;dark green, ocean gray uppers...medium sea gray undersides. Others;dark green, medium sea grey upper colors...a "lighter gray undersides. First combo seems kinda dark...but I dunno. I'm still mulling a silver NM post-war scheme, but that would only accentuate my rookie scribe job. What combo would be correct for a Dec. 1944-on camo scheme? Was both combos possible? But I digress. Last pic of the night. I've already started wet-sanding this down, and getting the final bits ready for installation. Shouldn't be too much longer now,...then paint! Thanks everybody for the kind comments, much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loic Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Hey dude, it is really looking god and what a nose this is! This is certainly a very nice looking model of a very nice looking plane you are doing here. As far as the color is concerned, I would go for the ocean grey (sound lighter to me) and work it with some different shade for weathering. Thus, you can adjust the color at will to match your taste. Cheers, Loic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek B Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Hi Russ, AFAIK, standard RAF WWII colours should be about right (dark green and dark (Ocean) grey uppers, and medium sea grey lowers). I do not know which typews of paint you use, but I find that I get a pretty good Humbrol match with the following colours: Humbrol 106 (Ocean grey) = Dark grey upper surface. Humbrol 163 Dark green = Dark green upper surface. Humbrol 167 Barley grey = Medium sea grey lower surface. Humbrol 163 is equivalent to the old authentic HX.1 dark green colour, which looks right for freshly painted WWII dark green (Humbrol 30 just looks completely wrong to my eyes). In operational use, this colour faded to a more brownish-green colour. Humbrol 106 is again a good match for freshly painted Ocean grey. This too faded to a lighter shade in operational use (almost becoming medium sea grey in appearence in extreme cases - maybe why some thik it was that colour. 'Mixed' WWII dark sea grey is another story altogether!). Humbrol 167 Barley grey is probably a touch on the blue side for medium sea grey, but it is very close to the WWII colour. A lot of Post-war RAF aircraft were generally medium sea grey overall with dark green upper surface camouflage, or aluminium silver painted on natural metal airfrafmes. HTH Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Pratt Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Russ now that's thinking outside the box.Wicked work on the old Spit.I've been paying close attention to this build.Damn nice work...cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azgaron Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Excellent work so far Russ! Love to see it painted! Cheers, Azgaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridge Runner Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Russ, she is looking beautiful. I was a bit late for you with pictures of the radiators so thought I better point out something about Spitfire ailerons, regardless of the wing fitted all Mk XIV Spits had short span ailerons. The very visualy similar PR XIX certainly had the full span items as found on the early Merlin airframes and the Hasegawa kit. I have posted this shot of a XIV aileron to illustrate Mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Great work Russ, it's coming along really well. This is one of those landmark points in a build where all the parts start to look like an aeroplane, which is even more rewarding when not all the parts come from the same kit! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzlkampf Posted April 25, 2008 Author Share Posted April 25, 2008 "regardless of the wing fitted all Mk XIV Spits had short span ailerons."; OMG, good eye Ridge Runner!!! Double-darn checked all my different plans, and...you...are...correct, sir! With all the nuances/minutae described in my references, not once is this mentioned. I do know that this marks' performance was capable of wrinkling the wing surface with the extended(normal) tips, and that was another reason, besides improved roll rate at lower altitudes, they got clipped on many post-war. Makes sense they would shorten the aileron for reduced stress. Hmmm. As Loic said, the playground of this fighter was higher up during the war, so I guess they figured the extra wing area at altitude was beneficial. Not sure what altitude the "doodlebugs" came in at, but when the 1st Mk.XIV's were used to intercept them they had mods like; taking the rear-view mirror off, taking the .303's out, and plugging the ports with wood, waxing/polishing , and I would assume clipping the wings, all for more speed. Were the wingtips an easily swapped out option at the squadron level? References infer this was common, but pics are lacking. I'm working on the wing tonight anyway(whew, glad you caught this!), as I need to scribe in the fuel tanks/filler caps on the wing leading edge. Also noticed only 1 light under the port wing on some aircraft, others have both like mine. Hmmm. Also doing more scribing on the fuse panel lines and new oil filler/gas filler openings in front of the cockpit, ect. New cannon bulges are almost done, and the LG might be on by this weekend. Thanks for the paint info Derek, confirmed what I suspected. Wish I could get Humbrol paints here, they're _____(insert favorite deity here) gift to the world from the UK. Fantastic stuff. Hah!, thanks for the compliments Dave Pratt! Don't know about "thinking outside the box" , more like "what's in the box! hehe! I'll still have time before this GB ends, so I'm going to do ANOTHER aircraft with the parts I have left over. Either a Mk.XVIe, or a Mk.21/22. I have become a true "Spitoholic", (that's an aspiring Spitophile, Lee White!) and...must...do..another. What a svelte, lovely versatile aircraft, looks like they melted cheese over the mechanicals to get that shape. It just "flows" from every angle. Azgaron, really good to see you back dude! Gotta go whack on my model now, so I can post more pics tomorrow. Thanks everyone for keeping an eye on me, and seeing that I don't go astray. If anybody(except Loic! , not that it'll stop him anyway) sees anything else amiss, PLEASE mention before I get much further. Later, Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCote Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Hi Russ, I really, really like what you are doing with this Spitfire. Superb work! Jean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loic Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Hey Russ, you might want to have a quick look there.... www.sbmodelers.com select the spit Mk XIV link... Cheers, Loic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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