Hobbyboss Spitfire Vb

[dennismcc]

Way back in September after finishing the MiG-3 and struggling with the two Resin Yak-1's I decided that I wanted something simpler and easier to build so I decided to build three Spitfires, two Hobbyboss Spitfires (Mk Vb and Mk V Trop) and the Revell Mk I/II.

Cheap and cheerful kits that would not tax my brain too much I thought and so far this has proved to be correct, as is my usual style I have waited until I have have got really "into" the build before starting a build thread so I am quite a way into the first kit already, any lessons learned will be applied to the rest.

First up is the Mk Vb, and this was the Edgars summing up of the kit, sadly he will not be able to pass judgment on the build, or point me in the right direction when I go wrong, below are his thoughts on the kit

 

At last, I have a (paid for by me) sample, and a deeper appraisal will follow, but I've checked the main parts against the Cox drawings of the Mk.I (same basic dimensions as the V, remember,) and the fuselage, in width, length, and height, matches the drawings exactly. The wings are 1-2mm over-wide on the chord, and the span comes to within a (minute) fraction of 36'10". Tailplanes are 1-2mm undersized, while the elevators and rudder match the drawings within the thickness of a line in places. While the kit shows that it comes from the same source as the Trumpeter kit, the rivet detail is far more restrained, though the cross-section, at frame 5, is too angular at the "corners," so some judicious sanding there will be needed. Sure to infuriate some, the cross-section of the fuselage is curved at the sides, not slab-sided like the Hasegawa kit.
Edgar

 

And compared to the Hasagawa kit

 

This was my appraisal, on another thread, which asked for a comparison with the Hasegawa kit:-
Hasegawa all raised panel lines; Hobbyboss engraved.
Hasegawa cockpit (apart from too-wide seat) a pleasure to work with; Hobbyboss, unfortunately, somewhat fictional, plus a seat too short front-to-back.
Hasegawa fuselage slab-sided at fuel tanks; Hobbyboss slightly curved; both have a too-square cross-section at the firewall.
Hasegawa has no engine; Hobbyboss has an engine which doesn't resemble any Merlin I've seen.
Hasegawa wheel wells like frying pans; Hobbyboss straightsided; both kits have wrongly-shaped underside cannon blisters, with Hobbyboss worse of the two.
Hasegawa fuselage slightly narrow aft of cockpit; Hobbyboss fuselage matches Cox's drawings in length, height & width.
Hasegawa has no armament; Hobbyboss has full gun complement, and an under-fuselage bomb, which would be better dropped.
Hasegawa no radio; Hobbyboss radio + tray + poseable hatch.
Hasegawa fixed control surfaces & flaps; Hobbyboss has separate surfaces & flaps.
Hasegawa choice of internal, or external, armoured windscreen; Hobbyboss external only, and the (separate) armour appears to thin, and wrongly-shaped.
Hasegawa's propellor (choice of blades & spinners) looks more realistic than the Hobbyboss effort.
Hobbyboss has fictional "ribbing" on the tailplane upper surfaces, but they're nowhere near as prominent as on the 1/24 Trumpeter kit, so can be sanded smooth quite easily.
Hobbyboss has finely-done rivet detail, all engraved, when the V had raised rivet heads aft of the cockpit.
Difficult to choose between decal sheets; Hobbyboss's red appears over-bright, but their Sky is closer than most other companies' efforts.
Edgar

 

At the time this was enough to persuade me to buy both of the Hobbyboss kits despite having quite a few Hasegawa kits in the loft.

 

So now on to the kit, this is what you get, as usual the box top appears first.

And the contents of the box

And the instructions which so far are very clear and easy to follow.

 

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

Edited October 6, 2019 by dennismcc
Replaced Photobucket photos

[Guest]

Dennis, I have the Trop one, so will follow along and learn !........Harv

[Guest Peterpools]

Dennis

Looking forward to following your Spit build with great enthusiasm

Keep 'em coming
Peter

[dennismcc]

Dennis, I have the Trop one, so will follow along and learn !........Harv

My trop will be started once I get the basic air frame together on this one, I've already discovered quite a few things building this one

 

Dennis

Looking forward to following your Spit build with great enthusiasm

Keep 'em coming

Peter

Thanks Peter, if it comes out half as nice as your latest I'll be well pleased.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited December 6, 2015 by dennismcc

[dennismcc]

The kit camouflage and markings are for these two

 

Both are very nice but as usual I will be painting the markings so I bought these

And will be building this beauty.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited October 6, 2019 by dennismcc
Replacing Photobucket photos

[LSP_Kevin]

Good to see you back, Den, and with couple of super projects, too!

 

Kev

[dennismcc]

Good to see you back, Den, and with couple of super projects, too!

 

Kev

Thanks Kev, I just hope that they end up looking Super !!

 

Cheers

 

Den

[dennismcc]

As usual for me the first thing to do was to snip all the parts from the sprues, I do leave the little tags on the parts so I can look them up on the instructions and see where they belong, then lots of little clamps and some mass painting sessions. As usual I started the cockpit first, but as I reached for the interior paint (Humbrol 78) I was stopped in my tracks by a very lively discussion on Britmodeller about Spitfire interior colours, this made me dig out my copy of British Aviation Colours the RAFM bible with it's colour chips in the back http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234987340-how-green-was-my-interior-or-was-it-grey-plus-info-on-bs381/.

I was astonished to find that my usual old faithful Humbrol paint was not a close match for the colour chip but Humbrol 120 was close, so I rejected my usual 78 and went with 120.

And the chips, my camera is not very good with greens so don't get too excited about them.

Looking through the sprues I decided that I needed some reinforcements so the following goodies were added to the mix

And these came from eBay to replace the inaccurate kit parts,the kit horizontal stabilizers have a ribbed / fabric effect for the upper side and the spinner and prop blades look very dodgy

 

Here is the kit seat with it's replacement Barracuda item, a massive improvement

Reading through my collected "Edgar file" the following words of wisdom were extracted:

"Air bottles, the two big ones on the port side, silver or grey.

Oxygen bottle, black.

Seat, red brown

Interior of engine covers silver

Fuselage and cockpit, grey green and aluminium paint.

“Oleo legs and door interiors started life painted silver (over the grey undercoat, as far as the doors are concerned.) Wheel wells are anyone's guess, since Supermarine drawings don't mention them; the areas into which the oleos fitted were likely to have been silver, since that was the standard colour for interior areas, except (obviously) for the cockpit, engine bearers and firewall, which were cockpit grey-green. I've seen silver, green, and underside colour wheel wells, so it's really your choice, and no-one can say that you're wrongâ€.

Head rest was brown leather; harness was light(ish) tan (do not feed it through the hole in the backrest.) There was no crowbar before 1941. The knurled wheels, on the port wall, were trim wheels, and painted black."

So I set to it,

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited October 7, 2019 by dennismcc
Replacing Photobucket photos

[dennismcc]

My secret weapon on this build has been sitting under my desk in a box since last Christmas (a present from my daughter) I did not think that I needed it but I was astonished to find out how much I really did need it, the amount of mistakes it revealed was scary, and for putting together the dreaded seat harnesses it was a great help.

The kit instrument panel was sanded flat and the Yahu etched one attached, it only needed a small amount of fettling to get a great fit in the fuselage, it is certainly a vast improvement on the kit parts, the duff green painting in the photo was fixed after the photo pointed it out to me another thing that the magnifier above is good at.

I started out painting and bending some Eduard etched seat belts but gave up and bought some RB fabric belts at Telford, these were a revelation for me, though I needed the magnifier to help me put them together, I used the recommended Formula 360 for these and it worked great.

And here is the result, not perfect by any means but better than my PE efforts ! for the seat I used Humbrol 160 German camo red brown rather than my normal reddish colour.

 

More soon

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited October 7, 2019 by dennismcc
Replaced Photobucket photos

[Guest Peterpools]

Dennis

Terrific start on the HB Spit. I'm a huge fan of Barracuda upgrade sets and RB seatbelt sets; completely agree, they take a kit to a new level. Some mighty nice research on the interior colors.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Guest Peterpools]

Dennis

I've been using Optivisors for more years then I care to remember but after seeing the advantages of a magnifier lamp set up, I going to take the plunge - just seems easier to use and eliminates the Optivisor constantly banging into my glasses.

Peter

[dennismcc]

Dennis

Terrific start on the HB Spit. I'm a huge fan of Barracuda upgrade sets and RB seatbelt sets; completely agree, they take a kit to a new level. Some mighty nice research on the interior colors.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

Thank you very much Peter,the Baracuda parts do make one heck of a difference, l have lots of Eduard seat belts "in stock" so have resisted the latest fabric type ones but now I am completely sold on them, the research though is all Edgar's, I always copied any contribution that he made and have them tucked away in my "Edgar files" it's very sad that there won't be any more of that wonderful info.

[dennismcc]

Dennis

I've been using Optivisors for more years then I care to remember but after seeing the advantages of a magnifier lamp set up, I going to take the plunge - just seems easier to use and eliminates the Optivisor constantly banging into my glasses.

Peter

The magnifier lamp is a great revelation to me, I am spotting all sorts of faults with it and it makes niggley little jobs so much easier

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[dennismcc]

Some more progress, my first attempt at cockpit painting went horribly wrong when I tried out a dark wash which came out all splotchy (technical term) so the fuselage halves were stripped of paint and airbrushed with H120 again. At this point my brain must have been in neutral as I painted the area behind the pilot's seat green instead of Aluminium. This was duly rectified with some Humbrol 56 which came out very rough for some reason, so I had to use an old tin of Polished Aluminium (Metalcote) which went on a lot smoother.

The engine and engine bearers were then assembled and painted, this was for fun only as they will be covered up when I put the fuselage together as I do not like open panels, and the camera has spotted some parts needing a touch up (again).

I was very impressed with the Barracuda resin parts and they came with some great illustrated instructions, in the past I have bought some very nice resin detail parts from other manufacturers but they arrived with no painting guides or instructions which I found very disappointing. The Barracuda instructions are great, see below.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited October 7, 2019 by dennismcc
Replacing Photobucket photos

[monthebiff]

Fantastic start Dennis and very interesting subject choice, The Barracuda upgrade sets are just superb and add an extra dimension to the build.

 

Regards. Andy