COMPLETED - Restored (War)bird Spitfire MkXVI SL721 - Tamiya 1/32

[red Dog]

This build wouldn't probably deserve a WIP as you guys have seen many of this model and it's a true shake and bake kit.

but this aircraft has an interesting story and is now flying in Belgium. I have been asked to build it for the owner and pilot.

The gentleman already owns a T-28 and a Sea Fury. I already build a 1/32 Sea Fury (OO-ISS) for him a long while ago:

(and the T-28 (1/48) , before it was released in 1/32)

 

Anyway, back to the Spitfire:

 

SL 721 was built late in the war and I don't think it really saw any war action. It was apparently directly sent into storage at 6th Maintenance unit RAF before being assigned to Air Vice Marshal Sir James M. Robb in 1946-1949. Back then the aircraft was painted (light) blue and sported the initials of its pilot: JMR

Copyright © JerryBilling.com

 

I found a LSP built of SL721 for that period:

 

It flew in this livery till 1951 in England. It was then sold to different private owners but was never restored to flying status until the early 1970s in the US.  She flew at Oshkosh in a camouflaged version of JMR. She remained in North America till the late seventies and then sent back to England

Copyright © JerryBilling.com

 

In England she kept her green/brown camouflage and was re-coded D*A (for the initials of his owner again)

Copyright ©  Vintage Wings of Canada

 

She was again sent to the North American continent in the late seventies and again coded according to the initials of its owner  WK*W but repainted with a better matching green/grey camouflage

Copyright ©  Vintage Wings of Canada

 

in the late nineties, she was rebuilt and painted in the light blue colour, sporting the JMR codes again.

Copyright © JerryBilling.com

 

From 2000 the aircraft was flown to Canada and repainted in honour of a Canadian pilot (Flight Lt. William Harper of Niagara Falls, Ontario) of 421sqn Royal Canadian Air Force camouflage as AU*J. Canada registred C-GVZB

Apparently the AU*J flown during the war wasn't SL721 but TB886, so I guess they took a little bit of artistic licence there. The notorious giveaway is that SL721 always had rounded wings (including when it flew with Air Vice Marshal Sir James M. Robb) whereas the war horse AU-J had clipped wings as seen in the picture below 

During his carreer the real warhorse AU-J flown by Flt Lt W Harper often landed at Ursel, Belgium for refuelling while chasing V-1 in and out of England - making a time/space connection with the warbird coded AU-Jnow flying around if not at Ursel from time to time)  
After the war TB886 was sold to Greece.

 

Recently; SL721 was sold to Belgium and received the OO-XVI immatriculation but kept the AU*J codes. She's been flying the European Airshow the last couple years.

 

Although she was temporarily repainted for the Normandy landing anniversary as GE*S with invasion stripes of 349th RAF belgian squadron, she will remain as AU*J in the future and that is how this model will be built. 

 

 

So it is not really the aircraft of William Harper of 421 sqn. But this build will be as proudly marked on the real spitfire fuselage:

 

Sources:
http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/131/Supermarine-Superstar.aspx

http://www.jerrybilling.ca/Jerry Billing Spitfire's/History of Spitfire SL721.htm

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by red Dog
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[R Palimaka]

Will look forward to watching your build! It definitely deserves a WIP, don't worry about that.

 

We were sad to see that Spitfire leave Canada. She was only two hours away from me, and I saw her fly often. Although it was not the actual aircraft that Harper flew, it was a great tribute to him and the RCAF. Good to know she will continue to thrill people on the other side of the Atlantic.

 

Richard

[red Dog]

the kit:

 

 

The Tamiya kit will be built almost OOB, the only addition I really needed was the 3 spoke wheels because not included in the kit  and since the AU J is not commercially available as decals or masks, I called DN models to the rescue and they made me custom masks. Many thanks to Mitko and his wife who have been very helpful and efficient for this project.

The only addition I could have passed was the new IP from yahu models, you'll see why I decided to get it late in the WIP.

 

This Tamiya kit is by far the greates kit I ever built. I'm actually using this kit as a benchmark for my ongoing 1/24 MkVb to MkIX conversion, trusting Tamiya for accuracy whenever I have a question or a measurement  I can't get easily for the 1/24th build.

But as I was building this I realised how great it is. No putty, well reseached, well documented, perfectly designed. The fact that you can build the engine and have all the panels around it fitting almost perfectly while being amovible is really Something Worth mentionning. granted the force of the magnets are a bit weak but what a show from Tamiya !!.

Unfortunately I won't use the feature and I will glue the engine covers in place.

 

The build started with the engine. As I won't display it I won't spent a lot of time extra detailling it.
The whole thing was assembled and painted black with mr Surfacer 1500 before getting a very light drybrush with silver.

 

The frame is painted separately with MRP-111 RAF interior green and minimally detailled.

 

 

 

Even with the plethora of details, it is insane to see all these bits connecting perfectly one to another as the engine is placed in its supporting frame.

What a pleasure to build.

 

 

 

[red Dog]

1 minute ago, R Palimaka said:

Will look forward to watching your build! It definitely deserves a WIP, don't worry about that.

 

We were sad to see that Spitfire leave Canada. She was only two hours away from me, and I saw her fly often. Although it was not the actual aircraft that Harper flew, it was a great tribute to him and the RCAF. Good to know she will continue to thrill people on the other side of the Atlantic.

 

Richard

 

Thanks Richard,

I'm sorry it left Canada, but I'm pretty glad it's  less than an hour from me now .

Matter of fact it's based at a local FBO I fly to sometimes so I have the pleasure to see it often enough in his hangar as I get refreshment before flying back to my FBO

[josebagasteiz]

I really like the history of this plane as well as the beginning of the kit construction.

a greeting

[red Dog]

The next logical assembly was the cockpit and it is equally fun to build.

There was just one thing that I didn't get: the instruction calls for using decals behind the transparent part for the gauges, but the decals were just a black round shape and I couldn't see the white or cream bezels engraving. In the end I just ended with a black IP

 

So here comes the Yahu Ip and although not a fan of prepainted stuff , this is Simply too amazing to pass. I would never be able to get such a stunning result. So off with my pride and in comes the Yahu IP.

 

Initial mating of the PE IP to the tamiya parts

 

The different cockpit assembly before very minor detailling

 

Progress on the left and right side of the cockpit

 

 

the seat of SL 721 is painted black,

 

The visor will not be assembled and replaced by a portable GPS unit much later in the build.

[red Dog]

SL721 probably never had the heavy hispano guns installed. what is certain is that the aircraft does not have the narrow blisters on top of the wing.

Sso they needed to be removed from the tamiya parts offering.

 

After careful analysis, removing the blister from the tamiya parts would be harder than simply cutting new parts out of plasticard.

This was quickly done with Matching plastic thickness

 

 

 

 

Doing so I noticed my Matching panel lines was drawn at a weird angle. So I checked the tamiya part again and noticed the same weird angle is there as well (see middle picture)

Tamiya made a very slight mistake here, the panel line shouldn't be oblique but straight and should not meet the lower wing panel line at the same level, but should be offset to the side as obviously displayed from this blueprint:

No big deal but as i am currently in panel line correction overload (with the 1/24 airfix model) i'm not sure I will correct this one soon)

Also of note is that the blueprints show the blister on the inner side and aligned on top, whereas Tamiya has them on the outer side aligned at the Bottom…

[MikeMaben]

14 hours ago, red Dog said:

So here comes the Yahu Ip and although not a fan of prepainted stuff , this is Simply too amazing to pass. I would never be able to get such a stunning result. So off with my pride and in comes the Yahu IP.

 

I feel the same way  

 

 

[Dpgsbody55]

Wonderful.    I'll be watching this one for sure.  I modeled SL721 as it was in it's first stint with AVM Sir James Robb.  At this time, it's guns were removed, as was the armour plating and fuselage tank.  You can see in your colour picture of C-GVZB photographed from the left side that it is still not fitted in 2000 as the filler is still not fitted.  In the period that I modelled it had stubs fitted in place of the cannon fairings which I got right, but my model has the armour plating and fuselage tank in place, which I got wrong.  Hadn't done enough research.   The gun bays became luggage bays instead, but I'm not sure if it had cannon blisters fitted to at this time.  She was refitted in early 1949 following a landing accident and painted a darker blue plus other mods which may have included the removal of the blisters.  Apparently the plane was a joy to fly and was considerably faster than service MkXVI's due to the much lighter weight.

 

I have thought of having another go at this plane, as there are so many colour scheme's applicable, and it's nice to build a model of a Spitfire that still flies too. 

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress and finished model.

 

 

Cheers,

Mike

[red Dog]

Cheers Mike, I suppose you talk about the rear fuselage reservoir right? Because the front one is certainly in use.

 

I initially planned to lower the flaps as it's possible straight from the box. Problem is that there are many mould marks Inside the flaps which arenot easy to fill and sand.
Furthermore, a little bit of research told me that flaps were quickly raiied after landing because they were prone to be damaged from flying ground bits and kind of blocked these two big radiators probably increasing the chances of overheat as the aircraft is taxied. So that idea was abandonned and the flaps were glued in their raised position.

 

the model is ready for paint and was primed with Mr Surfacer

 

Following the discussion about hard or soft edge on RAF WWII aircraft, I analysed pictures of this restored aircraft and I came to the conclusion that the paint demarcation between the ocean grey and the dark green has soft edges but very crisp and the medium sea grey undersurfaces are all hard edges.

 

I first sprayed the dark grey

 

And then the dark green and the light grey for the undersurfaces:

 

Usually I trust MRP with closed eyes but that dark grey seems a bit too dark and that green seems a bit too khaki for my project.
It's certainly because i'm doing a restored aircrfat which might not have benefited from real colour batch from WWII.
More on this later.

 

 

[red Dog]

Yesterday I flew to the place where  SL721 is based. I knew she wasn't in her hangar because of a local Airshow (Sanicole/KleineBrogel) over the week end where I expected her to be.
But I timed my stop at that FBO with the best chance to see the spit coming back home, and sure enough it was a success  

 

 

She came in fast and low in the overhead and broke in the pattern for a nice and smooth landing. I was able to witness the full recovery, fueling and parking in the hangar, next to the Sea Fury I already built  Needless to say, I took lots of picture I needed.

 

She still have her temporary D-Day commemoration markings, but it's Indeed Sl721.

 

Here's one for homemade decals i'll need to print

 

 

 

On the return flight to my FBO, I heard the B-17 leaving the nearby airshow contacting the flight information service on its way back to Duxford.
I wasn't very far from him but couldn't spot him visually unfortunately.
There was a lot of such traffic on that late Sunday afternoon in the skies North East of Brussels.

That was a nice way to join two hobbies on one Sunny Sunday afternoon  

[red Dog]

I'm not satisfied with my colour pick.

 

Here's a picture I took last Sunday:

 

and the colours of the model

 

Obviously the light conditions were not the same, so there's room for tolérances.

Yet I feel my paint is too khaki for the green and too dark for the grey

 

Here's a striking comparison when I sample the colours. Again, I'm pretty aware it dépends on the light conditions and the place were I sample the colours.

Yet my eyes are telling me the colours are way off…

 

 

 

[nmayhew]

On 9/16/2019 at 10:11 AM, red Dog said:

And then the dark green and the light grey for the undersurfaces:

 

Usually I trust MRP with closed eyes but that dark grey seems a bit too dark and that green seems a bit too khaki for my project.
It's certainly because i'm doing a restored aircrfat which might not have benefited from real colour batch from WWII.
More on this later.

 

 

 

i'm not sure i'm seeing a valid comparison with the outdoor warbird (and remember it is that),  but fwiw i think the MRP colours are fine (I have them all), although I don't lay a flat colour over a light primer - I use the black basing / marbling technique and blend in other colours for depth and variation

[red Dog]

Yep, as I said, I'm really not considering that the multiple restauration of this very aircraft alwasy used the perfect RAF colours.

Let's face it it's been probably repainted in the england, the US and canada. So chances are that the colours are far from standard.

 

Still what I'm used to seeing on spitfire models son't quite match what I see after having used the MRP colours, especially the ocean grey. Not saying MRP are thus wrong, I may have a bad impression as well. I guess the important trick is to trust your eyes against paint reference numbers, whenever you can. 

 

So I made a few rough test on a 1/24 spitfire fuselage

 

I first painted half of it with the tamiya references: AS-32 & AS30 or XF-81 & XF82

 

 

Then painted the other half with what I am used to (made a lot of 1/48 spits with these colours) Gunze H75/H73

 

 

And when I compare these tests with the painted spitfire with MRP 110&115:

 

 

My conclusion is:

 

The MRP ocean grey is too dark to me, that confirms my initial feeling. IMHO it needs lightening.
It's close to the tamiya XF-82 both tend towards the blue (which is probably right for a spitfire of WWII. The MRP is still darker than the tamiya.
The gunze is way lighter (and that's the one better closing what I see on the restored warbird)

 

The MRP green is not that bad. My initial impression about it being too khaki was probably wrong. It's very close to the Gunze H73, although a bit darker as well.
The Tamiya XF-81 is a bit too yellow, IMHO

 

 

[red Dog]

So I finally repainted it completely and went with the proven route of Gunze H73 & H75

Once camouflage was replaced, the roundels could finally be painted.

To do that I will use Custom masks from DN models. The roundels of SL721 are not standard as the top wings roundels are larger than usual and the Bottom wing roundels have the yellow border which normally occurs only on dark surfaces. So decals couldn't be used anyway.

 

Painting roundels are time consuming and whichever method you use you will always need to remove and replace masks. The trick is to stay centred at all costs.

For the colour of the roudels I used:

white, marking yellow (MRP) red is a mix of XF7 and XF68 (3/4 + 1/4) and the blue is H322 (blue angel blue) + a drop of black

All colours where checked against the tamiya decals and saved for later use.

 

First step is to backpaint a white layer. This is mostly necessary for the yellow outline

 

As you can see, masks have been marked with diagonals to ease up the aligning process later on.

The internal masks have been replaced all together on the white, then the yellow outline and red centre masks have been removed and painted respectfully in their colour

 

The next step was a bit tedious as the mask for the yellow was  a real pain to replace correctly.
Once satisfied, I removed the large centre mask and painted the blue

 

 

The AU J code masks where then placed. As with the roundels, I feel it's safer to stick all the masks together using strips of tape and then only remove the letter with a new sharp X-acto blade. That will ensure that the inner mask for the A will remain perfectly centred. Of course, there's no way to do that with the J in this case.

 

 

Some more tape for overspray protection and the codes where painted in MRP sky.

 

Next up are the SL721 and OO-XVI registration.  That's probably the smallest masks I ever painted. These letters are very tiny but in the end came out great

Spraying black I also painted the walkway lines on top of the wings

 

 

It took me the full week and week end to get to this point, but the end is near for this "quick" build

 

I'm glad for the help of DN models and the custom work they are able to do, it saved me a lot of time and trouble.