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


red Dog

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Thanks guys,

 

beats decals anytime I'd think.

The only tiny details that are missing is the indian head and the tribute to the pilot.

Prop markings are also not corresponding to the decals in the tamiya box.

 

So I quickly made a tiny decal artwork that I printed on wite inkjet decal paper.

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_040.png

I made two background colour to account for the print/Paint difference, normally one of them should match at least :)

I painted a bit of plastic and scanned it to get the closest hex value which then was used for the background colour of the white decal.

 

Using transparent decal would not be ideal as the background paint is too dark for the light coloured artwork

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Custom decals were successful. This was probably the last major challenge of this quick build and I'm happy to report that all went fine.

 

The above artwork were printed on a white inkjet decal paper and a quick coat of MRP supergloss was sprayed to protect them from water.

One of the two green background (right most) was good enough and the decals were applied to the model:

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_041.png

 

It's still quite visible with the picture, but quite less in real and I'll done it a bit down further with touch ups and further varnish. (some weathering marks I can't see with naked eyes need to be cleaned as well (these pictures are unforgiving :) )

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_042.png

 

the indian head turned out pretty good. No way this could have been done with transparent decal paper, at least not without a white paint background.
There is still one white bit I need to remove, but that won't be a big problem.

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_043.png

Logo prop were satisfactory as well. The white cut line can't be avoided but a quick touch up will solve that before the usual semigloss clear coat

 

 

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nice!

 

i happened to watch a youtube vid yesterday where the guy showed how you can mitigate those large ridges at the edges of thick decals

 

involved spraying gloss round the edges of the decal, a small layer on the decal itself and then sanding the gloss build up to smooth the ridge 

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Well, here the decal are not very thick.

The issue come rather from the need to cut the homemade decal close to the colour border and doing so will inevitably remove a bit of colour.

So the white is the decal paper, not the thickness.

A quick base paint spray with a post it protecting the inner decal will make all that invisible. and the final gloss coat will blend all that together

 

With custom decals, you control thickness with the amount of gloss you spray over them before applying them.

I always tend to overdo it thinking that I need a lot of gloss to protect the decal from water.
But I learned to control that and in this case for instance, it's one vertical spray, then one horizontal spray with the acrylic MRP gloss and they went on beautifully on the model.

 

One might think that an acrylic gloss might not be suitable because of the contact with the water, but no issue at all.

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I can't weather this model as it's kept shiny and immaculate. So I just gave a very subtle spash of tamiya brown wash.

For the same reason I also wil not spray a semi gloss coat, i'll stick to the current gloss.

 

I did spray matt varnish on the gear and tyres and the exhaust and the walkway area. The walkways are not painted black but there is a very visible change of brightness when you look at the walkway and compare them to the rest of the wing.

I suppose that these area have been sprayed on the real aircrfat with a kind of transparent stronger protective coat.

Spit_mkXVI_32_047.png

I initially wanted to give them a mist of light brown, but in the end I decided against it and gave them simply a coat or two of matt varnish. The difference is sublte yet remains visible.

I gave them a quick brush with concrete pastels to try  though. Not sure if I'll remove that or not. I think it highlight too much the rivets and panel line. I will remove that one and try to apply pigments around the panel lines and rivets instead...

 

The exhaust are the only real parts that needs weathering.

Spit_mkXVI_32_046.png

 

This was done on the black painting with first a splash of streaking rust effect, then concrete pigments at the base of the exhaust and black pigment at the exhaust hole.
The pictures below show the exhaust before application of the pigment fixers which always tends to tone down light coloured pigments.

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_044.png

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_045.png

 

Final steps were to add the non standard antennas for a modern spitfire and gluing the canopy and resin access door in place.
I replaced the access door because the stock tamiya part was lacking in detail and depth. I think it's a very visible detail and that was one of the few part from this kit benefiting from a resin remplacement. (the others being the wheels because the stock parts didn't provide the 3 stokes wheels I needed for this model

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_048.png

The rear view mirror is not fitted but a handle and a ball Inside the sliding canopy were Added, they are not visible in the above picture.

 

Just a few nitpicking details to nail and this model will be completed.
 

 

 

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You have done simply amazing work on this to make it a accurate replica. Your restrained weathering is perfect, and your attention to all the details, including the markings,  is very impressive. What a beautiful model!

 

The owner will be very pleased with what you've done, but it sounds like he already knows that. :) 

 

Richard

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Thank you very much Richard

 

One last thing worth mentionning: The model instructions offer two ways to display the aircraft.

On that great stand for an inflight or on it's wheel.

Both options have the auxiliary fuel tanks installed, which is a clever way to install the aircraft on it's stand as 2 fuel tanks are provided.
One which is screwed to the stand and the other that you can remove from the aircraft on it's wheels when you want to place the model on the stand.

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_056.png

 

As you can see from the picture above, there are two rather holes in the belly of the Spitfire.

If you reinstall the separate fuel tank, the holes are covered as it is where the pin of the tank inserts firmly in place.

But if you don't want to use the fuel tank, the instructions don't say anything about covering these 2 offending holes, granted they are not quite visible when the spitfire is on its wheels

 

Knowing Tamiya quest for perfection, I thought no way they would allow that to happen. There must be something planned for these holes !!

And sure enough part 9 of the double sprue where the fuel tank are attached is meant to cover these holes. It's just not referenced in the instructions:

Spit_mkXVI_32_057.png

 

they Don't even require glue:

Spit_mkXVI_32_058.png

 

Much better for my model here that obviously doesn't carry the ferry tank.

 

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As I said, this is probably the best engineerd model I ever built. It was a real joy to build this model.
It may sound obvious but unfortunately I don't built much tamiya models, but the quality of this kit was really astounding

 

I replaced the IP because the Yahu model was really better, I replaced the wheels because the 3 spoke wheels were not included and I replaced the side door because the tamiya was lacking depth. And of course I used custom masks.

But the rest of the kit really doesn't need anything from aftermarket, and this is from a guy who usually buy everyaftermarket possible for all my kits. So this was really an exception for me.

 

Here are the final pictures

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_049.png

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_050.png

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_053.png

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_054.png

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_055.png

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_051.png

 

thanks for looking and feel free to comment if there's anything I could have done better.

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On 9/24/2019 at 1:37 AM, red Dog said:

Thanks guys,

 

beats decals anytime I'd think.

The only tiny details that are missing is the indian head and the tribute to the pilot.

Prop markings are also not corresponding to the decals in the tamiya box.

 

So I quickly made a tiny decal artwork that I printed on wite inkjet decal paper.

 

Spit_mkXVI_32_040.png

I made two background colour to account for the print/Paint difference, normally one of them should match at least :)

I painted a bit of plastic and scanned it to get the closest hex value which then was used for the background colour of the white decal.

 

Using transparent decal would not be ideal as the background paint is too dark for the light coloured artwork

That Spit looks great! I'm going to be building almost the same thing, in the markings of the SAAF Spitfire Mk IX LF AX-K (basically a Mk XVI, just the engine differed). My brother in law flew it when he was 2IC of the SAAF museum. About 3 weeks after he left the service, the Spit was totalled at an airshow.....
You wouldn't be selling a set of the propeller decals would you? They're about all I need to get going on this one...

Thank you, and great build again

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