Second project: Tamiya Spitfire Mk IXc - FINISHED

[Kagemusha]

Really nice work, such a pleasure to see a Spitfire.

[MikeMaben]

Nice , luv the ball trick

[Sepp]

Ahoy!

 

Another small step: gun heater ducts.  Don't get excited, they're quite agricultural but hidden up the back of the radiator fairings, they'll look OK; better than nothing, anyway..

 

The rough idea:

Thin sprue, styrene sheet and the body made from a cut-up popsicle stick. The bodies have a flat face and a curved face to (loosely) follow the shape of the radiator trough skin.

 

And in place, after sanding the styrene flanges to a more reasonable shape, and the application of Mr. Surfacer and some paint etc.:

 

As we know, the kit's radiator troughs are a bit shallow.  I didn't quite manage to terminate the ducts within the wing body and still have some space between the top of the ducts and the trough skin - but it's really close... I reckon next time, with more careful placement, I can do it - you can see that the flanges don't quite sit at the extreme edge of the radiator body - that nought-point-something mm would make the difference.

 

Anyway, it now "is what it is", as the sayng goes. 

 

Other progress:

 

Day fighter band is on and masks drawn ready for serials, codes and nose inscription to go on.  The round masks are just spacers; all national markings will be decals.

 

More later!

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by Sepp

[MikeMaben]

[Sepp]

Me again!

 

The weather here has been lovely over the past couple of days, so I've been taking full advantage of that and neglecting my duties here - nevertheless, I have made two small steps forward:

 

Underside stencils on. All HGW wet transfers.

When they work, they're the absolute dog's doodahs and sink beautifully into the detail - do watch out for typos though! 

 

HGW recommend Mr. Mark setter, but I've used MicroSol and MicroSet with no issue whatsoever.  Theoretically, you don't need to gloss first but after some experimentation it seems to me that any residual carrier/gum that refuses to wipe away just disappears on a gloss finish.  Frankly, the carrier film itself is so thin that if you were to miss removing it, provided it wasn't creased, I wouldn't be surprised if it were to also disappear under a top varnish coat.

 

Serials and inscription on. I went for a white inscription rather than the orginally intended yellow.  I haven't yet decided if that was a mistake...

 

The weather looks set to cool off a bit over the weekend so hopefully more progress can be made. Next up: squadron codes, then upper surface stencils.

 

Cheers!

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

[Sepp]

38 minutes ago, MARU5137 said:

Sepp, 

 

SUPERB cockpit ..Very Neat... 

Your workmanship,  the camouflage  et al looks AWESOME. 

 

 

Thank you!  All the kind comments from modellers whose work I greatly admire are a huge encouragement...   I hope you feel the same once the decals are on!

[Sepp]

Weekend update:

 

Masks for the squadron and aircraft codes on.  The round mask is a spacer; the shape and cutout helped place it so the eventual roundel would be (approxmately!) in the right place relative to the hatch...

 

then the other side was placed by eye.

 

When the wraps came off, success!

 

Happy days.

 

Time for the upper surface stencils.

 

Uh-oh! Multiple failures... and my fault entirely. These things need 6 to 8 hours to set up - any less, you risk them breaking up when you remove the carrier sheet; any more, they seem to re-adhere to the sheet. Saturday was a lovely day and I enjoyed it to the full in the garden... and completley lost track of the time. 10 hours later... aagh! Transfers!

 

Not pretty.

 

Fortunately, HGW include an alternative length strip for the stbd wing, so I cut that up to fill in the four corners and the last half-inch or so from the trailing edge, and filled the other scuffs with a very fine brush and Vallejo ModelAir black out of the bottle. I cut the "board" part off an unused "outboard" transfer and laid it over the original and the same with the "walk" part of "walkway".

 

[Cue: seven hours of interval muzak.]

 

Success!

 

The O and R still didn't entirely work, so I touched them up with the aforementioned small brush.

 

Now, if we could all ignore the fact that the both the "walkway inboard" stencils ought to be the other way up, that'd be great!   I won't tell anyone if you don't. 

 

Anyway, overall, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

 

Next: national markings.  I'll be using Xtradecals for this; upper surface and fuselage ought to pose no problem but I'm slightly concerned that the lower surface roundels don't make any allowance for the blisters they'll have to sit over.  Before I begin, any comments/advice?

 

All for now, thanks for looking,

 

Sepp.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Sepp

[Fanes]

Great job on those squadron codes and a good save with the walkway, Sepp!

6 hours ago, Sepp said:

Next: national markings.  I'll be using Xtradecals for this; upper surface and fuselage ought to pose no problem but I'm slightly concerned that the lower surface roundels don't make any allowance for the blisters they'll have to sit over.  Before I begin, any comments/advice?

You might want to take a look at Chuck's build on arc:

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/304664-132-tamspitfire-kicked-up-a-notch-dec-2018-done/page/7/

 

Keep up the good work - you're defintely motivating me to get back to my FR IXc Spit.

 

Cheers

Joachim

[Sepp]

3 hours ago, Fanes said:

Great job on those squadron codes and a good save with the walkway, Sepp!

You might want to take a look at Chuck's build on arc:

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/304664-132-tamspitfire-kicked-up-a-notch-dec-2018-done/page/7/

 

Keep up the good work - you're defintely motivating me to get back to my FR IXc Spit.

 

Cheers

Joachim

Thanks for the support, Joachim and also for the link... I'll have a good read tomorrow. I'd like to use decals on this one but I must admit, mask and spray is looking very tempting. Never thought I'd say that, lol.

[Sepp]

Hello again - last update for this project!

 

I had no need to worry about the Xtradecal roundels - they went on good as gold.

 

 

The underside roundels perfomed astonishingly well over those pesky blisters:

 

Tail surfaces and cannon added, gear legs and radiator fairings in place, temporary cockpit door removed, machine gun port patches made using 6mm Tamiya tape... nearly there!  Exhaust stubs are resin - I'm afraid I don't recall whose; if I find the packaging I'll edit this post to give the credit.

[edit: Exhaust stubs are the Quickboost Mk VIII set]

 

Just one thing left that I felt wasn't right OOB... the IFF aerial.  Tamiya's etch fret inclues a blank billet-shaped piece, however this pic - admittedly of an aerial fitted to a Mk XVIe - suggests it should be tapered.  Right or wrong, I prefer the tapered look so that's what Eva is having!  In the pic below, Tamiya's offering is part (10) on the left.  On the right is QuickBoost's 1/32 A4 Skyhawk antenna set... that left-hand one looks pretty close to the right size to me

 

and with that, the prop, the pitot tube, canopy, HF mast and Barracuda cockpit door in place .... finished.  I've really enjoyed this build and I'm going to be buying more Tamiya Spitfires, that's for sure.

 

RFI post is here; thanks for looking and for the support and advice!

 

Sepp, out.

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Sepp
Added credit for aftermarket set.