1/48 Spitfire Vb

[Matt]

Hi, my names Matt, and I'm a Spit-a-holic. My last 5 aircraft were Spitfires.

This is supposed to be an easy return to aircraft, after a motorcycle , 2 tanks and a snowboard.

I was looking at my shelves and thought, "A Vb. I don't have a Vb. I'll do a Tamiya Vb, OOB. That will be a nice warm up kit."

So whilst I was mulling that over in the stash, I remembered I had a set of the Victory Production "Aces of the Empire" decals. I could pick a Vb from them. So hunting for those, I found a box with some long forgotten Ultracast bits, wheels, props, Vb exhausts, seats, door, control surfaces. Well, couldn't pass those up. Next box, some Eduard and Part PE sets. Might as well throw those in as well.

Some parts of the Eduard set are better than the Part, and some parts of the Part set are better than the Eduard. And, unfortunately for my AMS, neither are perfect, so a little extra scratch building is in order to fill in the gaps. I swear, this was supposed to be a quick and easy build !!

This will be EP251 DW*B 610 Sqdn, flown by Johnnie Johnson when he made Squadron Leader.

So after an afternoon, here's where we stand,

Left hand side

Silvery PE is Eduard, Brassy PE is Part. The rest is scratch.

Right hand side

Bits and bobs.

[Jamie Cheslo]

Awesome start! All that PE and resin is going to make this a beautiful bird!

[Matt]

Somedays you just have to keep reminding yourself, "this is fun, this is fun". I don't think I've had more grief doing a Tamiya Spitfire cockpit than this one.

This is the third attempt at painting the seat. I'm still not totally happy with it, but darned if I'm doing over again. The seat armour is the original kit part, thinned down. The Eduard PE part was too thin and sat at a really weird angle. The seat mounting struts have been rebuilt at least twice. I've knocked the PE seat supports off twice. Frikkin' nightmare.

Pollyscale Br Int Green hazed over a flat black base, no wash, no drybrush other than a little silver-grey for wear and tear.

The oxygen tank and landing gear handle are just resting in place. I'll attach those and route their pipework after the seat assembly is in.

Another disaster. I tried to use Future to attach the film to the PE. Ended up with future all over the IP. You can just make out where I had to brush on some PS flat to cut down the glossy spots. I had to remove and re-attach the main panel film twice as it wouldn't line up right, the blind flying panel isn't quite right, but again, I'm done messing with it.

Things can only get easier from here on out right ?

Cheers,

Matt

[Jamie Cheslo]

That is one excellent looking nightmare/disaster, Matt. Seriously, you can't tell at all from the pictures that you had any issues with the seat/armour assembly, and the IP is fine. Your hard work is paying off.

J.C.

[Plane Mad]

That looks awesome, can't wait to see it finished

[Aggressor Supporter]

Nice detailing you're putting into your Spitfire so far.

[madmike]

I think we need more Spitfire builds to balance off the large postings of P-47D's lately :P

Looking very nice indeed Matt.

MikeJ

[Matt]

Thanks for the kind words guys, much appreciated.

After a bear of a week at work, I decided to take a 'mental health' day.

Fortunately, no major disasters ensued today, so major construction is done, and only the barest hint of Mr Surfacer 1000 on a couple of joints. The only 'aw crap' moment came about 30 seconds after attaching the upper wings to the fuselage (I do them first to get a clean joint), when I realised Tamiya mold on the later skin stiffeners and I hadn't remembered in time to remove them earlier. No biggie, a couple of slices with a razor blade and a few swipes with a sanding stick, and its all taken care of. Tail and elevators have been removed in preparation for the Ultracast parts. I decided to keep the kit ailerons. To be honest I probably wouldn't have used the Ultracast parts except I like to drop the elevators and position the tail off center, so having them makes that a little easier.

Cheers,

Matt

[is it windy yet?]

Lookin' Good.

Ron

[tomcatter727]

Nice pits on both spits!

Looking good so far Matt ;) Future & IP films can be tricky. So far I've been lucky, but if I ever end up with a shiny panel, I'd probably spray clear matt (no relation) over it & pick out the instrument faces with a blob of future once the matt is dry.

It's a tricky cockpit to do justice - all those frames are too easy to break in 1:48 or smaller. I had a few accidents with mine while I was building it <_<

Is that the teknics set?

Edited March 10, 2007 by tomcatter727

[Matt]

More progress, long on work, short on pictures I'm afraid.

Final construction brought back the bug-bears. The Part PE head armour sat too high and interfered with the rear cockpit glazing, preventing it from sitting down properly. Rather than try and remove the head armour, I elected to modify the glazing to fit , and promptly snapped it in two.

Sod.

I thought I should have plenty of spares, but it turns out all I had were some Airwaves Vac castoffs that I hadn't used. Now, I hate working with Vac canopies, but any port in a storm. The vac item had the opposite issue, it was too tall. Fortunately thats easier to correct than too short.

So the glazing is in, the cockpit masked, rudder and elevators installed. A shot of Tamiya Sky Grey for a primer/flaw check, and away we go. I decided to spray the Sky band and Yellow LE stripes first, then mask them off, and lay down the rest of the colours. I normally do it the other way, but I thought I'de try it this way for a change.

The first pass at the underside MSG is done. I'm in 2 minds whether to leave it as is, or put another thin coat down to tone down the shading some more. I might just leave it as it is, after all, who looks at the underside anyways.

Cheers,

Matt

[Jamie Cheslo]

Lovely stuff. I would leave the underside alone, as I think the preshading looks just right, but of course that is a personal preference. Keep it up!

[is it windy yet?]

Spitfires always rock, the underside looks great.

Ron

[SBARC]

If I had a cokcpit look that good I'd never close up the fuselage. :lol:

Seriously well done Matt.

Steve B

[Matt]

Thanks for the comments, all very much appreciated.

After a little soul searching, I decided to leave the underside as-is for now. I'm going to do the upper colours, then strip off all the masking and see how it all looks in relation in the daylight (the flash does tend to make things look a little more stark than in reality). I figure I can always tone it down some more later, and that will be easier than having gone too far with it.

So, here's the upper Ocean Grey done.Again, I think it looks worse in the picture than in reality.

Next up, freehanding the Dark Green.

Cheers,

Matt

[Matt]

I guess I must have missed appeasing the modeling gods this week. What a nightmare.

The plan was to freehand the Br Dark Green camo. I was going to do it Wednesday night, but I was too tired to face it, so I left it for Thursday night. Well refreshed, off I went. Mixed up my paint, started roughing out the edges. Boy, this looks kinda light. I guess it will darken as it dries. After edging both wings, its still looking very very pale. What on earth ?. Check the bottle, its Br Int Green, not Br Dark Green.

Sod. Sod. Sod.

Oh well, not a disaster yet, the dark will cover the light. So I mixed up a batch of PS Br Dark Green, fresh bottle. Now, in the past I've had 'issues' with PS, but I've had good luck recently after switching to a new thinner. I did the MSG and OG coats, with all the shading using fresh PS with nary a clog.

Started out with the DG, and straight into clog city. I went thinner, and it got 'splashy'. I lowered the pressure, got clogs. Went thicker and very high pressure. Better, but now I'm getting oversprays like crazy and its hard to keep the pattern tight. Finish one iffy wing, start on the second. Half way through I realise something is majorly wrong. Check the pattern guide. Nuts. Filled in the wrong side of the layout and put DG where it should be OG. Okay, do the fuse instead. Still clogging like crazy. I tried everything. Tamiya thinner, PS thinner, Liquitex, retarders, Rain-X. You name the remedy, I tried it. The end result was a complete mess.

So, I mixed up a batch of PS Ocean Grey and covered it all up. The OG went down perfectly (?!).

So, I mixed up a little darker batch, did some shading. No clogs. Mixed up a lighter batch, more shading/fading, still no clogs. Perfectly fines lines, and not a clog. So I kept going, fading and shading. Nary a clog. Frikking PollyScale.

So anyway. Here's the second coat of OG. I tried to go for a more 'patchy' look than the vanilla (dark at the edge, light in the middle) panel shading.

As always, the flash makes it look harsher than it is in reality.

Now I have to rethink how I'm going to the DG. Clearly PS is out. I might have some Xtracrylic left over, or its a custom Tamiya mix... Hoo boy.

Cheers,

Matt

[Matt]

After my PollyScale disaster, I decided to try a soft mask instead. That way, if I had to spray PS, at least I could do it at a higher pressure and a larger opening.

In the end, I made my own soft masks with a spare kit and tamiya tape. I transferred the tape to construction paper, cut out the masks, used then as s stencil on more paper, and made photocopies. Its not like I won't be doing another Spitfire any time soon.

Fortunately, I was able to scrape up enough Xtracrylics Dark Green to get the job done.

So, here's the paint work done. Just need a small touch up to the Sky band where a tiny amount of paint lifted, then I can start with the decaling.

Thanks for looking,

Matt

[Marcin_S]

Looks great !!!!!

[PapaSmurf630]

Whoah lovely camo! That turned out especially nice. What's especially good is you've kept your preshade or have you just post shaded the green to get that worn look? Either way it still looks very tasty.

[Matt]

Whoah lovely camo! That turned out especially nice. What's especially good is you've kept your preshade or have you just post shaded the green to get that worn look? Either way it still looks very tasty.

Thanks.

Its a post shade, I've never managed to get pre-shading to work right, although after the post shade I go back over with the base colour very lightly to blend it all in, so I guess you could call it a post-pre-shade.

The flash makes it look a lot more contrasty than it is in reality.

Cheers,

Matt

[Matt]

So finally I was able to tear myself away from earning a crust to do a little more work in this project.

All the decals are from the Victory Productions - Aces of the Empires sheet.

They are a little on the thick side, but they settle down okay. Next time I'll only use specific machine markings from this sheet and source my national markings elsewhere.

I'm not a big fan of stencil decals, but I was going to use the kit stencils, until I got the dreaded 'Tamiya disease' on the first wing walk I applied. This is a whitish 'stain' that comes off of the decals. Its doesn't happen with every kit, but when it does, I cannot get the stain off, no matter what. So I tore off that decal, cleaned up as best I could, and decided to go without stencils for this build.

The wash is a chalk/liquid soap mix, in a medium dark grey. Its probably a little overdone on the underside.

The wheel wells are an oil wash, and the oil stains are oils as well.

Next up, a flat coat once this lot dries.

Cheers,

Matt

[Impatient Pete]

Wow! What a beautiful finish!

That's some nice work. Could you explain your chalk/liquid soap wash a bit please?

Pete

[Matt]

Wow! What a beautiful finish!

That's some nice work. Could you explain your chalk/liquid soap wash a bit please?

Pete

Thanks. Chalk washes are dead easy, and best of all, if you make a mistake or don't like it, it washes right off.

You need a chalk pastel of the right colour (dark grey, black). You can get these from art stores individually. I got a pack of 12 varying shades of grey from black through white. The manufacturer is Alphacolor. I got them from Micromark, but a lot of art places carry them also.

Start with a glossy finish.

Scrape some chalk into a small pot. I use an artists pallette. Add a small amount of water (maybe a drop or two), then a few drops of liquid dish soap. Mix it up really good. Keep adding dish soap until its pretty goopy. You don't want it too runny.You can play around with the consistency to get slightly different effects.

Brush the goop over the panel lines. Doesn't have to be pin-accurate, but also don't smear the mess all over the place. I work on small sections at a time, say half a Spitfire wing. Let the goop dry. It usually takes a couple of minutes, this will vary depending on the water/soap ratio and the amount you gooped onto the kit.

Cut a paper towel into small squares, maybe 2inches square. Fold twice, and then wipe back in the direction of the airflow. I start 'dry' and wipe all the excess off. Thats usually good enough for me. If you get a spot that won't clean up as you want, very slightly moisten the paper towel and wipe more. Again, the more soap the 'stickier' the end result.

If you really don't like it, wet the paper towel and wipe over, it will probably all come right off.

You can mess with the consistency of the mix, the amount gooped on, the drying time and the amount of wiping to get different effects, like streaky marks back from the panel lines, that look like dirt/grime.

Found some pix from a previous build. (Spitfire FRIXc)

Apply the goop

Wipe once.

A bit too dirty, so wipe again

Hope this helps,

Matt

[Impatient Pete]

Hmm...I'll have to try that on my next project.

Thanks,

Pete

[Matt]

With a final rush to the finish, she's finally done. Not exactly the quick and easy build I intended, so I figured I'de use the the opportunity to experiment a bit. I used a lot more pastels to try and create a bit more of a used look. Not sure I captured it particularly, but thats half the fun of playing around.

More pictures in the Critiques page.

Thanks for following along and all the kind words and encouragement.

Matt