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Tamiya Spitfire Mk I in 1/48


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Hey folks, I recently finished Tamiya's Nighthawk and felt motivated enough to move right on into a Spitfire. I have tons of decals but will probably build this up as the 610 Squadron DW*O on the box, as I like it. I do like to spend some time on the cockpits, so will be using another Eduard Zoom kit. I'm not all that familiar with Spitfires, so any helpful information from Edgar or any of the other extremely knowledgeable people on the forum would be appreciated to keep this as accurate as is reasonable.

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I usually (meaning the last couple builds) try to shade the interiors so they get darker as they get deeper, and that's what I'm doing here. I spray black first, then the interior color, and then a lightened version of the interior--in this case I'm using xf-71 Japanese Int Green as a substitute for the RAF Interior green, and adding some XF...21? Japanese gray to lighten and gray it up a little.

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I love Eduard's instrument panels, although i wasn't really a fan of the side panels for the F-117. The colors are sometimes a little off...so I re-sprayed the parts that are interior green.

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So that's the cockpit pretty much complete. I should have more in the next few days. In the meantime, thanks for your feedback!

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I've pretty much finished the interior, and decided against going really crazy with cables and wires in the cockpit sides after dry-fitting and seeing how limited the view was.

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Very nice start!

On this photo the undercarriage control unit must be turned 90 degrees clockwise

Check this site

http://spitfiresite.com/2010/07/anatomy-of...re-cockpit.html

Cheers!

Sergey

Edited by Kasatka
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I would also check out the colour of the seat on that Spitfire site, course you could always claim it to be a metal seat which

would have been painted interior green. It does look a fine start tho.

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Thanks, Sergey, that's a really helpful set of images! The Eduard instructions listed it to be placed the way I did, but it wouldn't be the first time there have been minor mistakes in their instructions. I might just yank it off and glue it back correctly.

Very nice start!

On this photo the undercarriage control unit must be turned 90 degrees clockwise

Check this site

http://spitfiresite.com/2010/07/anatomy-of...re-cockpit.html

Cheers!

Sergey

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It's been my understanding that it would be very rare to find a "Bakelite" (they weren't actually made of Bakelite) seat on a Mk I and that the earlier versions were made of metal. Does anyone else have specific knowledge about this?

Thanks for the help!

I would also check out the colour of the seat on that Spitfire site, course you could always claim it to be a metal seat which

would have been painted interior green. It does look a fine start tho.

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According to a Spitfire guru Mr Edgar "before May, 1940, all seats were metal, therefore black or green, not plastic."

According to http://www.spitfires.ukf.net/p014.htm the WD-O (X4011) of 610 Sq (http://www.610squadron.com/about.php?cmd=about_aircraft) first flew on 24-7-1940 with 37 Maintenance Unit, then on 26-7-1940 went to service with 610Sq and so on..

So.. technically the seat could be "plastic".. But if you make it metal - you want be too wrong, as I understood

This thread at Britmodellers might be of help to you as well - http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41616

Cheers

Sergey

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Does anyone know whether this plane would use the armored glass at the front or the regular less-thick glass? The instructions don't seem to say one way or the other.

earlier style windscreen with external armoured plate

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I'm nearing the final part of the build, having now painted it and sprayed a layer of Future on it. Should be done within the week! For now, here are some progress shots.

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I tried to be clever and glued both wing halves together before then gluing them both to the fuselage. It didn't work out too well, and I had to fill some pretty goodly-sized gaps with white putty. I think next time I might try to glue the upper wing halves to the fuselage first, and then glue the lower portion on. Anyone with experience with this kit have any thoughts on the best way to do this to get everything gap-free?

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I was worried about shoving the cockpit up into the fuselage with all the Eduard bits in there, so I glued it to one side of the interior. Then I glued the other half of the fuselage on. I should have dry fit everything, including the canopy, because I somehow pinched the fuselage halves together too far so that the rear portion of the canopy glass didn't fit on. This may have contributed to my wing fit issue as well....oops.

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A shot of one of the exhausts

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I sprayed the whole upper half in a brown mix after painting the bottom sky and masking it off with Tamiya tape. For the upper half I cut out the Tamiya camo pattern that came with the model and used those. They worked great for the wings, but oh what a pain for the sharp contours of the fuselage! I'm going to have to figure out something a little better next time. On this one I wanted a just barely perceptible soft edge, so I used small pieces of blu-tac to raise the masks just over the surface.

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Great progress! I also had a problem with the wings halves glued together and then to the fuselage. The result is a step on the left wing root.

Next time I will glue upper halves to the fuselage first..

Nice camo by the way! What paints did you use?

Sergey

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Great progress! I also had a problem with the wings halves glued together and then to the fuselage. The result is a step on the left wing root.

Next time I will glue upper halves to the fuselage first..

Nice camo by the way! What paints did you use?

Sergey

For the dark earth I used about 2/3 Tamiya flat earth and 1/3 red brown, and the green is their new RAF dark green straight from the jar. I usually add a little black or light tan and tweak the colors a little and do some shading afterward too.

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Colors seem to match precisely the originals.

I myself used the Ganzyo's range H72 and H73 for the upper camo.

Keep on going. Looks like you will finish before me =)

Well I hope you plan on posting pics!

I'm thinking about doing a Vb next, using what I learned from this build and adding a little more detail with a more expansive Eduard set. And maybe my first time using after market decals.

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I tried to be clever and glued both wing halves together before then gluing them both to the fuselage. It didn't work out too well, and I had to fill some pretty goodly-sized gaps with white putty. I think next time I might try to glue the upper wing halves to the fuselage first, and then glue the lower portion on. Anyone with experience with this kit have any thoughts on the best way to do this to get everything gap-free?

Looking really good.

Attaching the upper wings to the fuselage before attaching the lowers is definitely the way to go. Once the upper wings are firmly attached, just run sanding stick across the underside of the wing/fuselage joint to get them level and square before attaching the lower wing , then the worst gap you'll have (if any) will be on the leading edges joint which is much easier to deal with than the wing root itself.

Cheers,

Matt

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