swbailey Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) Oh man, so many great subjects I've always wanted to do in this area that it is hard to pick. I guess I have to start somewhere, so I will launch on Alf Glendenning's Spitfire Mk. VIII from 457 Squadron RAAF. I have an Otaki 1/48 scale Spit and the Aeromaster decals, plus a bunch of resin goodies I can use. This one has been sitting on my "to do" pile for far too long. Stewart Edited January 13, 2014 by swbailey Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 6, 2014 Author Share Posted January 6, 2014 Got to start somewhere, and that usually means the cockpit. Since the Otaki kit has a very basic interior, I chose to go with a True Details resin cockpit that I got a number of years ago. It is for a Spitfire Mk.5, but I figure it wouldn't have changed that much between the Mk.5 and the Mk.8. To start the installation, I got out the trusty Dremel tool and ground the details off the sides of the cockpit. I cut out the port side entry door and added the upper side panel. Not a lot, but it's a start. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 13, 2014 Author Share Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) Got to work on the cockpit and things really came along nicely. The True Details set has lots of good detail and it was easy to work with. I painted the cockpit components with Testors Pale Green, since my RAF interior green had gone bad, and I didn't have the time to drive an hour to the nearest hobby shop. The rest was pretty straight forward, using Testors French Chestnut to simulate the dark red-brown of the bakelite seat, and ivory for the belts. Unfortunately, the True Details set, which is designed for the Hasegawa Mk. 5 kit, does not include the control stick, as they figure you'll use the one from the kit. But the Otaki kit has some really strangely shaped control; not round but rather sort of a rounded square. Not feeling like scratch-builing a new one, I went with it, but I don't really like it. After assembly, I did a wash with Raw Umber artists oils and highlighted some of the edges with a silver Prismacolor pencil to show wear and chipping. All of the dials on the instrument panel received some Micro Crystal-Clear to give them a glass look and after a little bit of fiddling with the fit, I got the cockpit installed. Being as it is designed for a different kit, I had to glue the sidewalls to the aircraft and fit the rest of the cockpit in, rather than gluing the sidewalls to the cockpit floor like the True Details instructions say to do. It worked out without too much bother, but I did have a lot of fiddling around to do to get the floor/seat/instrument panel properly aligned in the fuselage. While I was waiting for things to dry in the cockpit, I got to work on the wings. I got them built up with the radiators, guns and belly tank in place and modified the alierons. According to my research sources, the Mk. VIII Spitfire had a shorter span alieron, so I re-scribed them and filled in the excess area with my usual 3M Acryl Blue putty. Edited January 13, 2014 by swbailey Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Litvyak Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 That cockpit looks great! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 13, 2014 Author Share Posted January 13, 2014 That cockpit looks great! Thanks! The big pity is that most of it doesn't show when the fuselage is all buttoned up. I decided to open the side door to show it off a little more, but that means that I now have to get an aftermarket canopy, since the kit one only offers you the option of keeping it closed. (Although it is a bit thick and I probably would have to replace it anyway.) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 (edited) The fuselage and wings have come together, and it's not too bad a fit. Fuselage fits very nicely and needs almost no filler. The biggest issue was getting the cockpit aligned correctly inside the fuselage, as the True Details resin was made for the Hasegawa Mk. 5 Spitfire and there is nothing to help form a positive alignment in the Otaki. So, it took lots of wiggling, a bunch of slow setting super glue and accelerator to get it aligned. I did have to sand off some of the resin on the bottom of the cockpit pan to get a comfortable wing/fuselage fit. The wing to fuselage joint was a little rougher, and required some filling to fix the difference in height between the aft part of the wing and the fuselage. Again, nothing too hard. Now, I'm just standing by for the vac-u-form canopy and white metal landing gear legs from Squadron. Normally I don't go in for metal landing gear, except that Otaki's are way off. They are molded with the struts at maximum extension, which obviously is wrong for an aircraft sitting on the ground. I could have done some surgery to the kit parts, but they didn't look that good to begin with, so I ordered the metal ones. Edited January 16, 2014 by swbailey Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 20, 2014 Author Share Posted January 20, 2014 (edited) The folks at Squadron came through and my landing gear legs showed up on Friday. I got to work straight away, and got them cleaned up and attached to the gear doors. It was a little surprising that the SAC gear legs (which were designed for the Tamiya Mk.5 did not include any torque links, but that was quickly solved with some Airwaves etched brass ones. The result is definitely better than the kit supplied gear legs with their full extension... I also added some True Details wheels and tires, because they look much better than the bloated balloon tires in the kit. Edited January 20, 2014 by swbailey Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trojan Thunder Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 Nice progress, coming together quite quickly Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 21, 2014 Author Share Posted January 21, 2014 (edited) Now on her gear and ready to start the painting process. Finished up the prop and spinner, which really stand out against the rest of the unfinished model. (Tamiya gloss red over a white base coat.) Edited January 21, 2014 by swbailey Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ruud Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Great work Stewart! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 Great work Stewart! Thanks Ruud. To bad you couldn't make it to the meeting last night... I had the Spitfire along with my T-6 floatplane project, as well as a finished 1/48 scale Ki-100 and my 1/72 MiG-15UTI from the "Out of Africa" group build. Stewart Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted May 25, 2014 Author Share Posted May 25, 2014 After a long hiatus, I got back to working on my RAAF Spitfire and may actually get it done in time! I had a heck of a time with the vac-u-form canopy and getting it fared into the fuselage. It required a little modification to the fuselage and lots of putty work to get it right. I ended up setting it aside and working on other projects. Finally, I got the "bug" to get back on it, and got the canopy masked and primed it with Tamiya gray surface primer. Next came the pre-shading with flat black. After a couple days of drying time, I painted the underside with Model Master RAF Medium Sea Gray. It was followed up with a touch of post-highlighting with some Medium Sea Gray with a little white in it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted May 25, 2014 Author Share Posted May 25, 2014 The next day, I masked off the undersides and sprayed Modelmaster RAF Ocean Gray in a free-hand pattern, based off the Spitfire "A-Pattern" camoflauge scheme. A day later, I masked off the gray using 3M poster tack which I rolled into long, thin "snakes." These give a nice soft edge; tighter than doing it free-hand, but not as sharp as using tape. I like the effect. Once the green had dried, I masked off and shot the white leading edges on the wings that were an identifying marking. Next, a couple touch-ups and then it's on to a gloss coat before decals. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 (edited) This weekend I got a chance to work on the decals. The first shot was frustrating as the usually very good Aeromaster decals started to break up on application to the model. I found the worst part of the problem seemed to come from the areas where they used blue ink... the red and the white didn't seem to have the same issues. After the problem with the first roundel (I like to start on the undersides so I can better hide an error) I overcoated all of the decals with Micro Super Film before applying the rest of them. I used Micro Sol and Micro Set, but found that some of the decals started to curl up as they dried. So... next I hauled out the "sledgehammer" of decaling; my trusty Solvaset. I generally only use this for the thickest and worst decals, but there was no choice at this point. All the rest of the decals went down well with the Solvaset, and after everything dried, the model got one more coat of aqueous gloss with Alclad Clear Base. It's nice stuff. A little more expensive than Future liquid wax, but I've been getting better results with it. Next, on to a flat coat, touch up and weathering before adding all of the other fiddley bits and pieces. Edited June 9, 2014 by swbailey Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted June 23, 2014 Author Share Posted June 23, 2014 Done! At least as done as it's gonna get... After the flat coat, I went on to finish all the fiddly bits, such as antennas, tail wheel doors, mirror, and such. The exhausts are a set of the now sadly, out-of-production Moskit exhausts for the Merlin Spitifres. Then on to weathering. I used a combination of pencil and a Micro .01 water-soluble calligraphy pen. These are great because you can draw the line then swipe it with a moist cotton swap to make streaks. Chipping was done with a silver Prismacolor pencil, oil stains were done with Tamiya Smoke and hydraulic leaks with Tamiya clear orange. I added decal strips for the gun tapes on the wing and then a little pastel for the exhaust and gun soot stains. Overall, a fun build. I am not happy with the windscreen, which was a vacuformed replacement. It doesn't quite look clear, and I cleaned and cleaned with no luck. Still, an enjoyable project. I'll post a set of "beauty shots" taken with the good camera and get them into the finished projects file this week. Cheers! Stewart Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Spectre711 Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 I love the look of this one! It make me want to go and build one just like it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
swbailey Posted June 26, 2014 Author Share Posted June 26, 2014 I love the look of this one! It make me want to go and build one just like it. Spectre- You should! I couldn't resist a Spitfire with a sharkmouth, and when Aeromaster came out with those decals back in the 90's I grabbed a set immediately. I'm sorry now that it took me so long to get around to building it... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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