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Hi,

 

With one Tiger from the Top Gun GB finished and the other two clamped up, I started on this Spitfire.

I had a look at the info that came with the Victory Productions decal set. Pete Brothers was a Battle of Britain ace who lead the Culmhead Wing during the D-Day period. With their presurised Spitfire Mk VII's they were given the task of top cover for D-Day.

MD188 was his personal Spitfire with his initials on the side.

With the lack of enemies at high altitude, they went on to fly a lot of low-altitude combat after D-Day. Flying MD188, Pete Brothers shot down an Fw 190 on  the 7th of August 1944. By then, MD188 had lost her high altitude camo and had had the high-altitude wingtips replaced by standard ones.

I plan to build her in the D-Day configuration  What a view of the action these guys must have had.

 

My Hasegawa Spitifre is boxing # 09587 "Sptifire Mk VIII Italian Theatre". I'm not sure if Hasegawa ever released a dedicated Mk VII boxing, but this one contains a special sprue F. It is marked "1/48 Spit Mk 7". Only the wingtips are needed for the Italian theatre subjects, but there are other Mk VII parts on that sprue.

 I will be using these parts, no need to remove the casting block from the Brengun resin part or use CA glue then.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

 

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Hi,

 

Some work was done on the Spitfire.

I ran into a bit of a dilemma: I saw in the Victory Productions decal instructions that "the rear window meets the canopy rail on the Mk VII". Knowing me, there's likely to be a bit of a mess if try to replicate that. I could also choose to ignore it and build a prettier but less accurate Spitfire Mk VII.

As can be seen in the picture, I went for accuracy and shaved away the plastic that would be in the way of the rear window meeting the canopy rail.

The metal bit on the canopy rail is a PE part from the Brengun set.

You can also make out the special air intake for the pressurised cockpit.   

 

45815779885_5232e23174_b.jpgSpitfire 13Jan by StefanBuysse, on Flickr

 

I have a set of Quickboost exhausts for the Hasegawa Mk IX that I'll be using on this build.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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Hi,

 

I'm getting ready to paint the cockpit.

I've used some masking tape to keep paint off the parts that will be glued together.

The Brengun PE parts will very likely look better if I airbrush the paint onto them.

45898974955_685a246965_b.jpgSpitfire Mk VII 20 Jan by StefanBuysse, on Flickr

 

Cheers, Stefan.

Edited by Stefan buysse
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Hi,

 

I'm not exactly a die-hard PE user, so I can just give some general impressions.

The PE parts were attached to the sprue thinly enough to be cut off easily.

There are not too many PE parts. The canopy rails they give you consists of 2 pieces on each side, a very thin one should have been glued to the broader one you can see in the picture. These very thin parts deformed easily and would have been difficult to allign properly, I just went with the broader part.

It is good to have the PE bulkhead to represent the pressurised cockpit, but I'll have to look into what I'm going to do with the shoulder straps. I wonder if they went through this bulkhead in real life or if they were attached to it.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi,

 

I was quite happy with how the interior grey-green went on.

I was not so pleased with my effort to paint the instrument panel, so I used the IP decal from an Eduard Mk XVI.

There is a tiny PE triangle that has to be attached to the port side of the windscreen. I do not think I can do that without making quite a smudge. I'm considering drawing a small triangle in there with a fine felt-tip pen. 

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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4 hours ago, dnl42 said:

Gator's Grip, Formula 560 Canopy Glue, Microscale Industries Micro Krystal Klear, or Future can glue that PE on. Not sure about the Future, but the others clean up with water. None of these should affect the paint on that part, either.

 

Thanks.:thumbsup:

It really helps to have someone looking at the problem from another angle as it were. I was going to use the Kristal Kleer for the bit of rear window that goes all the way to the canopy rail on the Mk VII.

I hadn't thought of Kristal Kleer as an adhesive for canopies.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi,

 

Here's the Spitfire waiting for paint. It's not been entirely easy, I try to build with everything well alligned but at times things are different after the glue has dried. At least 'Im satisfied with the guns pointing pretty much in the same direction.

Maybe if I build one of those new Tamiya Mk I's, I'll feel a bit less hamfisted.

 47681514591_7403b3f88c_b.jpgSpitfire 23rd of April P by StefanBuysse, on Flickr

 

I'm still keen to have the top cover ready on the 6th of June.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 6:02 PM, swbailey said:

Looking good!

 

 

Thanks, she looks even better now with some paint on her.

I used Mrpaint from Slovakia, so that went on pretty nicely.

I need to do some small touch-ups and then I'll post another picture.

Then, it'll be time for the invasion stripes.

I'm not sure what the orders were for the stripes, so I went with the illustration for the decals. With the corresponding panel lines of the models, that measured out to nearly 20 mm. I'll go with 4mm for each stripe.

The orders must have been somewhat flexible to keep the proportional for several types, I have decals for P-47 Invasion stripes that are 8mm per stripe.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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Hi,

 

Invasion stripes being painted!

47930725907_176c5e53fd_b.jpgSpitfire invasion stripes by StefanBuysse, on Flickr

 

Respect for the guys who got these done practically overnight 75 years ago.:salute:

After I had carefully cut out a 4mm wide strip of masking tape, I remembered I had 4mm Tamiya tape.

I thought that was going to make it easier. Cutting out the strips myself, I feared they could be of slightly varying width.

I checked the Tamiya tape with my ruler (it was indeed 4mm) and applied the outer strips. I could immediately see that the black stripes were going to be very narrow if I put in another 4mm masking strip for the white stripe in the middle.

I'll look at what can be done. I figure that even a small error becomes quite visble.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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Hi,

 

I figured out what the problem was. If we had a blushing emoticon I'd use couple!

It's not 4 mm Tamiya tape, but 6mm. I had been using this ruler that I had just bought and used it wrongly.

It has a sliding part and I used the wrong point to start my measurements.

 

Back to careful cutting of masking tape.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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