The Few.

[Matt]

Apart from all the other reasons to build the Tamiya MkI Spitfire, when doing one in-flight, the biggest of all is that they give you a pilot.

Downsides are that the details are a little soft, and he's not really dressed right for mid-summer BoB (unless you paint his jacket blue and claim he's a really big guy).

Never the less, he's in the box and that means for free, which is fine by me.

Cheers for now,

Matt

The men of Yellow flight 610 Sqdn (who knew they had cloning in 1940 ;) )

A closeup. You can see so little below the head and shoulders once he's in the bird and the canopy is closed that I didn't spend too long on them. 'Looks near enough' was the watch word. Paints are Citadel Acrylics expect for a little Tamiya Gloss black on the goggles.

In the office.

One of the poorest details on these figures are the seat belts. In fact, I can't even tell if they are moulded in or not. So I added a proper Sutton harness from Tamiya tape. The Shoulder straps are 2 peice, one goes from the middle over the shoulder and down the back, the other from the shoulder through frame 11 and into the depth of the fuselage.

Figure painting needs lots of drying time, so I figured out I was going to mount the planes to their rods. I like to use telescoping square section brass rod. It makes getting the plane on and off easier, and it will hold the plane in any attitude without slipping.

The larger OD section goes in the plane. I super glue it in place then form an epoxy putty blob to brace it. This is Tamiya 2part epoxy. First modelling product I've been so disgusted with I had to throw it away. Looks like chewing gum, and behaves like chewing gum. Old hard gum at that. Nasty stuff. Stick with Milliput.

Drill out the end of the support and file to shape.

Mount the smaller section of tube to the pole

Et Voila ! Spit on a stick.

[Cadfael]

One detail on the Sutton Harness. After it passes thru Frame 11 (the one the seat is mounted on) the harnees has a bayonet coupling that connects to 2 wires that anchor back at Frame 15. Here's a link describing the installation.

:lol:

[Matt]

One detail on the Sutton Harness. After it passes thru Frame 11 (the one the seat is mounted on) the harnees has a bayonet coupling that connects to 2 wires that anchor back at Frame 15. Here's a link describing the installation.

:lol:

Thanks, I know the fitting, but after testing my patience just doing the harnesses themselves I decided to take a pass on that bit. At least having the harness there and passing on back looks better than the empty void you get out of the box.

Cheers,

Matt

[David Walker]

Fantastic job on the figure painting. They look extremely realistic.