Two Airfix Spitfire MkIs

[PeterSkelton]

Hi folks

A short WIP as one of these was already built, thrown together incredibly rapidly with no painting along with a P-51 which is no longer with us. She survived a 300 mile move and has stood guard over my brewing equipment for the last few months and has served to get me some practice with the hairy stick and some other techniques which are new to me.

On with the show. What we are building today is this:



And what better place to start? A couple of trips to local model/hobby shops yielded some Tamiya Extra Thin cement, along with a variety pack of sanding sticks, some hairy sticks from small to large and some white Squadron putty, all of which are new to me since the last time I spent any time making models I was ten, and a good model then was one where the propellor rotated once you were done.



This is the first time I've ever painted the insides of an airplane. My jumbo order of paints hasn't arrived yet, so I mixed up some Hu90 Sky with a touch of Hu33 black, thinned it a little and set to work. After a few coats of green, I picked out some of the controls in black and gave the panel lines a little wash with some extremely dilute Hu33. I didn't have any metallic silver so the oxygen bottles were left unpainted, sacrificed to impatience.



The cockpit pieces were painted with the same green mixture, the control column was installed, seat installed and painted black. In another first, I actually put the instrument panel decal in place.



In yet another first, I applied some Tamiya masking tape to the older plane and gave the undersides of both of them three coats of thinned Hu90. The older one also had a pre-shading wash applied of extra thin Hu33 applied generously then wiped away with some kitchen roll. If you compare the old plane (on the right with the propellor, radiator and oil cooler installed) it looks like it may have been to good effect as opposed to the newly built plane which got nothing.



Masked one off for a two-tone underside paint scheme.



Top side after two coats of thinned Hu30 dark green.



Skip a few steps of more green and then some dark earth being applied and some practice decals, here they are. I carefully brushed the appropriate colours onto the canopy once I'd got them on the aircraft, which took rather more sanding and fettling than I'd expected. The decals from the newly opened starter set pulled double duty for both these planes, hence the asymmetrical wing roundels and creative fuselage roundels after the second side roundel folded up during application.



Overall these have been great fun, and I've done a lot of things for the first time. I was very pleased with the ease of making nice straight lines with the masking tape, and the Extra Thin cement is a real joy to work with. I've also been rapidly convinced of the benefits of airbrushing so I'll be buying an Iwata Neo and Harbor Freight compressor after my next pay check, as the surface finish from the hairy stick leaves a lot to be desired.

I've got a lot more Spitfires to get through on the shelf, including another Mk1a kit which I'll be buying a few more of to get my hand in airbrushing.

[mincemeat]

Very nice work on the Spitfires! I have one Tamiya MkI Spitfire completed and have another one waiting for the "Eye Spy" GB.

[AAC]

I think all of us who have air brushes forget just how hard it is to do a really good brush job like this, well done