Airfix 1:24 Spitfire Mk I

[PeterSkelton]

Hi folks

Long time no model. Life being what it is and all that. I've had my long wanted 1:24 Airfix spitfire sitting on my shelf since September last year and finally pulled it out to be built last week. I am actually building this model in memory of my son who as one of twin boys passed away at approximately 20 weeks in utero. His brother was born recently and is still in the NICU, so well cared for but not yet at home. As I am not one for historical accuracy in my models I am going to stencil his initials TL-S as the squadron insignia.

So far I've got the fuselage stuck together and the seams are more or less filled and sanded to a decent finish. Still working on the wings, the upper wings have been glued to the fuselage and I've been chasing details around the wheel wells and undercarriage the last couple of days, mostly slapping aluminum paint on things and fiddling with the wheel assemblies.The next big step will be to get the wings closed up, then to assemble the tail plane control surfaces and she should be ready for paint.

I have a few high level observations, some model related some more general

Holy moly this thing has a lot of flash. More flash than a dance club on saturday night after five rounds of $1 shots. I've spent what feels like as much time carefully paring down edges and filing both large and small parts to get down to the actual intended molding as I have putting the rest of the thing together so far.

The Merlin and associated cowling area is a giant PITA. The whole engine is not in squarely, and as I'm doing her as a bird in flight the only reason I've even bothered putting the engine inside is to have something to hang the exhaust stubs from. I resorted to carving chunks off the starboard side rocker cover to get the top cowling to sit down flat, and the exhaust stubs for that side are going to need some alteration to fit properly too. A learning experience for sure, I clearly didn't spend enough time filing.

Vallejo Model Air paints are a real revelation. After spending months messing around with Humbrol acrylics and thinner I snapped and picked up the Battle of Britain RAF set from Amazon. I've gone from dreading airbrushing to happily airbrushing even the smallest of parts at the drop of a hat. These paints spray happily from my Iwata Neo straight out of the bottle, dry fast and clean up super easy. Loving them.

I have a few pictures shot as I've made progress, I rapidly decided that I was going to treat this as take 1 and build two or three more of these kits, refining as I learn along the way, this kit won't ever get any photo etch, after market decals or any other fancy touches. I will upload them later on as they still remain uncatalogued.

[PeterSkelton]

Here's a few photos. Apologies for phone shots but the best camera is the one you have with you

The obligatory box shot. Airfix sure do make lovely box art.



The biggest pile of sprues for anything I've ever built. Nice that the stand is included too.



Skip many steps to the office starting to come together, and the engine getting hammered into place. I couldn't get the lower cradle to fit into the engine bearers for the life of me so as the cowlings are being glued into place you will notice that it's missing in this shot, along with any paint or really much detail on the engine.



Another shot into the office, you can see this is before the grip on the control column got painted. You can't see that the column isn't yet glued into place, this was a little bit of a dry fit. You can see that the rudder pedals and associated push rods are not sitting pretty, unfortunately whilst trying to get these pieces together part of the assembly snapped and refused to be both glued together and correctly aligned at the same time. You can also see that Humbrol 56 "Aluminum" acrylic paint is pretty awful. It neither goes on well or looks the part, but it's the only metallic color I have so I'm soldiering on.

[PeterSkelton]

The pilot taking his first steps towards coming together. Copious quantities of Extra Thin and some careful application of thin bits of sprue offcuts were required to get him into shape, particularly the boot toes



Now with some RAF blue for his flying suit



Lucky chap that he is he now has some arms. Some yellow applied to pick out the life jacket, and some dark brown for the sutton harness straps and his flying helmet.



And finally sat where he belongs.

[PeterSkelton]

The propellor, yellow tips sprayed first then masked for the black to be sprayed. The blades, spinner and back plate were all sprayed individually, then after the final assembly the gaps were given a once over with the airbrush to complete this piece.



Upper wing surfaces being glued into place. The parallel jaw clamp being used to hold everything together whilst the glue sets up. You can see that the wing uppers have been given a quick application of Vallejo primer, whilst the latterly applied gun covers are unprimed as yet.



The lower wing coming together. The Brownings have been sprayed and glued into place, and the underside of the office has had a (somewhat ugly) few coats of Cockpit Green (Humbrol 78) applied. The battery has also been sprayed and glued into place.

[Johnj]

Hi peter, myself and gazmat are building the 109 on here and had to deal with similar issues. It took me around two weeks to get the engine to fit with the cowls on with minimal gaps.

Nice going though, you seem to be getting through it quite quick

Do you mean like this ?

20160917_221139_zpsfksntsaj.jpg

[PeterSkelton]

Very much so. I got the head glued together as best as possible, then moved down the torso and legs in stages, using some clamps to pull the pieces together then applying cement to the seams

[1975GinjaNinja]

I did the mk vb version as my first model back in the hobby. Awful fit issues but I didn't know any better. Strangely enough though my pilot went together quite well, only bit that did.

Keep at it looks good do far.

[Twokidsnosleep]

God she is a big bird
this will be wonderful when you finish

[gazmat]

John and I will be closely observing this, lol, because we both struggled with the ME 109 version, please share your experiences Peter, good or bad, John and I only seemed to bad have experiences throughout the build, but did come out reasonably well, John's was excellent, I lost all interest tbh lol.
Looking forward to your progress, looking really good though...well done Peter.