Another Spitfire...Hobbyboss Mk.VB (Trop)

[yak face]

Great viewing steve, its always good to get an unbiased opinion of a kit . Your build log is perfect for anyone considering this spit, showing as it does all the faults and how to address them . Ive no doubt its going to look excellent when youve done , cheers tony

 

[stona]

Even at this stage I'd say if someone is looking for a very reasonably priced large scale Spitfire then this would be a good choice. It does have a few problems, but almost every kit does.

It has some curious engineering, but that's not really a criticism. The fit so far has been very good, we'll see what happens with the infamous fuselage-wing join later. Hobbyboss have engineered this in what is almost the traditional way, given the complex shape of this area on the real aeroplane. Beverly Shenstone certainly wasn't thinking about future generations of model builders when he designed that!

The only thing that has irritated me so far has been the very heavy and occasionally badly placed sprue attachment points. These do take some careful cleaning up, but Hobbyboss is hardly unique in having these.

You don't get a Tamiya kit but then neither do you spend somewhere around 100 quid. If you are the kind of person who would throw a ton of extras at this kit then don't, buy Tamiya instead. You'll probably save some money.

To my relatively untutored eye the model looks a lot like a Spitfire which is all I want it to do! Most people who visit my house are not modellers or Spitfire aficionados, so as long as I avoid gluey thumb prints on the canopy I should be good to go

Cheers

Steve

 

[Ian M]

Its looking very good Steve. As you say for the price its a good kit for a spit in that scale. The tail and the screen being the tow big boo boos are easy enough. I might try one myself later.

Ian M

 

[stona]

The tail and the screen being the tow big boo boos are easy enough.Ian M

I certainly wouldn't be put off by the really fairly minor problems.

Here's one of the kit's horizontal stabilisers.



One side is obviously metal with nice rivet detail whilst the other is, for some mysterious reason, fabric covered. It would not be terribly difficult to sand down the fabric detail and apply some riveting. The alternative parts I got are nicely done and a test fit has revealed that they will slot right in without any problem.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Ian M]

I wonder what Chinese (or are they Korean) for brain fart... What where they thinking.

As a question of size not on a rivet counter level, how does it measure up against the Tamiya one. I imagine that the tamiya one is not to far from hand.

Just curious as I have hear that it is to short in the fuselage.

Ian M

 

[stona]

Ian, I'll have a look at the completed Tamiya Mk IX, which is in a cabinet upstairs, next to the fuselage of the Hobbyboss Mk V in the morning and let you know.

I have to say that it doesn't appear stunted at all. I'm not the type to get my underwear tangled about a millimetre here or there

Cheers

Steve

 

[Ian M]

Me neither Steve, I have just heard a lot about it being to short, just curious as to by how much. It looks fine to me but I'm no expert. lol.

Ian M

 

[flyjoe180]

A good honest review of the kit as you go Steve, thanks for sharing your findings. I quite like the smaller Hobbyboss kits, you get a lot of extras for the spares box. Be interested to see how the decals go, this has been (apart from some glaringly obvious scale and detail distortions), their biggest issue for me.

 

[stona]

Just curious as I have hear that it is to short in the fuselage.

Ian M

I've done a VERY approximate measurement, simply by offering the Hobbyboss fuselage up to the completed Tamiya Mk IX. The Hobbyboss is shorter. It matches quite well from fin to cockpit and then the cockpit openings are very similar. The Hobbyboss is several millimetres shorter in the nose.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Ian M]

Well then I can't see what all the fuss is about. They way they are dodging the kit over here, you would think it was centimetres short!! Thanks for taking the time for that Steve.

I might just grab one one day.

Ian M

 

[stona]

Been a while, so here's a quick update.

I've done the major construction on the airframe. I'm very impressed with the HpH resin, everything fitted very nicely which is not always the case. If anyone is contemplating investing in these alternative parts then one thing that there is no need to worry about is their quality or fit.

All the kit parts have gone together very well. I needed a little bit of superglue to fill one of the wing tips, but that was my fault, caused when I was tidying up the face left by the original wing tip which I removed.

I also did a little bit of work at the wing root. Since I've never built an aeroplane kit where I didn't have to do that it's hardly a criticism

The light is going here so here's an even worse than normal photo of the model with top surfaces primed.



It looks just like a Spitfire!

Cheers

Steve

 

[flyjoe180]

It does look just like a Spitfire, nice and cleanly done too.

 

[stona]

I've not been able to get much time in the last few days.

I have got the basic Azure Blue on the underside having finally decided NOT to apply the yellow leading edge stripes suggested by Hobbyboss (I'd have sprayed the yellow first). I know that the yellow stripes were intended for use in Europe, but some tropical fighters did still carry them. It is unclear whether my subject had them or not, they look like a possibility on one photo but I've decided not.

In the mean time I've been faffing about with the exhausts, trying to make plastic look like metal .



Cheers

Steve

 

[Ian M]

Well it looks like that worked out well. They look like burnt metal to me!

Ian M

 

[Ziper_it]

And I think you completely succeeded, it looks like metal

Francesco

 

[tr1ckey66]

Hi Steve, nice progress with the Spit. I built the Hobby Boss kit (Mk V not trop) some time ago. I built it for a client OOB but did note the inaccuracies in the kit. I also disliked the clear gun inspection panels and remember them as being a bit fiddly to get to fit correctly, having to thin them in various places to get them to lie flat? I don't think there was a correction set available at the time and I'm interested to see how this all comes together. Looks great so far and I'm intrigued by the canopy correction.

I hope to be doing my own corrective kit build soon in the Trumpeter Ju87b (Part of the BoB builds) which,as you're probably aware, has a long list of well publicised accuracy issues.

Anyhoo, great progress and I look forward to the canopy.

Cheers

P

 

[Dave W]

Those exhausts look the business Steve.Can you tell me how you did them please?.

 

[stona]

Hi Steve, nice progress with the Spit. I built the Hobby Boss kit (Mk V not trop) some time ago. I built it for a client OOB but did note the inaccuracies in the kit. I also disliked the clear gun inspection panels and remember them as being a bit fiddly to get to fit correctly, having to thin them in various places to get them to lie flat? I don't think there was a correction set available at the time and I'm interested to see how this all comes together. Looks great so far and I'm intrigued by the canopy correction.Cheers

P

Hi Paul,

Yes, those gun panels don't fit that well and I remember a little bit of sanding. You have to fit them in the right order as some overlap others and that's not self evident, or indicated in the instructions. I find them peculiar and suspect they are pandering to the Asian market where people like to display kits opened up with all the gubbins on display. Nothing wrong with that but I prefer a more 'realistic' pose. It's one thing to offer them as an option (as Trumpeter do in some of their kits IIRC) but there is no option with this one.

In the end I have used the kit parts for the hood and rear canopy, just using the corrected windscreen from HpH. Being cast from clear resin it is not as clear as the rather good kit clear parts and is also a bit 'heavier' looking, if you know what I mean. It fits okay if you make sure to shape the little, resin, fuselage inserts correctly. I've had to do a little bit of filling around the front of the screen but nothing drastic. I wanted to have the windscreen (HpH) and sliding hood (Hobbyboss) meet properly, despite the fact the hood will be posed slid back eventually. If you weren't bothered about that happening exactly the fitting would be much easier. I effectively had to tilt the screen back very, very, slightly. HpH supply a special paint mask to fit around the windscreen and suggest several layers of paint fill the transition from kit to extras but any fool, even me, can smooth out that transition more conventionally.

The rest of the correction bits have fitted perfectly. I am particularly impressed with the horizontal stabilisers.

I plan to use the resin cockpit door but at the moment I seem to have.....ahem....mislaid it !

Good luck with the 'Stuka'

Those exhausts look the business Steve.Can you tell me how you did them please?.

Hi Dave. I assembled and primed the 'stacks' with Halfords Plastic Primer.....and forgot all about them until this morning when first I sprayed them with Alclad 'burnt iron'. That was a little too dark so I dry brushed them with a red-brown mixture I made up, just to give the impression of a lighter colour. After that I dry brushed the lighter staining. Usually I use a grey for this, but this time I've used white and will do so again. Finally I wanted to lighten up the end of the individual stubs and make them appear more metallic. For this I dry brushed a mixture of metallic bronze and, believe it or not, Mid Stone.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Dave W]

Hi Paul,Yes, those gun panels don't fit that well and I remember a little bit of sanding. You have to fit them in the right order as some overlap others and that's not self evident, or indicated in the instructions. I find them peculiar and suspect they are pandering to the Asian market where people like to display kits opened up with all the gubbins on display. Nothing wrong with that but I prefer a more 'realistic' pose. It's one thing to offer them as an option (as Trumpeter do in some of their kits IIRC) but there is no option with this one.

In the end I have used the kit parts for the hood and rear canopy, just using the corrected windscreen from HpH. Being cast from clear resin it is not as clear as the rather good kit clear parts and is also a bit 'heavier' looking, if you know what I mean. It fits okay if you make sure to shape the little, resin, fuselage inserts correctly. I've had to do a little bit of filling around the front of the screen but nothing drastic. I wanted to have the windscreen (HpH) and sliding hood (Hobbyboss) meet properly, despite the fact the hood will be posed slid back eventually. If you weren't bothered about that happening exactly the fitting would be much easier. I effectively had to tilt the screen back very, very, slightly. HpH supply a special paint mask to fit around the windscreen and suggest several layers of paint fill the transition from kit to extras but any fool, even me, can smooth out that transition more conventionally.

The rest of the correction bits have fitted perfectly. I am particularly impressed with the horizontal stabilisers.

I plan to use the resin cockpit door but at the moment I seem to have.....ahem....mislaid it !

Good luck with the 'Stuka'

Hi Dave. I assembled and primed the 'stacks' with Halfords Plastic Primer.....and forgot all about them until this morning when first I sprayed them with Alclad 'burnt iron'. That was a little too dark so I dry brushed them with a red-brown mixture I made up, just to give the impression of a lighter colour. After that I dry brushed the lighter staining. Usually I use a grey for this, but this time I've used white and will do so again. Finally I wanted to lighten up the end of the individual stubs and make them appear more metallic. For this I dry brushed a mixture of metallic bronze and, believe it or not, Mid Stone.

Cheers

Steve

Well they look very good.thanks for the explanation.

 

[stona]

Here's another pointless gimmick, a bit like the clear panels in the wings. It's 'rubber' tyres for the main undercarriage.



I'm not a big fan. I find these difficult to make look realistic and just look at that seam running around the tyre. It's surprisingly difficult to clean up neatly......unless you stick the tyre in the freezer for a few hours first. That's where mine are now

Cheers

Steve