Tamiya 1:32 Spitfire Mk IX

[Boldman]

Having just returned to the hobby after a couple of decades, I started seeing ads for the Tamiya Spitfire in 1:32 scale and reading reviews. I remember the first Airfix 1:24 Spit from my youth (I remember holding the HUGE box tightly outside Gravesend Market while my Dad went to fetch the car... such a long wait from there until Christmas day to be able to start building it!!!) so I just could not resist the challenge. So with some subtle persuasion and many dropped hints to my ever-loving, she agreed to contribute the majority of the cost of this expensive kit for my Xmas present.

Sadly she spends most of her time living in Portugal at present, however the fortunate side effect of that is I got several days of totally uninterrupted modelling done during the Xmas holiday and by the beginning of February I had it complete.

So here is my photographic journal of the construction...

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There is one main glaringly obvious mistake here, I forgot the yellow leading edge flashes on the wings. There are decals provided for them but they don't fit well and so I left them off and intended to mask and paint, but I totally forgot in the end.

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[delmonteman]

Ooooh, pretty! Still trying to justify such an amount coming out of my bank account before I pull the trigger on this puppy.

 

[stona]

Nice job,and quite a project to tackle on your "return". Of course your conundrum now is what's next?

It is a very nice kit,probably the first one I've ever built where I felt that the various reviewers had built the same kit as me lol.

Cheers

Steve

 

[AFC]

Well, let me start by saying what a great country your ever-loving spents most of her time in

re the kit it's a nice model and the end result looks pretty nice. I think it's also a great thing these photographic journal of the construction as it helps so much people like me who learn quicker when watching examples other than reading lots of words so thanks ang congrats for the work done!

One question though...

I see in pic 10 that you covered the model with a "sticky paper" to help you painting the camo. did you cut the paper on the plane or was it pre-cut? I'm looking for ways to paint camo and this one looks like a good idea (don't like the blu-tak idea and I also don't find it easy to do with masking tape).

Thanks and cheers

AC

 

[stona]

I'm a Blu-Tac and tape kind of a guy. I spray the yellow for the leading edge stripes before the other camouflage and mask it with a thin strip of tape. Remember these stripes were only 4" wide.

You can just about make out the masking,sprayed green,running along the leading edge in this photo.

When you remove all the masking you should hopefully end up with a nice clean stripe.

It's much harder to make the yellow paint cover the camouflage colours,particularly the dark green.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Boldman]

Its not actually sticky paper, what I did was scan the paint plan and in photoshop (I'm a website designer by trade so this is one of my standard tools) enlarged it to full scale and printed it out. I then chopped it up to make it go around the plane and once I was happy with the fit, cut the camo patterns out. This is where my other mistake came in... I'd read about a trick used by placing blue tac under the masks to lift them off the surface a little to make the edge softer. So I tried to do this and ended up overdoing it so there were areas where there was a lot of overspray which required touching up by hand afterwards. It was at this point I discovered that the Tamiya pot paints and spray paints are NOT identical in colour and there are a few places where the difference is noticeable. however a couple of coats of Klear evened things out so only I will notice these spots

As to what is next, well I am working on a 1:48 scale diorama representing a day during the Battle of Britain at RAF Gravesend (I went to school just down the road from there), specifially 10th September 1940, the day when Hurricane Mk 1 equipped 501 Squadron left and Spitfire Mk 1 equipped 66 Sqn arrived. There is a photo in the Ospray Spitfire I/II aces book that illustrates this, so I have a Tamiya 1:48 Spit and Hasegawa 1:48 Hurri built and currently working on aircrew, tools and a Tamiya 1:48 Tilly for the pilots transport.

 

[Bunkerbarge]

Great looking Spitfire and just goes to show how much better it looks for being sat on a simple base. One suggestion I would ahve though would be to finish off with a matt varnish. Aircraft of this type were usually finished with a matt paint and even those that were finished with a gloss would look more of a satin sheen when scaled down to a model. Next time try a matt clear coat to finish it off and I think you will be pleased with the result.

 

[stona]

Aircraft of this type were usually finished with a matt paint and even those that were finished with a gloss would look more of a satin sheen when scaled down to a model.

They were finished at this time with the "typeS" paints. S standing for smooth. People far more knowledgeable about paints would have to explain the relevance of this to the size of the pigment elements and their relationship with the rest of the binders,presevatives,matting agents etc! I was once actually a chemist and I find it a bit of a chore to understand it. To me the factory finish was somewhere between what we modellers would call matt and what we'd call satin.These are entirely subjective terms and utterly unscientific,just how I like it LOL.

When I modelled JEJ I used various photographic references including the oft reproduced one from Robert Bracken's "Spitfire The Canadians". I think there is a distinct possibility that Johnson had had his aircraft waxed to a somewhat glossy finish. I doubt that this was allowed in the RAF anymore than it was in the Luftwaffe but the Germans certainly did it and since Johnson was a very senior and famous,officer who was going to stop him.

As far a Spitfire finishes go hopefully Edgar Brookes will be along with a far more authoratative answer.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Dave W]

The paper and blue tack masking method is pretty good.But its still not as easy as stona makes it look with his superbly finished model.I always end up getting a bit of overspray here and there that needs to be repaired later.So i always make sure ive got plenty of thinned paint (i use enamels) left over from the initial spray job that i can use for touchups.So avoiding the difference in paint colours from different pots/batches.Ive found the same paint out of the pot will dry a different shade to the same paint thats been thinned for my airbrush.

 

[Edgar Brooks]

The prescribed finish was "matt, with a smooth finish," which leaves you open to interpret it as you see fit, I reckon. Not generally known is that, when the company changed over to smooth synthetic (not cellulose) paints, in late 1942, the whole l/e of the wing was primed, then rivet divots and panel lines filled, smoothed, then painted, as far back as the line of the main spar.

"Erks" were taught to keep the finish pristine, by retouching, and smoothing with waterproof sandpaper (1940s wet-and-dry, presumably,) then washing down with clean water, which could explain the "gloss finish" seen occasionally in photos.

At the start of the war, upper surface colours were "blended" together, which means a feathered edge, but it was found to cause so much drag, due to the rough overspray area, the system went over to flexible mats for masking, which is why you see so many hard-edged demarcations in photos. If the airframe had to be freehand sprayed, chargehands tended to insist on an overspray of no more than 1" (25mm,) which equates to only 1mm on a 1/24 kit, with a 2" allowance between the upper and lower surfaces.

ICI ran courses for "Aircraft Finishers" throughout the war, and hammered home the lesson that wax polish should never be used on an airframe, since the wax made repainting impossible, and necessitated a time-wasting total stripdown; of course if an officer pilot insisted, who were they to argue?

Edgar

 

[stona]

ICI ran courses for "Aircraft Finishers" throughout the war, and hammered home the lesson that wax polish should never be used on an airframe, since the wax made repainting impossible, and necessitated a time-wasting total stripdown; of course if an officer pilot insisted, who were they to argue?

Edgar

I suspected something like that.

Inspectors from the german air ministry (RLM) visited forward airfields in 1940 and discovered,to their horror, that many units were "polishing" their aircraft. They reported back to the ministry,who wrote to the high command of the luftwaffe,who wrote to their subordinate commands stating that their units were not to alter the surface finish. They then wrote to their subordinates.....you can see where this is going! Anyway,eventually the senior pilots commanding the front line units did precisely nothing about it. They were the principal culprits in the first place.

A friend who runs the P-47 SIG over on Aeroscale has collected first hand accounts from pilots and crews of the 56th FG in which they admit to waxing their aircraft with "locally acquired" car polish. I doubt that this was official USAAF policy!

Cheers

Steve

 

[Boldman]

Now that I have built the Spitfire and Hurricane for my next project, I did one final overcoat of Klear with a small amount of flat base and that toned down the finish very nicely. Of course since then I've been distracted by the 1:35 scale Austin Tilly that I acquired...

 

[Vaughan]

Hi Steve

I notice with your masking that the edges look curled up is this because you've used a thin roll of blue tac?

Vaughan.

 

[stona]

Hi Steve I notice with your masking that the edges look curled up is this because you've used a thin roll of blue tac?

Vaughan.

Yes. I trace the line of the camouflage with a thin sausage of Blu-Tac and then fill in with tape. I'm not looking for a soft edge, see Edgar's expert information on Spitfire finishes above.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Centurion3RTR]

WOW!! Now that is nice Andrew and i like how you did the camo (mmm, i wonder if it'll work on armour too lol), anyway five stars matey.

Have fun, John