Airfix 1:72 Spitfire Mk.I

[dr_gn]

Bit of a retrospective build thread...I wanted an early Spitfire, and was aware that in the past, Airfix did a Mk.I/Mk.IIa which included extra (early version) parts in addditin to their Mk.Ia mouldings. These included a flat canopy, 2-bladed propeller and rod aerial mast (and of course different decals. They seemed hard to find, but after a forum request, someone sent me all the additional parts and decals for the Mk.I, so all I needed was a commonly available Mk.Ia kit. I picked one up locally for about £8. I'll need to make up a two-pronged pitot-static head, but that'll be about it I think.

I started one of these kits about 10 years ago, but almost immediately threw it in the bin becasue of the laughably deep panel lines and fastener holes:



This time I've accepted it (mainly becasue I can't find one from another manufacturer), and am experimenting with reducing the panel line depths. It'll never be up to modern standards (or even 1970's Matchbox standards for that matter), but it will have to do.

First job was to paint Mr.Surfacer 1000 into all the panel lines:



and once set, removed the excess with IPA:



This was repeated three times on all airframe surfaces, followed by a levelling wash of IPA (this shows how bad they really are):



Then, once set, I wet-sanded the whole thing with abrasive sponges to try and take the rounded edges off the top of the lines:



Then moved onto the interior (OOB apart form an Eduard early RAF harness):



Then closed it all up and filled all the gaps. I also punched out a plasticard disc to reduce the depth of the circular tank filler aperture, and eliminate some tricky filling in the base:



Then got the wings on:



and applied the first guide coat of primer:



Quite a bit of further corrective work required. Here it is pre-primer with the Airfix Mk.22 I'm building, which is pretty much at the same stage:



So that's it up to date so far.

[AlfaCool]

Nice.

[Ladders]

Just doing one of these myself as well!

Can’t imagine mine will turn out as good as your though

[dr_gn]

Thanks both.

Ladders said:

Just doing one of these myself as well!

Can’t imagine mine will turn out as good as your though

TBH this is a bit of an experiment, so it might not turn out as I wanted. The alternative was to fill the panel lines with dissolved sprue, flat back and re-scribe. Anyway, time will tell I guess.

[Eric Mc]

By coincidence, I'm building the same kit now.

I too thought about doing something about the over deep panel lines but decided to leave them be. If I do the kit again I'll definitely do something about those panel lines.

[dr_gn]

This one is taking a lot of work, especially re-scribing. Part of the problem is that some of the smaller details have got sanded away, but the main issue is that the Surfacer-filled trenches are wider than the much more refined re-scribed details:









Some of the parts are badly mis-shapen like the two-piece supercharger intake, which took a lot of dissolved sprue and profiling to get right:



Anyway, got the tailplanes and rudder fitted, also some detail painting of smaller parts (I might paint the inner wheel covers underside colours to add some contrast there). A bit more surface detail fettling to do before getting some paint on. I hope the camo and pre-shading will cover the multitude of corrective sins.

[dr_gn]

Thinned the massively oversized radiator housing edges:



and opened up the intake on the port engine cover:



I noticed that my re-scribing of the panel lines at the filled wing root had got lost under primer...again, so re-scribed...again. This resulted in wavy lines, so I'm having to fill and re-ecribe...again:



This must be the seventh or eighth attempt at getting this right. I'm currently building three Airfix kits: Vulcan, Spitfire 22 and this thing. I can honestly say that these, along with the Swordfish I finished before begining the Vulcan, have pretty much put me off modelling altogether. I've not finished a kit since starting the Vulcan in 2021 - varying degrees of quality issues on all four of them (at least for anyone who likes things to be right). It's absolutely demoralising.

[dr_gn]

Finally got the re-scribing to an acceptable level.

Fitted the radiator and oil cooler housings:



Currently refining the fit of those.

[dr_gn]

I added a ring sight from Eduard:



and got the canopy fitted:

[Ladders]

Way more detail than mine!

Wasn't even going to buy a model but found what I thought was just a Newsagents in Midhurst, and discovered a 'secret' upstairs level absolutely full of models! So felt I 'had' to purchase something



Must have been years since I did one this small, and actually enjoyed not having to stress about the details and just paint it. Mostly with Vallejo model air.

[dr_gn]

Ladders said:

Way more detail than mine!

Wasn't even going to buy a model but found what I thought was just a Newsagents in Midhurst, and discovered a 'secret' upstairs level absolutely full of models! So felt I 'had' to purchase something



Must have been years since I did one this small, and actually enjoyed not having to stress about the details and just paint it. Mostly with Vallejo model air.

Looks good. I mainly use Vallejo paints, Air for metallics and Model Colour for everything else.

I’ve not added much detail apart from a harness and the sight so far. I’ll add some undercarriage indicator rods and brake pipes, but that will be about it. All the work in this one is in reducing the crazy panel line depth and trying to re-scribe the filled joints. It remains to be seen if it looks any better in the end.

[dr_gn]

Made some progress on the undersides painting:

Off white pre-shaded with grey:



Then masked for black, again pre-shaded with grey:



Just the ailerons and elevators to be painted in aluminium now:

[dr_gn]

Control surfaces masked:



And painted aluminium:

[dr_gn]

I bought an Eduard canopy mask set, but as usual it needed cutting up and patching before it fitted:



Still, a bit of time saved.

[Ladders]

Looking good! How do you manage to work on it in such detail, do you use a magnifier to view while working on it?

[dr_gn]

Ladders said:

Looking good! How do you manage to work on it in such detail, do you use a magnifier to view while working on it?

Thanks. To be honest there's not much detail in this one; it was just a bit of an experiment in reducing panel line depth. It remains to be seen what it looks like in the end.

My eyesight is deteriorating, so I have to use magnifying lenses for close work these days, whether its plastic models or model engineering.

[V1nce Fox]

This is so weird, i’ve been bought one of these as a first model kit so will be watching with interest.

Although all i’ve done so far is stick it together and prime it, it’s nice to get ideas.

[dr_gn]

Undersides masked:



Made a new rod type antenna out of brass; I thought the plastic one was too thick:





Dark Earth on, pre shaded with NATO black:

[dr_gn]

Started on masking for the Dark Green:

[dr_gn]

Masking complete:



Pre-shaded Dark Green:





Masking removed:





Now for a few of the inevitable corrections such as missing some brown on the tailplane, and some minor overspray.

I think all the demarcations are in about the right places, but I’m not pretending it’s 100% accurate. I always tend to think that RAF camo doesn’t look consistent in terms of proportions of brown/green, and how wavy the lines are on one wing vs. the other, but looking at photos it seems to be pretty much the way it often was.