Airfix 1:72 Spitfire Mk.I

[dr_gn]

Halmyre said:

dr_gn said:

sharkfan said:

AlfaCool said:

Top notch once again Doc.
I cant help but feel you are beating yourself up a bit.
I know its hard with your high standards and keen eye for mistakes to make every build a nightmare.
But lets not forget modelling is supposed to be fun and relaxing.

Definitely this. Your models are incredible and the skill involved is of such an amazing standard. All of us are our own worse critics, but please be kind to yourself when you can. At the very least keep building. It would be such a shame if you stopped when so many of us get such enjoyment out of watching you do things we could only dream about!

Thanks very much all. I do enjoy modelling in general, but sometimes it seems like you can’t win. For example, the canopy on the Spitfire was great, all throughout masking, painting, weathering, correcting stuff etc, right until last night when somehow a strip of frosting appeared along one edge. It’s not bad, but where did it come from? Not used anything volatile, but after correcting everything else it just appeared. It’s stuff like that when you think…pffffff.

Next up is to finish the Spitfire 22, then the Viggen, then Vulcan. Then reset and start afresh, hopefully with more motivation.

Not forgetting the Victoria steam engine.

But, no pressure,,,

And the paper Bismarck and the macros robot and the MP4/6…

[dr_gn]

johnymac said:

I haven't built a kit since probably the early 70's, but I am totally amazed at the amount of thought and work that people like you put into these tiny models.
I am sure to your eyes this Spitfire is riddled with faults, but to me, it is nothing but utterly amazing, and I could spend days going through these sorts of thread.

As others have said, well done.

I really appreciate your comments. Yes, my eyes are drawn to where the errors were (and still are, but corrected to the best I can do), but I think once the last bit is done (the direct vision panel on the canopy), it’s got the potential to be one of my favourite models. I’ll take some finished pictures and post them - a decent camera can be a very harsh critic of models, so we will see how it looks then.

[dr_gn]

Super Sonic said:

That looks great, top work, you have a lot more patience than me. I like to build models but my standards are not as high as yours. The last one was Revells 1/76 warrior ifv but the paint is rough so no photos!

Thanks! I’ve been through many phases of modelling spanning as many different standards I thought of as being acceptable at the time. I’ve enjoyed all of them, it’s just that the enjoyment part has moved more towards the completion phase than the actual building phase. Strangely, the overall satisfaction of the whole process is about the same. Of course it varies from model to model. So long as you enjoy it, you’re doing a good job. I would like to get better at weathering - the true masters of model building do it to perfection, but I’m too scared to go too far. I suppose if I ever do master it, I might look back and wonder how I could be satisfied with my current efforts. Even so, it can’t take the enjoyment of having completed them away.

[dr_gn]

Yertis said:

yellowjack said:

Have you ever seen a real Warrior IFV up close? Believe me, the paint is often VERY rough. Sure, they are spray painted in a factory paint booth when new, or when they come out of a Base Overhaul or deep repair. But after that they're abused, bashed, get filthy, are washed down by crews who often do the minimum required to get back into barracks and knock off. Then someone in platoon management decides the vehicles need a "spruce up" so a tin of NATO black and a couple of tins of NATO green, and a handful of manky paintbrushes, are issued, and new paint is brush applied by young soldiers with no DIY experience, often over dirt and grease. Whenever that vehicle next trundles out onto Salisbury Plain (other training areas are available) the abuse begins again, the weather, the terrain, and the crew conspire to bash "the truck" about and that thickly applied coat of paint begins to flake off. That's if the crew were "lucky" enough to fully paint their vehicles. Mostly, for budgetary and/or environmental awareness reasons, modern military vehicles can only be "patch painted" in unit lines. So fresh paint is only applied to areas of damage and/or repair. That leaves vehicles with very patchy finishes with multiple shades of green in various stages of fade. So your Warrior kit's finish is probably closer to reality than you realise...

I get why the tanks at Bovington get spruced up, but the best ones (IMO) are those still in their original tatty paint. When I used to go in the '60s and '70s they were all equally original and the better for it. In those days you could clamber all over them too (unless chased off by the curators).

There’s a fine line (literally in the case of hand applied D-Day stripes) between calling something realistic and it just looking like a poor modelling paint job. It’s especially true at small scales.

[dr_gn]

yellowjack said:

dr_gn said:

There’s a fine line (literally in the case of hand applied D-Day stripes) between calling something realistic and it just looking like a poor modelling paint job. It’s especially true at small scales.

It was my uncle who first pointed this out to me. He had a lot of aviation books, especially WW2 photos of aircraft. He was a pretty good modeller too, not in your league but he got good results. I did a bit of model making, but lacked the skill and patience to do much more than a "by the numbers" straight out of the box job. But Uncle Lloyd would show me the process for finishing and weathering, and then show me the source photos in the books, and explain that it was very difficult to get the "flaws" on the real machine looking right at scale, and that in small scale models especially (he preferred 1:76 and 1:72 scale) the straight/masked lines generally looked "more right" than any of his attempts at "correct" had. Accurately replicating the flaws delivered by a 3" paintbrush at scale must be nigh on impossible.

I'd agree. A 3" brush at 1:76 is only 1 mm wide.

I'm not saying it's impossible, many top AFV and aircraft modellers achieve it, and the results are amazing, but I'd say they are the masters of that particular art.

[dr_gn]

So this weekend I got this one finished - just added a replacement clear vision panel to the canopy. I ended up sticking it in place with Klear.

Supermarine Spitfire Mk.1
No.19 (F) Squadron
RAF Duxford, 1938

Additional details included:

All panel lines filled with Surfacer and partially re-scribed
Eduard seat harness
Brass ring and bead sight
Brass tube gun barrels
Brass tube u/c indicators
Brass tube rod aerial
Acetate canopy clear vision panel
Heated sprue fuselage lamp cover
Scrap brass fuel filler cap
Drilled exhausts
EzLine aerial
PVA navigation lights
Lead wire brake lines

Edited by dr_gn on Monday 29th January 21:19

[dr_gn]

Mark V GTD said:

That’s very nice! Great job and you managed to get the correct dull wartime roundel colours and the hard edged (rubber mat masked) camou spot on :-)

Thanks. Decals are as they came in the kit mostly. I used a "360 degree cutter" I got from Telford for the camo. It's masked with tape - I only rarely use blu-tack for soft edges for 1:72 camo.

[dr_gn]

CanAm said:

Beautiful work as always. I'm guessing you're too young to have built the very first Airfix MkI, with the retracted U/C moulded into the wings AND stuck on when lowered, plus the pilot's head and shoulders moulded into the fuselage halves. You'd have had a field day with one of those.

Thanks! No, the BT-K Airfix Spitfire was before my time, but I’ve seen them at shows. They re-released it for a limited time a few years back. I think if ever built one it wouldn’t be worth trying to improve it, after all it’s meant to be a nostalgia thing I guess.

[dr_gn]

Mark V GTD said:

What are the small markings on top of the tailplane?

“DO NOT LIFT UNDER HERE”

[dr_gn]

Mark V GTD said:

Hmm OK - never seen that on a Spitfire before (of any mark)! P-51 and P-47 yes.

Might have got mixed up with the instructions. TBF you won’t find an image of WZ-T with two upper wing roundels (just looked wrong to me), or a Spitfire with a mis-placed starter socket stencil (or the whole other list of stuff that’s not quite right with it), but…then again you might! Can’t say I’m too fussed

[dr_gn]

Mark V GTD said:

Sorry I came across a bit negative there. My company produces stencil sets so I tend to focus on them a bit! It’s a lovely little model regardless of any minor discussion points.

Not at all - it's strange but some trivial details on models I don't really care about, yet others I'll go to extreme lengths to get them as I want. I don't even know why I'm like that. TBH on this one, as with the F. Mk.22, I just wanted to get it off the bench.

I did check the instructions, and sure enough they are there on the tailplanes. Wouldn't surprise me if it's wrong:

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/top...

[dr_gn]

Got a Gold medal at the Leeds show today:



Bit of an odd competition though - based on standard of modelling rather than 1st, 2nd or 3rd, so several models of the same standard (in the opinion of IPMS judges) could get the same medals. I kind of understand it, but anyway, nice to get one.

[dr_gn]

jeremyc said:

Congratulations! Were you personally happier with the Swordfish or the Spitfire?

Thanks!

The Swordfish was infinitely more complicated, but the Spitfire has a certain nice simplicity. I’m not sure what to make of it…it was a bit of a strange competition.