Eduard 1/72 Spitfire IXc

[stillp]

Does anyone know what this little piece of PE in front of the starboard radiator is? Bit of a pig to glue in place, but at least I didn't knock it off!
[ATTACH]315417[/ATTACH]
PE radiator and oil cooler grilles are now fitted, and the radiator cowlings are on.
[ATTACH]315418[/ATTACH]

Thanks for watching.
Pete

[JR]

Pete
Can't help with the bit , but can say its looking good. Did you bring out the even bigger clamp !
John.

[stillp]

Not needed John, just the clothes peg!

Pete

[stillp]

I need some advice from you experienced chaps - how to go about masking for the invasion stripes? My home-brewed 1/4" tape won't conform to the taper of the fuselage, and neither will 6mm Tamiya tape. Has anyone done a tutorial?

Pete

[Wouter]

Nice Spitfire coming together here mate. That fit of the wings is nasty though :O Well resolved. Sadly can't help you on the invasion stripes matter.

Cheers

[Steve Jones]

Really enjoying watching this Spit come together. Great stuff

[stillp]

Something a bit wrong with the painting guide in the instructions. From a few youtube videos, the way to start the stripes is to tape off the edges of the stripes, paint the whole area between white, then mask the white stripes and paint the black. So I masked the outer edges of the striped areas - then measured the distance between those edges, should be 1 1/4" for 5 x 18" stripes in 1/72 scale. If I do that though, the edge of the white stripe nearest the fuselage will be too far onto the wing fillet. If I move the outer edge further out, there won't be enough room for the upper wing roundels.
Odd, I'm not sure what's gone wrong. Not too worried though - there's a simple fix, just use the 6mm Tamiya tape so I only need 30mm for the 5 stripes.

I hate masking.:disappointed2:

Pete

[rtfoe]

I need some advice from you experienced chaps - how to go about masking for the invasion stripes? My home-brewed 1/4" tape won't conform to the taper of the fuselage, and neither will 6mm Tamiya tape. Has anyone done a tutorial?

Pete

Hi Peter, I use a pencil and mark the measurements along the side of the fuselage. To get the tape to conform I cut thin strips of about 2mm from Tamiya tape after laying it on a glass sheet. The thinner tape is easier to control and will be the outer edges for the masking. I then mask in the center portion with portions of the remaining tape. To get the stripes to look at right angles to the straight level of the fuselage, I would either eyeball it or seek the help of a ruler placed at the back, lining it up and marking the top and bottom of the fuselage with the center measurement. I know this sounds confusing but it works for me.

Cheers,
Richard

[stillp]

Thanks Richard!

Pete

[stillp]

Plodding on, I masked the outer edges of the stripy bits, and sprayed white, then masked the stripes that will stay white:[ATTACH]316514[/ATTACH]
Another quick whiff of white to seal the masking, then some Vallejo black:
[ATTACH]316519[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]316520[/ATTACH]
We'll see how that turned out when I'm feeling brave enough to take the tape off!
The Eduard scheme seems to demand 6mm stripes rather than the 1/4" that would be correct for 18" stripes in 1/72. I'm not sure why, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
I had to use some Tamiya tape for curves to get a straight line on the tail boom, due to the taper, and on the wing roots, where I also tried some tape from Barwell, but that doesn't seem to stick as well as the Tamiya.
Plan is to mask over the stripes in a day or two, then start on the camo, using the Hataka BoB set I was given a while ago. I guess I'll also need to spray a white circle for the roundels on the tail - if I don't, will the stripes show through the decals? Anyone know?

Thanks for watching.

Pete

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good Pete
I always think finishing aircraft is more an exercise in masking rather than an exercise in painting.....I only ever use Tamiya tape these days. It is reliable and works well. Other tapes either grab and won’t let go, or fall off half way through spraying...

[stillp]

Thanks Tim. I must admit that masking is not my favourite aspect of modelling, I like gluing parts together.

Pete

[Tim Marlow]

I know what you mean.....
I’m building a Tamiya motorbike at the moment. It took some getting used to....usually (within limits) you build then paint.....with bikes you paint then build....sorta feels weird..no progress for ages then it moves on really quickly....

[Guest]

Thanks Joe. 18" scales to 1/4 inch, or 6.35 mm. I guess no-one will notice if I use 6 mm tape!

Actually, they will. I made that mistake on my first aircraft painted like that, and if you use 6 mm tape, like Tamiya sells, the other edge of the set of stripes will be noticeably too far in- or outboard. 0.35 mm doesn’t seem like much, but don’t forget it’s actually five times that, so you end up over 1.5 mm out, and that’s a fair amount on a 1/72 scale model.

Also, if you’re building a model representing one used on or right after D-Day, you may want to hand-paint the stripes instead of masking them.

[stillp]

That's my point Jakko, if I use 1/4" tape then there isn't enough room to replicate the Eduard scheme. I'm not sure why, since it doesn't look far out when compared to photos, and I'm not too bothered.
The scheme I'm using is apparently correct for 7 June '44, but I'm sure the RAF had masking tape! I'd agree there are some images of hand-painted and rather ragged stripes, but there are also some that look near perfect, and the errors will of course be reduced by a factor of 72.

Pete