1/72 Airfix Spitfire 1a

[Guest]

Thanks Graham, great link, and a damn fine spit you made there.

[Guest]

Here with the box art and the paint chart. The colours look a bit light to me. Would it be best to use matt or satin varnish at the end?

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[stona]

I'd go with satin. I refer to the following exibits your honour.

Cheers

Steve

[Ian M]

Thats a craking couple of pictures there Steve. Hmmmm I have a plan! (do you have them in a better res?).

Looks like Airfix are getting back into the game. lets face it if a British modle company cant turn out a good Spitfire, Well whats the world comming to!!!

Right chaps chocks away I'm off to look at Grahams Mk IX.

Ian M

[stona]

That's all I have of those two. I do have one more showing an accumulator trolley and ammo boxes from the same series which were taken for Life magazine.You may be able to find them in Life's online archive IF you can make sense of their infernal search engine. It's more like a random picture generator!

Here's the one I've got.

Now here's a good picture of a 602 Sqn. Spitfire MkI presumably synchronising it's machine guns. Note the very hard camouflage de-marcation,yes,it's those mats again. Also the early black and white underside including (I think) the inside of the gear door and wheel hub. It is equiped with a DeHavilland three bladed propeller (with CSU),blown canopy, external armoured windshhield and "new" style aerial mast. We can't be sure of the date,the Sky underside was introduced from June 1940 but we know that due to a lack of the new paint front line aircraft were allowed to continue wearing the older scheme until stocks became available.

I still think this is pre-BoB,early 1940.

Whose going to build this then? LOL

A very nice project for someone

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

What cracking pictures to generate a bit of enthusiasm for a Spitfire build! There's a great diorama in each shot!

[Guest]

Hi, back again, I have started to build only to find that over the years my fingers seem to have gotten rather large and clumsy. I built the cockpit detail which consisted of a rear frame to hang the seat on, a floor with the rudder pedals and a front frame with the instrument panel/gunsight I painted it up and then forgot to take a photo before I enclosed it in the fuselage. I found the fuselage sides to be slightly different sizes so have a bit of filing to do also some of the locating pins were slightly out of sync so had to chop them off. added the wings and tail next. The lower wing/fuselage almost fitted just a couple of small gaps to fill in but the upper wing panels were a bit out, again the locating pins were just out of sync and the starboard wing has a rather unsightly gap at the root also both wing root trailing edges are a bit out. To make up for that the tailplane and rudder fitted perfectly. Have taken a few more photos some of which are nearly in focus.

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[tr1ckey66]

Hi Bar

Great progress so far .It's frustrating that the kit has some fit issues, but you seem to be coping with them well. Bet you're looking forward to getting some camouflage on the bird now, eh?

Keep the pics coming.

All the best

Paul

[Guest]

HI, back again, after a lot of cursing, fumbling and realising that I have bunches of shaky bananas for fingers I have finally got a couple of coats of paint on it. I thought I would try klear instead of varnish and having researched it came up with this website The Complete Future which gave me the current name for it in this country. I found it in Asda and you get a nice big bottle for £3.75. It seems to work as its supposed to. The last couple of images are the ones with it applied. I found my hands to be quite shaky doing the small items and had to resort to supporting the brush hand against the item holding hand and as both were trembling in unision sort of got a steady line. I also found that normal masking tape allowed a slight seepage in places so have a bit of touching up to do. For what seemed to be a nice set of mouldings the fit of some pieces leave a lot to be desired. It took me ages to get the cockpit glass to fit as it was too long and I had to file it down and it was way out with gaps all along the front third. Its not very good and has gaps especially at the back where the filing was a bit energetic. Anyway next are the decals and as I can hardly see most of them it should prove to be interesting

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[Guest]

That is looking very nice Bari, It is a small kit and I am sure you are a tad apprehensive at building it and showing it off in public but trust me, you are doing a great job.

[Guest]

Thumbs up to anyone who can build at 1/72, top job.

[stona]

I agree ,I struggle with these tiddlers. I think you're making a good fist of this one,it looks a good clean build and that camouflage is top notch.

Cheers

Steve

[colin m]

The Spit' is looking really good Barri. Not at all like my first attempt upon returning to the world of models (which no one has ever seen !!)

Colin M......

[Guest]

looks good Bari, watching this closely as i'm going to be starting my 1/72 spit for the november non gb, never built a plane before but your build is giving me something to aim for.

Cheers

Darren

[Guest]

Finished at last, well I though I was but having taken a few photos and looked at them in the zoom mode I can see all the bits I've missed. In hindsight I should have taped the fuselage sides together and dry fitted the canopy and not leave it until almost the end. The canopy was narrower than the fuselage and didn't really sit right. Also one of the decals on the port wing seems to have shifted in the night and we have a slight kink in it. still on with the next one which is the mk1 Hurricane.

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