Arguably one of the most
aesthetically pleasing aircraft designs of all time, the
Spitfire really needs no introduction or historical description
in these pages. I think even my cats have heard of Reginald
Mitchell's finest!
I've waited a long time
for a good mainstream kit in the manly scale of the Spitfire
Mk. IX, my favourite mark of one of my favourite aircraft
and in my favourite scale. Compared to the plethora of
kits of its main adversaries, the Bf109 and the Fw190,
the Mk. IX has been relatively underrepresented in 1/72
scale. Of the kits available over the years, the more
recent Hasegawa kit was the best of a bad bunch, though
it still had some pretty significant outline errors; a
rear fuselage too slender in plan and side view, shallow
radiators and exaggerated oval wheel wells. While there
have been decent, but expensive, limited run and resin
kits, we still didn't have a good mainstream Spit IX kit
- until the release of Airfix's new tool in 2009. By no
means perfect, offering no more detail than Hasegawa and
nowhere near as much as Airfix's newer kits, the shape
is much better and it is, in my opinion, the best 1/72
Spitfire Mk. IX available from a major manufacturer to
date.
Out of the box the kit
represents a mid to late production Mk. IXc. There are
no optional parts included other than early or late style
carburettor intakes. Moulding quality is generally very
good, though the panel lines may be a bit deep for some
tastes.
Now at this point I must
make a confession: I suffer from chronic AMS (Advanced
Modeller Syndrome). Normally I can keep this under control
with just enough extra detail to keep the monster at bay.
In this case, due to the subject matter, I happily let
my guard down and allowed the monster to run amuck. After
all, if scientists can build nanomachines from single
molecules, how hard could it be to super detail a miniature
Spitfire cockpit…?!
For this build I had three
main criteria: 1) I didn’t want to do Johnny Johnson’s
aircraft. I certainly have nothing against him, but Spitfire
models with ”JE J” on the side have become
almost as ubiquitous as that red triplane has from the
previous world war. 2) I didn’t want to model a
Spit in invasion stripes as I felt that they too were
becoming a bit of a cliché. 3) I wanted to model
an RCAF aircraft, or an aircraft flown by a Canadian pilot.
Having spent most of my life in Canada before moving to
the UK in 1997, it is perhaps no surprise that my main
interest lies in aircraft and pilots hailing from the
Great White North. There are many Canadian Spitfire pilots
to choose from, and having in my possession an IPMS Canada
decal sheet that included two of Buzz Beurling’s
Mk. IXs, the decision was soon made.
Construction
As with any project involving
extra detail, research is paramount, both before and during
construction. Fortunately the Spitfire Mk. IX is rather
better served in the reference section than it has been
by the kit manufacturers, though I only had one fairly
poor photograph of the aircraft in question to go by which
was found in Spitfire the Canadians, by Robert Bracken.
A certain amount of conjecture was necessary regarding
such things as the style of the gun blisters and armament
fit as it just wasn’t clear from the picture.
Cockpit detail as supplied in the kit is pretty much non-existent;
a seat that looks like it came out of a miniature fast
food restaurant, an attempt at the armour plate and a
decidedly non-standard floor is all there is, therefore
everything had to be made from scratch or whatever aftermarket
parts I could get my hands on. Construction began by thinning
down the cockpit sides as much as I dared using a grinding
bit in my Dremel and finishing off with wet sanding. The
cockpit door was cut out so it could be replaced later
with a photo etched item.
Once I was happy with the
cockpit sides, the frames and longerons were added from
.010” x .010” and .010” x .020”
plastic strip. A generic etched Spitfire cockpit set from
Fotocut was used for items such as the seat, instrument
panel, armour plate, throttle and some of the framework.
This set was not designed for any specific kit so the
frames required a bit of fettling to get them to fit but
it was well worth the effort. All etched parts were primed
with Gunze Mr. Metal Primer, a thin and fast drying clear
coating that can be brushed on and greatly improves the
adhesion of paint on metal parts. Additional frames were
cut from .020” plasticard with lightening holes
drilled in.
The control surfaces were
removed so they could be reworked and then reinstated
later in something other than a neutral position. This
also involved thinning and hollowing out their positions
on the wings, stabilisers and vertical fin to allow the
control surfaces to be inset as they should be.
Other sundry bits of cockpit
furniture such as the compass, fuse panel, gun camera
control, r/t equipment, windscreen de-icer tank and pump,
emergency landing gear bottle, primer pump, voltage regulator,
and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) detonator were
made with plastic sheet, rod and tube and detailed with
various gauges of wire. The pilot’s oxygen bottle
was fabricated from the head of a rocket from a Frog Sea
Fury and the two air tanks behind the seat were from thick
plastic rod with the ends rounded off. The spade grip
is .020” brass rod formed into a ring with the lower
section from the etched set, laminated to .015”
plastic sheet and detailed with thin wire for the brake
and gun trigger cables. Rudder pedal guides are stainless
steel tubing and control cables are fine wire.
The basic interior colour
is from my rapidly dwindling supply of Polly Scale British
Cockpit Green with various bits and pieces picked out
in black, aluminium and red as appropriate. Instrument
decals from Reheat were utilised for the instrument panel
and compass and the same company’s placard decals
were used in several places.
The photo etched seat was
further detailed with aluminium foil seat belts with Reheat
p/e buckles and an adjustment lever from .015” plastic
rod. The ratchet mechanism for the latter was made from
a quarter section of a watch gear which was gently bent
inside out so the teeth were on the inside. This was extremely
effective, or would have been if it wasn’t completely
invisible on the completed model!
The seat back was coated
with Gunze’s “Mr Dissolved Putty” (I
do love their product names!) which has a tendency to
skin up very quickly yet still remains soft and pliable
for quite a while. After allowing it to set for a couple
of minutes, the edge of a hobby knife was gently pressed
into the putty to simulate the cushion creases. Once completely
cured and painted a dark leather colour the effect was
very convincing. The seat belts were done in Humbrol Khaki
and the seat itself was painted tan and then oversprayed
with a thin coat of darker brown to simulate the composite
material.
With all the bits and pieces in place the cockpit was
taking on a decidedly cluttered – not to mention
fragile – appearance. When I felt I had crammed
in as much detail as it was practical to do, the fuselage
halves were finally put together. Some of the details
such as the pipework coming from the landing gear / flap
control unit and some wiring were routed through the cockpit
frames, therefore these had to be carefully fitted in
from the bottom after the fuselage halves were joined.
The Spitfire of course has no cockpit floor as such. A
Mattel Vacformer was used to produce the fuselage bottom
in .020” plasticard using a Hellcat drop tank half
found in Ye Olde Spares Box as a mould. Both the cockpit
bottom moulding and the inside of the bottom wing half
had to be drastically thinned to get the wing to fit,
in fact the wing is so thin that the white plastic of
the cockpit bottom was clearly visible through it.
There are two gaping holes for wheel wells so these need
to be boxed in and some detail added. Fortunately the
Spitfire has very simple wheel wells so this was a refreshingly
easy job using .020” sheet. The large sockets moulded
to the upper wing halves to locate the gear legs were
removed and smaller holes drilled into the top wing halves
to accept brass rod glued into the top of the gear legs.
The ribs in each well were added from strips cut from
.005” sheet and then the wings were assembled and
fitted to the fuselage.
Fit of the major components was quite good, though some
gaps occurred around the wing roots and the wingtips on
the bottom. These were filled with Milliput, other minor
gaps taken care of with one or two heavy coats of Mr.
Surfacer.
There are some inaccurate panel lines and inspection panels
and some that are missing entirely which I dealt with
at this stage. Scribing is my most despised operation
in modelling therefore I kept this to a minimum. It doesn’t
seem to matter how careful I am, how many light passes
I make or what kind of scriber I use, at some point the
darn thing will go skittering across the surface leaving
a chaotic panel line where I had no intention of putting
one. My efforts always seem to consist of one part scribing
to ten parts filling, sanding and rescribing.
Fortunately not much was
required in this case. The small circular cover over the
external power socket is present on the rear of both wing
root fillets when there should only be one on the left
side, similarly the D-shaped oil filler access panel is
on both sides of the nose when it should be on the left
side only. There is however a small round panel on the
the right side of the nose, positioned further back than
the oil filler. This is missing from the kit so a template
was made up from .010” sheet and the missing panel
scribed in using a sewing needle chucked in a pin vise,
the redundant oil fller access being filled and sanded
smooth.
I also made up a template for the small panels over the
flap linkages on the wings which pop up when the flaps
are down, these too are absent from the mouldings. I chose
not to drop the flaps as they were rarely, if ever, left
down on parked Spitfires. Pilots could in fact be fined
for leaving them down as they impeded the airflow through
the radiators which compounded the Spitfire’s tendency
to overheat during engine run up and taxying due to the
radiators being outside the propwash.
The filler for the upper fuselage tank was also missing.
Being placed right smack in the middle of a major seam,
I decided not to attempt to scribe this in for fear of
it all going horribly wrong. Instead I drilled a hole
to accept a short length of plastic rod, this being a
snug fit so it wouldn’t drop inside the fuselage
(I forgot about this earlier - obviously I should have
done it before fitting the wings!). The rod was pushed
in until it was flush with the upper fuselage then glued
with a touch of liquid poly.
Once the scribing was out of the way I tackled the control
surfaces. As I mentioned previously, the positions for
the rudder and ailerons had been thinned down in the fin
and wings respectively to allow them to be inset properly.
This was a bit more problematic with regards the elevators
as the stabilisers were single piece mouldings. For these
I used a fine round file to cut a groove in the rear of
the stabilisers where the elevators would fit, followed
by a small round Dremel cutting bit used manually as a
scraper. Hinges were added from scraps of .010”
sheet and sanded to shape once dry. Once I was happy with
the stabilisers they were glued on and minor gaps filled
with Mr. Surfacer, the elevators being added during final
assembly.
Strips of .030” plastic were glued to the leading
edges of the control surfaces which were shaped with files
and sandpaper once dry and small slots were cut for the
hinges. The fairly prominent fairing for the rudder trim
tab actuator is missing, this was added from a bit of
scrap stretched plastic tubing. As always, constant test
fitting is required to ensure the control surfaces fit
in the correct position without excessive gaps. In the
end I somehow managed to get the ailerons to fit without
glue, though of course they were permanently attached
later. It’s very embarrasing having bits spontaneously
dropping off at club meetings.
The radiator housings lacked detail and were incorrectly
shaped. These were reworked and then cast in resin for
use on future Spitfire projects. The radiator faces are
also not deep enough, merely sitting on top of the wing
surface instead of extending up inside the wing as they
should, therefore I scraped and filed inlet and outlet
ramps into the lower wing surfaces and extended the radiator
and oil cooler faces to suit. A hole was drilled in the
starboard radiator inlet ramp for the water spray tube
which would be added from fine wire after the painting
stage.
Navigation lights are represented by vague lumps on the
wingtips so these were built up with a mix of super glue
and talcum powder. Once set, they were sanded to shape
and tiny quarter sections filed out with the edge of a
cutting file. The lights themselves were one of the last
things added at the final stages of the build, these being
represented with tiny blobs of Testors Clear Parts Cement
and painted Gunze Clear Red and Green. The clear teardrop
shaped position light behind the cockpit was from a CMK
set of resin lights.
The 20mm cannons are from the excellent range of turned
brass guns from Polish firm Master. A simple and inexpensive
addition which is a big improvement over those supplied
in the kit.
The Pavla vac form canopy intended specifically for this
kit fit quite well, though some of the frames I felt were
a bit heavy. It was cut apart so that it could be displayed
in the open position and each section dipped in Klear
to give it that sparkling clarity a Spitfire deserves.
Prior to adding the windscreen, a resin British reflector
sight from Quickboost was glued to the top of the instrument
panel. The windscreen and small rear section were then
glued in with cyanoacrylate, the Klear having the added
benefit of protecting the canopy parts from frosting due
to cyano fumes. The canopy parts were masked with Bare
Metal Foil prior to painting the airframe.
The cockpit door was made up from parts in the aforementioned
photo etched set and consists of two very fragile frames
which are laminated together and added to the back. All
of these need carefully bending to match the shape of
the fuselage. I rolled the handle of a hobby knife over
them to gently bend them to the correct curve, annealing
the parts beforehand was unnecessary and in fact the fragile
frames would probably have disappeared in a puff of smoke
had I attempted it. The door locking mechanism is also
included in the photo etched set along with a spare, both
of which I managed to lose amongst the many half completed
projects and associated detritus littering my workbench.
A replacement handle was therefore fashioned from flattened
copper wire with the linkage and springs made from fine
steel wire. The crowbar is from fuse wire with one end
flattened under a knife blade. The cockpit door was temporarily
installed in the closed position with dabs of Humbrol
Maskol used to seal any minor gaps and prevent overspray
entering the cockpit.
Masking of the cockpit opening was done with Tamiya tape.
Any gaps were sealed with Humbrol Maskol.
Painting
Once again I delved into
the Polly Scale vault and pulled out their British Dark
Green and Sea Grey. Despite thoroughly washing my models
in soap and water before painting, Polly Scale has recently
developed a propensity for coming off in chunks when masking
is removed. This I can only put down to the age of the
paint I have, most of which I brought with me from Canada
all those years ago. Having never had an adhesion problem
with enamels, I decided to use Humbrol enamel for the
upper surface Ocean Grey before masking with blue tack
for the dark green. This worked very well, though I still
lost a few small chips of Sea Grey off the bottom when
removing the blue tack. Annoying, but easily repaired
and repainted.
The fuselage band and spinner are Model Master Sky Type
S. Leading edge stripes were masked using thin strips
of Tamiya tape and then sprayed with Model Master Insignia
Yellow. Once all painting and touch ups were complete
a couple of coats of Gunze clear gloss were applied in
preparation for the decals.
Decalling
Most of the decals came
from the IPMS Canada sheet as mentioned previously. This
is an excellent sheet offering schemes for several Canadian
aces flying various aircraft, though there are some errors
on the instruction sheet to be aware of. The upper wing
type B roundels are noted as being 50”, these should
actually be the 56” roundels which are provided.
Based on pictures of other RCAF 412 squadron Spitfires,
I think the rear code letter on the starboard side should
go over top of the serial number and not in front of it
as the instructions state, however as there is no picture
of VZ B from the right that I know of this is only conjecture
on my part.
The decals themselves are nicely printed with good colour
density but were fairly resistant to decal setting solutions
and loathe to settle down into the panel lines. I sliced
each decal along the panel lines, doused them with Daco’s
strong decal setting solution and pressed them down with
a soft cloth to get them to conform. A couple of repetitions
of this process eventually bedded the decals down nicely.
The kill markings were on a small ALPS printed addendum
sheet to replace those on the main sheet which were incorrectly
printed in 1/48th scale. They should be applied at a slight
angle to the centre line, roughly parallel to the upper
wing surface rather than the top of the cowling as the
instructions show them. The code letters were replaced
with some from an Arrow Graphics sheet which looked better
and were also a closer match to the Model Master Sky paint.
Stencils also came from an Arrow Graphics “Spitfire
Scribbles” sheet. After the decals had dried overnight
I gave the model a quick wash to remove any excess adhesive
and solvents. Final finish was Gunze Clear Flat after
most of the weathering had been applied.
Weathering
I'm not a big fan of some
of the current weathering fads. It seems that in recent
years, aircraft modellers have developed a rather unhealthy
obsession with panel lines. Consequently club tables,
magazines and websites are festooned with model aircraft
displaying criss crossing dark lines making them look
more like a 3-dimensional crossword puzzle than a miniature
representation of a full sized aircraft.
To me, panel lines should be a subtle accent to a model,
not the first thing you see from 10 feet away. While it
is true that dirt and oil will collect in panel lines
and make them appear darker, in propeller driven aircraft
at least, this is usually more prominent around engine
cowlings and the underside of the aircraft and is carried
back by the effects of the slipstream. It would not therefore
be appropriate to have the same intensity of panel lines
towards the wingtips and tailplane as it would on the
engine cowlings and forward fuselage, and even at that
the effect is not overtly evident from any great distance,
unless the aircraft is very heavily weathered. Aircraft
just do not consistently weather from wingtip to wingtip
and nose to tail, nor do metal panels conveniently fade
from the inside to the outer edges! While I admit the
effect is quite dramatic, it's not very realistic and
I find restrained weathering far more effective than a
heavy handed approach.
It is for these reasons I don't use any pre-shading techniques,
preferring only to accentuate the panel lines with a medium-dark
grey wash with chalk pastels used for general dirt and
grime. I decided to give Humbrol’s recent line of
washes a go, Blue/Grey in this case, and was very pleased
with the results. I found it still required some thinning
with mineral spirits to wash out the colour a bit and
make it run along the panel lines more easily but it worked
very well and I will definitely use it again for this
purpose.
For the exhaust stains, I airbrushed on a few drops of
a pale grimy grey colour mixed with clear flat which allows
the stain to be built up slowly and gives it a nice translucent
finish. On top of this I used pastels in brown and dark
grey, ensuring that the stains curve downward as they
tend to do on the real aircraft. Quickboost exhausts were
used, these were finished in Testors Metalizer Burnt Metal
and dry brushed with rust, brown and black. A thin wash
of semi-gloss black with a touch of brown in it was brushed
on for the characteristic oil stains on the underside.
Paint chips were done with Testors Metalizer Aluminum
applied with a 00000 brush.
Final Details
Airfix’s landing
gear was not one of the highlights of the kit as the gear
legs and covers are moulded as a single part, I therefore
robbed some from an Academy Mk.XIV along with the wheels.
The legs had to be lengthened slightly with plastic tubing
to make up for the large sockets I had earlier removed
from the wings. The landing gear covers came from another
Fotocut set which had various styles of Spitfire covers
and wheel hubs on as well as the tiny uplock rings to
go on the upper part of the legs. Brake lines are from
fine lead wire painted black. Wheels were painted black
with a touch of light grey in (off-black, if you like)
with the hubs in aluminium. Tiny lengths of brass wire
simulates the valves.
Resin prop blades and spinner from Quickboost were on
hand but when I came to use them I thought the exaggerated
groove in the spinner spoiled the otherwise fine casting
and the prop blades were warped and lacked an airfoil
shape. Both of these went back in the packet after I had
another look at the kit items and decided they weren’t
too bad after all, though I did use the very handy Quickboost
jig with a bit of modification to suit the Airfix prop.
The kit prop blades were excessively rounded on both sides
and the tips were a bit too pointy. The blades were cut
from the rudimentary hub and then reshaped by scraping
with a hobby knife, finishing off with fine sandpaper
until the backs were more or less flat and the fronts
were an airfoil shape as they should be. The tips were
reshaped then painted Insignia Yellow with the blades
in semi-gloss black. The brass leading edge strips were
carefully hand painted with Gunze Mr. Metal Colour Brass
and stencils from Airfix’s Mk. 22 Spitfire kit were
applied to the spinner. The prop was then attached with
super glue.
The sliding canopy was glued on after adding the handle
and miniscule etched latching mechanism from the Fotocut
set. The final additions were the pitot tube, rear view
mirror and the landing gear indicators that protrude through
the upper wing when the gear is down, these are from fine
wire painted red.
I’ve never had much interest in counting the hours
or number of parts invested in a project, suffice to say
there are a lot of both in this! Despite all the work
I stand by my initial opinion of Airfix’s Mk. IX
as the best mainstream kit of this subject in 1/72 scale
and I’m sure it would look every bit a late Merlin
powered Spitfire even if built straight out of the box.
The time and effort I spent on this is far in excess of
what I had originally intended and it may be a long time
before I again go to such lengths on a model, but in the
end I’m pleased with the outcome. More importantly,
I think I’ve discovered a cure, or at least a control
for AMS – let it have its way now and then!
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