1/48 Spitfire Mk V 401 Sqdn - Home Country Modern Aircraft/Spitfire Marks GB

[Crimea_River]

Username: Crimea River
First name: Andy
Category: Judge – Non competing
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Tamiya
Model Type: Spitfire Mk Vb
Aftermarket addons: This will be an OOB Build. You heard right - (an OOB build! The only aftermarket bits will be Eduard seat belts and Watermark decals scammed from Wayne (Thanks mate!)

The aircraft I will depict is a clipped wing Spitfire V coded YO-A flown by F/O Jack Sheppard. As you can see, it had a rather racy bit of nose art. Pics below are sourced from "Spitfire - The Canadians" by Robert Bracken. This should be a quick build that will be worked on as I wait for the finish of my Mk VIII to set between coats.

Note that the aircraft also had a non standard camo pattern ahead of the cockpit.

 

[Crimea_River]

Made some quick progress already on this one. I had picked up this model for 15 bucks at the model show on June 2 and I started to paint the parts on the sprues if and when I had left over paint in the cup from my Mk VIII build. The first two pics below show that I had some cockpit green left over and a bit of black.

The inner surfaces of the upper wing halves have been painted black where visible through the ejector chutes.

And here's the progress as of the end of today. The wings went together beautifully and the fit of the clipped wing tips and cannon roots was superb.

 

[brucejscott]

Nice Andy! I have thought about picking up a Tamiya Mk. V, your build should tip me over the edge and make up my mind.

 

[Wayne Little]

What's this scammed business!

 

[rochie]

nice Andy, here's the man himself
from Osprey's 126 wing RCAF

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Karl, I have that book too but missed this picture. Thanks for posting.

 

[woody]

Nice start Andy.

 

[A4K]

Yep, sure is!

 

[Catch22]

Cool!

 

[Airframes]

Missed this one! Good stuff Andy, and it's a nice kit to build - think I'll get myself another one sometime, for a Polish clipped Spit.

 

[ozhawk40]

Great kit Andy and a fine subject. Looking forward to it. 8)

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Like Terry, this one almost passed me by. Nice one Andy, like the artwork.

 

[Crimea_River]

Well, the price was right. I'd still like to do Northcott's rig too and Wayne's sending me those decals as well so some day you may see me tackle that one. In the meantime, I'll plug away on this one but not tonight - Marguerita's going down too well.

 

[Wurger]

 

[meatloaf109]

Am I wrong in thinking the ICM offering is a direct copy of this kit?

 

[Crimea_River]

Some of the ICM parts are remarkably similar, if not identical, to their Tamiya counterparts especially in the cockpit and radiators. The nose area is completely different though.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very nice choice Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks David.

Some progress on the cockpit today. In the two pics below, I have so far managed to resist adding wires and such but did end up adding hand drawn placards on the left and right cockpit walls. The basic cockpit green was first enhanced along the structural framing with a slightly darkened version of the base coat. Following that, a lightened version of cockpit green was dry-brushed over the frames to make them stand out. After this was done the various details were picked out with black, white and red paint as well as a fine .5mm permanent ink black felt pen fro the placards and wiring.

Here's the instrument panel with instrument picked out in white and the bezels on the right in yellow, red, and green. Future has been dabbed on but another application tomorrow may be needed.

Here's the seat and rear bulkhead. The bulkhead was highlighted in a similar fashion to the cockpit walls and "bashed up" with a plain pencil to simulate chipping of the paint on the steel.

In local contests, OOB usually allows aftermarket seat belts to be added so these will go in before long. Thanks everyone for your interest.

 

[fubar57]

Looks great Andy. What's your paint mix for the seats? I used Tamiya Red Brown with a bit of orange in it but not quite right.

Geo

 

[Crimea_River]

I use some old bottles of Testors flat red and brown mixed together. Don't know the ratio. I just mix it til it looks right.