Airfix's Spitfire FR Mk XIV Mojo Builder (1 Viewer)

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Thanks everyone. I tried gluing the prop to the shaft to allow it to spin but there was too much slop in the pin and so it looked ridiculous. Out came the saw and the CA glue. No more spinning prop. Pics later.
 
Nice work Andy. I have this kit on my wish list and am watching your build very carefully. The only thing that holds me back from buying this kit right now is that its a bubble top - I much prefer the high back XIV. Maybe Airfix will surprise us all with a release at some later stage (not gonna hold my breath...).
 
Prop on and exhaust stubs in. The latter parts were such a tight fit that no glue was needed. In fact, there came a point during the dry fit where there was a distinct possibility of breaking the parts by either continuing to push them in or removing them. Fortunately they survived.



A "before" pic of the canopy with the sliding hood loosely installed.



And here's one after the frames were repainted freehand with a fine mascara brush. The sliding hood has also been secured with CA after parts of it and the fuselage were removed to help it to sit flush. Even so, I had to press it down firmly.



And now for the bad news. The sliding hood was dipped in Future but I neglected to do the same with the windscreen. Well, the known risk of fogging became reality.......



Looks like I'll be prying the windscreen off to fix this. Some day.....
 
Managed to pop off the windscreen as it was only attached with PVA and 3 tiny dots of CA at the junction with the sliding hood, which allowed me to get a thin saw in there.



The hazing wasn't as bad as it looked and I was able to rub it away with a toothpick cut to a chisel shape. This is how it looked before the cleaning.



The windscreen has now been cleaned, washed in dish soap, and dipped in Future and we'll take a look when it's dry.
 
Thanks gentlemen.

Well, this build started out as a way to regain my mojo after a bit of a building slump. It ended up as a bit of a mojo damper actually as I got a bit tired of it. Nonetheless, I will call it done. The final steps were to reattach the fogged windscreen, repaint the frames, reattach the IFF aerial that I broke off, add the VHF whip aerial, flatten the tires, and do a little touch up. Having viewed the finished pics, I realized that I scratched the black paint off the port tire which will be an easy fix - some day.

The model was intended to be an OOB build which, for me, is pretty rare. I certainly didn't go to town adding detail but there were a few things that bothered me that I had to correct. A summary of the changes to the base Airfix kit are:

1. Discarded the wrong gun sight and scratch built a more appropriate gyro sight.
2. Drilled out the lightening holes in frame 11
3. Added shoulder harness support bar and seatbelts
4. Filled in the narrow collars on the cannon fairings
5. Gun camera port drilled out.
6. Spinner fasteners drilled out.
7. Fishtail exhausts were not used but rather the round ones were installed based on photo evidence.
8. Added IFF spike antenna with scribed panel and also VHF whip aerial.

From a paint scheme standpoint, I deviated from the Airfix instructions as follows:

1. Spinner was painted red, not yellow, based on my interpretation of photos of the actual aircraft
2. The canopy frames are only silver/bare metal on the lower frames so the upper framing was painted Dark Green
3. The 5 "Locked/Unlocked" decals for the spinner were not used.

And so with that, the final pics. Thanks to all who followed and those who provided info or support.

 

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