**** DONE: 1/48 ICM Spitfire Mk IX AE-B Ian Keltie of 402 SQDN RCAF Commonwealth GB

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Coat of Future just applied so I can decal in a couple of days.

 

[Airframes]

Nice job Andy, it looks spot on for Mixed Grey. The various discussions and theories in magazines over the last couple of years is slightly puzzling, as the colour is documented, as I mentioned before, as being a mix of Medium Sea Grey, plus 30% Night (black), and had nothing to do with a so-called 'High Altitude' colour scheme - it was due mainly to a temporary shortage of ready-mixed Ocean Grey, previously Dark Sea Grey.
Shame about the Iwata misbehaving, but then, no disrespect to what is considered to be a great range of airbrushes, they are relatively 'new boys', especially compared to Paasche, who've been going for donkey's years.

 

[Wayne Little]

Well Andy as a preferred freehand painter...I gotta say you've done a fine job mate, well done.

The key to the touch ups is to use the lighter camo colour, in this case the grey, WELL thinned and start out away from the edge of the green and carefully work your way in toward the green, and I mean carefully!

 

[rochie]

fantastic job Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks everyone. Wayne, I especially appreciate the tip. That's exactly what I did with the touch-up and it came out OK.

Everything is looking a lot more even now with the coat of Future on. I'll let it cure for another day before tackling the decals.

 

[Crimea_River]

OK here's a question. Anyone know what these markings around the holes on the spinner are for? How about the colours. I've examined a few close-ups, unfortunately all B&W, and the front strips seem a different shade than the back ones. Maybe red and black? All black?

Oh, and BTW Terry, I have a set of stencils on the Aeromaster sheet so I won't be needing the file you made. Thanks anyway.

 

[Airframes]

They're the latch alignment markings, for the studs holding the spinner in place. The dark 'spot' is the access hole for the stud itself, and the other two lines are the wording. They look different colours due to the shape of the letters going out of focus, but both were black, and read 'Locked' and 'Unlocked', IIRC. I'd need to check on the exact wording, but whatever it was, there's no way you'll be able to reproduce it in 1/48th scale! Broken black lines, or dots, would suffice.

 

[Crimea_River]

Terry, that sounds absolutely logical. However, I also have this pic (crop of a photo of Norm Chevers of 132 Sqdn from "Spitfire II The Canadians"). Definitely look like coloured bars to me as opposed to words but I'm sure you're right about their function. On this one, the lighter coloured bar appears to be at the back.

 

[Airframes]

I see what you mean, but if you look very closely, especially at the set immediately above the prop blade, you'll see there is lettering there. This was printed/stencilled onto the 'bar', which in this case is probably red, with black lettering, and was one of the alternative forms of presentation.
There were different forms of presentation, sometimes with the wording on 'bars' as in the pic, and more often, just the words. Much later, and seen on many airworthy Spits today, these bars/words wee replaced by a horizontal line and a vertical line, sort of I O -, which served the same purpose, one indicating the open position, the other closed, or locked, for the position of the locking stud.
I've got a close-up pic of the original style somewhere, hidden in my library, and one on a transparency from the work I did with the BBMF, but I think in the SAM Data File, and in the other colour book I sent, there's some shots showing the current form, as just described. It'll take ages to find the pic mentioned, as it could be in any one of around 25 or more books, but I can photograph the spinner of my 1/32nd scale MkXIV if it'll help, as the decals were included on the sheet for the Revell Mk22 I used as a donor kit.

 

[Crimea_River]

Hey, not a problem Terry. I'm sure you're right that there are different styles but it's not worth the trouble of hunting all this down since, as you've pointed out before, nothing will really be discernable anyway at 1/48 scale except for maybe the "IO" style, which this rig clearly did not have from the pic in post 1. I'm going to cut some very small decals for these and make them bars, maybe making the back ones a dark red and the front black.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

This is looking really sharp CR! Excellent work sir!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Aaron.

 

[Airframes]

No probs Andy. In 1/48th scale, I normally just paint the two lines, with a 'spot' in the middle, if the particular subject had the marks. They were often painted over if the spinner was re-painted, for instance, going from Fighter Command to 2 TAF, with a change from Sky to Black spinners, and then back again. In this instance, a 'sticker' or decal was normally used, and these were normally red on the black spinner, which rarely show in photos, and I think that's what's on the spinner in the pic you posted - probably had the spinner re-painted back to Sky, and applied the decals used for black spinners, as I doubt there were any other type at the time.
The original markings were factory applied, hence the lack of the 'bar', with just the lettering, although unless close up, they nearly all look like a bar, in fact, the common appearance is like a letter 'H' from a distance.

 

[A4K]

Great info Terry!

 

[Crimea_River]

Decals have been started and the prop is almost done.

First pic shows the underside with roundels and stencils applied. I started here to test the ICM decal performance. The roundels are ICM but the stencils are Aeromaster. The ICM stencils are rather poor for legibility but the roundels look beautifully done, if not a bit thick. The register is perfect but they are so thick that they did not react much to Solvaset so they needed a bit of "coaxing" to sit down and reveal the recessed panel lines and blisters underneath.

The second pic shows the prop and hub with the above-mentioned bands applied on the spinner. This was done freehand using a .2mm permanent ink artist's pen. The ink, if not fully cured, will dissolve into Future so I need to wait a bit before applying the Future and then the Rotol patch decals onto the prop blades. The blades themselves are painted with a slightly lightened black acrylic as I find pure black always looks too stark.

 

[Airframes]

Very nice work Andy, and the spinner latch alignment markings look spot on.

 

[Wurger]

With Terry here.

 

[rochie]

wow great job Andy

 

[pbfoot]

Terry, that sounds absolutely logical. However, I also have this pic (crop of a photo of Norm Chevers of 132 Sqdn from "Spitfire II The Canadians"). Definitely look like coloured bars to me as opposed to words but I'm sure you're right about their function. On this one, the lighter coloured bar appears to be at the back.

worked with Norms brother for a while he was a ret'd USMC vet at Khe San

 

[Airframes]

Forgot to mention Andy, I've e-mailed another pic of the slipper tank I found whilst looking for something else.