++ **** DONE: 1/48 Spitfire IXe - Military Conflicts of the 1950's

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Andy, this is what I have from the Scale Aircraft Markings book, "Camouflage and Markings No.3 The Israeli Air Force,Part One -1948-1967". ".......the P-51D Mustang became its front line fighter with the Spitfires gradually moving over to operational training role. and both aircraft types were operated in natural metal finishes...."
 
I was going by RAF practice, its Spitfires were painted. I don't know about the Israelis, it is entirely possible that theirs were indeed unpainted.
Cheers
Steve
 
The weekend's snippets of time at the work bench resulted in completion of the landing gear, wing guns, gun sight, and some prep for the paint work.

Here's the landing gear just prior to painting. Everything is kit supplied except for the brake lines, which I added with stretched sprue and lead wire.



And the same after painting and wash.



The wing guns had the ends snipped off and replaced with brass rod to represent the cannon barrels. Below is a pic of one modified and one about to be.



With the left over paint from the landing gear, I sprayed along the various seams to check them out. The fuselage looked good except that the nice riveting had been obliterated by sanding the area so I replaced all the rivets by pressing a pin lightly along the spine.



Here's the gun sight, for which I replaced the kit-supplied reflector glass with 3 pieces of acetate, followed by painting of the hood and edges.



That's it for now. I promise to clean my lens for the next set!
 
Thanks my friends. Killed an hour on this tonight painting the radiators and their difficult-to-access areas before gluing on the exit flaps. Rads are Alclad Magnesium and the surround areas Alclad Duralumimum.



When that was set aside, I began to paint the spinner and prop assembly. I only realized after I had glued all this together that it would have been easier to paint the backplate white first and the spinner blue before gluing these together but I failed to realize that the spinner had two colours before assembly. As it was, I ended up masking the white and it turned out fine. The Tamiya blue was mixed with a bit of Ocean Grey to match the colours in the Israeli insignia and squadron markings. Next step will be to mask for the black blades and get those painted, which is on tomorrow's agenda.



Note, I did clean my lens but the dust must be on the inside. Will chase that down.
 
Looks good Andy! You can disregard my last comments since I had erroneously assumed your were going for a painted metal finish, not NMF. I think Alclad will be your best bet.
 
Thanks all. I've now squirted on a coat of Alclad Duraluminum after satisfying myself that that all surface imperfections have been addressed.



The propeller assembly is also now finished and weathered:



And that brings us up to date.
 
Cheers men.

Anti-glare panel has been masked and painted. The rudder is masked and painted white. I'm on the fence as to whether or not I will use the blue stripe decals for the rudder. I may mask and paint them instead but am concerned about getting the spacing just so. On the other hand, using the decal will have challenges as well, given the contours and the actuator lever that stick out. Will sleep on it.

 
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