**** DONE: 1/48 Spitfire MkVIII - Home Country Modern Aircraft/Spitfire Marks GB (1 Viewer)

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Thanks for all the kind words everyone. Jumping ahead a bit, the next steps involved careful mating of the wings to the fuselage. Can't emphasize enough the need to do constant trial fits with this ICM kit as I once again I found plenty of interferences between the wing plastic and various bits of the cockpit bulkheads and floor, all of which had to be corrected by cutting the offending parts off. Once that was done, it was then a matter of shaving material off the wing roots so that the wings uppers would not pry apart to create a flat dihedral. After all that, I finally glued the wings to the fuselage and found the need to fill numerous gaps as can be seen in the next two pics.

120617 Gaps Top.jpg

120617 Gaps Under.jpg


Gluing of the wings was done sequentially with Tamiya Extra Thin cement. I would glue small sections at a time, allowing the cement to fully set before manipulating the parts to mate up another seam and gluing those. Slow progress but in the end, I got the dihedral I wanted and minimized the gaps which, nevertheless, were still substantial. The end result, seen below, shows how it looks today with the plastic card in the gaps roughly cut away and the elevators installed. Note that I deflected the elevators after cutting the horn balances along the break lines.

120618 Top.jpg


The carb intake went on last and the fit was not too bad. This piece came in two halves extending from the spinner backplate to the back of the intake housing. I first glued just the intake housing halves, leaving the forwrad seam open to allow for adjustment. Then this assembly was inserted into the triangular opening in the wing and glued. Them the edges were mated to the cowl to minimize the stop between the cowl and intake. Finally, once that was set, the forward seam was pinched and glued and this all closed up nicely.

120618 Underside.jpg


None of these parts have benefited from any filling, smoothing, and sanding as yet but this will be the next step - my least favourite part of any build. Thanks for looking in once again.
 
Nicely done Andy looks lke you have it nailed. I seem to remember eons ago that when designing the Spit, they moved the wing about a bit until they got it right, not sure if this is true though. Maybe that's the idea of the kitthough!!!!..............Sorry mate, only jesting.
 
Well handled Andy, it's looking good.
Bruce, ICM kits can sometimes need a bit of fiddling, but they are very nice kits, with their Spits being the best in this scale. I've only built their Spit, '109F and P51C, and only the Spit needed the attention on the wings, which although a bit time consuming, is not too difficult to do.
 
Thanks chaps. Failed to mention the filling that can also be seen on the upper fuselage in front of the pit. Quite a large step there this time, not encountered on my Spit IX.
 
Kind words guys, thanks. I'll need the motivation to get through all this surface fixing!
 

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