**** DONE: 1/48 Tamiya Spitfire Mk.I DW-O 610 Sqdn BoB GB

[Airframes]

No problem Andy. I'll get a CD off to you (and to Glenn ) in the next few days.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks very much Terry!

 

[Wayne Little]

Done a great job so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wayne. Decals started. Should finish this weekend.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Well, the decals are going on slowly and not behaving 100%. Little wrinkles have formed that I've been trying to flattening by pricking the decals with a pin and applying more Solvaset. More's needed as can be seen by the below pics. Once these are down as much as possible, my hopes are that 2 or 3 coats of dullcoat will make them disappear, or almost.

In the meantime, I've completed the wheels and finished the bube with a thin wash of RLM66 to highlight the nooks and crannes and bolts.

More pics tomorrow.

 

[T Bolt]

I had trouble with the big roundels too Andy. I used Solvaset to make the wrinkles less noticeable, but if you use that don't let it on until it drys on its own or it will destroy the decals. blot it off with a damp paper towel as soon as it starts to crinkle.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Glenn, I do that. The roundels have to fit over a blister in the wing which is tough on the decal. I also suspect my rather rough sprayed Future finish and may consider brushing it on from now on like you did.

 

[Airframes]

Looking great Andy, and I like the undercart. Hope the decals start behaving !

 

[rochie]

looks good Andy, i'm sure you'll whip those decals into shape

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry and Karl.

I now have all the decals on and have applied a dullcoat to the model. First of all, I had to make the s/n decal so I found and downloaded an RAF font here: Utilities and made my own to the right scale. The first two pics below show the finished decals applied. The one on the starboard side (1st pic) was cut up to simulate the squadron codes being painted over. Note also the cut stencil at the top of the 'D' done for the same reason.

I never did get the decal wrinkles completely out unfortunately and I've resigned myself to living with them the way they are for now. You can see them on the roundel in the second pic. The remaining pics show the finished result with the Dullcoat sprayed on.

Next will be adding the fiddley bits and weathering, then I'm done. Thanks for looking in.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Beautiful work Andy, love the olio and even if your decals are playing up your still turning out a very high class build.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you Vic. The decal issue is a disappointment. I felt that I was headed for a show entry but not now. I'm just looking to finish this one now and move on to the next.

 

[Airframes]

Darned shame about the decals, but I agree with Vic, It's a cracking model mate.

 

[T Bolt]

Your home made serials turned out great Andy! Too bad about the kit decals. I didn't nearly have the trouble you had with them, but I'm not at all happy with the trouble they gave me. I think I'd think twice before using Tamiya kit supplied decals next time.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks very much guys. Glenn, it could be their age, as you pointed out elsewhere. The did take a good 5-10 minutes to come off the paper.

 

[looney]

why not remove the troublesome decals and paint them?

If this aint possible I'm sorry I wouldn't have a clue. And the model is still great

 

[Crimea_River]

I thought of that Looney but at this point I want to just finish this one and move on.

 

[tigerdriver]

thats a lovely looking spit, the decals are a shame


i made a tamiya spit a couple of weeks back and though the decals were no where near as badly behaved as yours they did take more like 5 mins to leave the backing than the 10 secs the instructions suggest

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks TD. The decals are only bad if you get close. But they are old