**** DONE: GB-57 1/48 Spitfire MK.XVIe Low-back - WW2 Foreign Service

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Hey, destrozas Sergio! Nice of you to stop by and I hope all is well with you. Indeed I knew the shortcomings of this kit going in as I've already built two of them. This one, however, may be the toughest yet, as we will soon see. But before I get too far ahead, let's see where we are today.

After a bit of research, I was able to confirm that the seat shoulder straps did indeed pass over a bar rather than through the slot in the head armour. The bar is not included in the kit so I scratched one together as seen above the seat in the below pic. Also seen are the quick-release disc in the correct position (thanks Terry) and the "D-ring" added from lead wire.



Next, I painted the bar and folded some Eduard PE shoulder belts over it and draped the belts to the sides. I did not bother with lap belts - the Erks moved them out of the way of the parachute, yeah that's it.



So, that area is more or less done now (unless someone catches me in a mistake again) and I can move on to the "fun" stuff. The fuselage has received a first thick application of Tamiya primer that has been sanded back and this awaits a second application. The upper cowl did not align well with the gas tank area so this needs to be smoothed over while maintainting the slight rise over engine as we move forward. As you can see, I did decide to try to reduce the pucker behind the exhuast openings and all of the fastener details will need to be replaced. The wing uppers also have quite the chasms in them in the form of sink marks in front of the ailerons so these got a similar treatment.



So off I go, smoothing and shaping. Trial fits show that the wing fit to the fuselage will be a mess and I've already started notching some parts to make it a little easier. However there will be a significant gap at the trailing edge fairing that will be shown in the next post, hopefully tomorrow. Thanks and see you soon.
 
Liking every bit of this, the detail, the forum members input, the perfectly finished product, but not liking the agony of ill fitting parts. Nice going Andy.
 
Thanks again chaps. As mentioned yesterday, there will be fun and games fitting the wings to the fuselage. First of all, the lower wing half is moulded almost flat which does not bode well for producing a proper dihedral - one of my pet peeves and something I try to pay attention to closely. A little brute force using my hands has not-so-gentle bending tools corrected this. Thank God the ICM plastic is very soft!

As for the wing fit, here's what it looks like with the lower half taped to the fuselage. As you can see in the below pics, there is a canyon betweeen the wing trailing edge and the fairing on the fuselage that will need to be addressed. Also, those familiar with these kits might recognize that I trimmed away some plastic on the fuselage wing joint to avoid potentail interferences with the wheel bay and radiator moulds.My apologies for the crappy pics.



I ran into this on my ealier ICM builds but this time the gap seems to be larger. I've read reviews where one builder claims that the wing fairings are short shot and that's certainly a possibility. However, the edges are sharp and even so I think it's just a poorly engineered fit. Bringing the wing uppers into play, we see the starboard side fitting reasonably well.



The port side, not so much. Note the stagger at the gun protrusions meaning that some meat meeds to be removed from the wing-to-fuselage joint to allow the whole wing upper to be slide toward the fuselage. Of course, if one were to flatten the dihedral (shudder), then the problem would go away but that's not acceptable to me. It would also make the gap described next even worse.



The gap at the back indicates a possible issue with the fuselage needing to be pushed out a bit at the wing trailing edge location.



Adding a wedge at Frame 11 helps a bit but not fully:



I spent a good hour fussing with these issues after these pics were taken and I think I've made some progress that will allow things to come together much better, though nowhere near perfectly. There will be mud......
 
I shouldn't worry to much about the photo quality, it's the kit that's of more concern. I don't think I've ever come across anything so obviously wrong and full marks to you for trying to correct them. Also think your on the right track in trying to push the sides out a touch the I reckon it will be a case of manipulated brute force. So good luck matey.
 
Nicely detailed, I gotta find one of them clamps!
The kit should have a note attached, "Challenger".
 
Thanks for your interest and kind comments everyone. I did some more styrene wrestling today starting with a ponder about the windscreen a few days back. I must have used the original one from this kit on another project somewhere and so had to deal with a spare Eduard one that doesn't really fit. There was originally a flange on the spare part which proved very troublesome so I carved it off. The resulting gaps will be dealt with by replacing the flange.



The non-kit windscreen also creates a mismatch with the sliding windscreen. I won't be able to do much about this and so will pose the sliding hood cracked open.



To deal with the windscreen gaps, I cut pieces of styrene card to the shape of the flange, curved them to the fuselage contour, and then glued them in place along the bottom edge with the winsdscreen just held temporarily. In the below pic, the piece is just dry-fitted with no glue yet applied.



I also finished dealing with the questionable upper cowl fit. About 5 passes of primer/sanding were done until I was satisfied with the result, after which I rescribed the joint and replaced the fastener details using a piece of sharpened brass tube held in my pin vice.



With this done, I was free to deal with the fitment of the lower wing half. I started by lining up the leading edge at the root as best as I could and applying CA glue there. Once this held, I then filled the gap at the rear joint with card and CA.



This set things where they needed to be and so I dry-fitted one of the wing uppers. After some minor adjustments to the shape of the wing root face, I went ahead and glued this piece on as the fit was reasonably good.



Once this side has completely cured, I'll deal with the port side wing half, making sure that the correct dihedral is achieved in the process.

That's all for today and hopefully I'll be able to tackle the other side tomorrow and give you an update then. Talk soon.
 
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