Eduard 1/48 - Spitfire LF.MK.IXc (1 Viewer)

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I went on to work on some smaller bits and pieces. First of the two 250lb bomb. As I was looking on the internet for colors (and I've seen 'em in a few variations I might add, so I picked which think looked the nicest) I noticed the front end of these bombs appeared to have some sort of texture to it...which on bare plastic obviously isn't visible. So I took a piece of household sponge and used it to apply some Mr.Surfacer 500 to the front end of the bombs. Slight sanded it down with fine grid sanding paper and added colours. Exactly the effect I was looking for. Also I added some break lines to the landing gear and went on to paint various other bits and pieces.

Next step will be adding a few stencils to the model. I'm not sure wether the typical Spitfire stencils 'survived' the paint job in the field, but a few stencils here and there make it look interesting I think, so I'll scrounge a few from the Revell/Hasegawa 1/48 Spit IX/XVI decal sheet.
 

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Good stuff Jelmer.
Depending on the type of casing and the factory which produced it, some British bombs had a rough-cast finish, hence the 'texture'. However, in many cases, what appears to be a textured finish in wartime photos, is often dust, dried mud and so on, as the bombs were stored outside, on the ground, and rolled around when moved.
Colours varied, with early war weapons being yellow, changed to dark green when it was realised that an open-air dump full of yellow things was highly visible from the air!
I have seen B&W and colour pics where the main outer casing (not the tail cone and fins) has been coated in a rough, white finish, for weapons used on fighter bombers, such as the Typhoon, but, to date, I haven't found a reason or explanation for this. Possibly for quick, visual I.D. of the type?
 
Good work Jelmer. For future reference, the brake lines consisted of metallic tubes fastened to the wheel fairing rather than the landing gear. These stopped above the torque links and then continued as a flex hose with a sufficient length to allow for compression of the oleo. The end of the hose was attached to the wheel hub.

120812 Wheels.jpg
 
Good call fellas. Terry, thanks for the explanation about the bomb types/colours. Might yet have to dirty the bombs up a little bit (think artist oils here) to represent the harsh and basic conditions at Semarang (the airstrip 322Sqn operated from) and Andy thanks for showing the brake line thing...still have the Mk.IXe over-trees in store (and ofcourse many other spit kits), so will certainly be taken into account :) I tried to look it up quickly myself, but couldn't get a decent pic of the full thing, so went on to do as I saw fit.

BTW Andy, How did you go about creating those break lines (if that is a pic of one of your builds ofcourse)
 
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Hi Jelmer. Yes the above is a picture from my MkVIII build. The silver portion of the line, representing the the thin hydraulic tube, is speaker wire. The black hose is pre-painted copper wire stolen from my wife's crafting supplies drawer. These are simply shaped and glued in place with CA glue. Below is a good pic of the actual arrangement taken from Kagero's Topshots publication on the Spitire LF MkXVIe.

MkIX_brakeLine.jpg
 
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Thanks for the explanation Andy! Most certainly will give that a go on a next Spitty build :) Will look through that book too for a little bit, got it somewhere lying around as well :)
 
Good stuff Jelmer.
Depending on the type of casing and the factory which produced it, some British bombs had a rough-cast finish, hence the 'texture'. However, in many cases, what appears to be a textured finish in wartime photos, is often dust, dried mud and so on, as the bombs were stored outside, on the ground, and rolled around when moved.
Colours varied, with early war weapons being yellow, changed to dark green when it was realised that an open-air dump full of yellow things was highly visible from the air!
I have seen B&W and colour pics where the main outer casing (not the tail cone and fins) has been coated in a rough, white finish, for weapons used on fighter bombers, such as the Typhoon, but, to date, I haven't found a reason or explanation for this. Possibly for quick, visual I.D. of the type?

Apparently the white bombs were inert dummies used for practice - they were filled with concrete and painted white to ensure they weren't used on live missions.

HawkerTyphooncolourservice.gif


The Spitfire's looking great.
 
Apparently the white bombs were inert dummies used for practice - they were filled with concrete and painted white to ensure they weren't used on live missions.

Talk about practice bombs reminds me of a funny/silly story - that took place close to where I live - during the war involving the use of practice bombs. At some point the Germans build a fake airfield a few miles away from the actual airfield I live nearby, ofcourse with the intend of confusing the allies. The fake airstrip had dummy aircraft and structures and such. It is said the British got wind of this and decided to bomb the fake airstrip....with wooden bombs.
 
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Did some more work on my Eduard Spitfire. The weathering has started. After having applied the decals and a few stencils here and there I sealed those with an additional gloss coat. After that had fully cured and dried I went in with artist oils. Liberally applied it to the model and let it sit there for about half an hour or so. After that I started cleaning up the mess up with tissues and cottonbuds, ofcourse in the direction of airflow and ended up with this preliminary result. Really brings out all the fine details of this new Eduard kit. I'll leave the artist oils to dry for a few days and then see what can be done next.

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I love it. I've always been afraid to apply thinned oils that way since my clear coat is usually acrylic based. Afraid of dissolving the acrylic so can I ask what you used and in what order?
 
Andy, I build up a steady and strong acrylic gloss coat (Vallejo in this case, but other brands of acrylics and Future would work too) and then went in with Windsor Newton artist oils (VanDyke brown in this case) and artist grade white spirit (less aggresive and smelly compared to your average home department laquer thinner that pretty much 'burns' through whatever it lands on.

I put a 'dash' of oil paint on a piece of cardboard to let the excess 'carrier' be absorbed by the card board for some 10 minutes or so (you'll notice a greasy stain forming on the card board) To my experience these excessive amounts of carrier don't really contribute to how well it works and if anything serves to lengthen the time required for it to dry and cure) Next step is I take a paintbrush and load it up with some white spirit...not soaking wet with huge spills (so use a piece of tissue to drain any excess), but rather moderately damp so to say. Then load it up with some paint from the piece of card board and apply it in a manner that is similar to pics 1 and 2 of the last update. Leave that to dry for maybe 15 minutes to half and hour and then clean the big 'ole mess you've made up with tissues and cotton buds (if need be slightly damp again with white spirit) What you end up with is an oil paint coat that serves as a wash for the recesses and and a filter at the same time you can work and play with for hours on end until you're happy with the result...ofcourse you can take it further by adding different colours (ala AFV modelers and such)...your imagination is the limit I suppose

To my knowledge (and experience at that) the combination of oils/white spirit and an underlying (well applied, cured and dried) acrylic gloss coat makes sure it does not react, dissolve or damage the underlying paint coats. I've never had problems of that sort anyway...and I typically go about this in a fairly 'rough' way as you must have noticed by now. I suppose the old 'test on a piece of scrap plastic' might be helpful here. Perhaps the YouTube clip (a fellow Dutch modeler who is also the Admin of a Dutch forum I post regularly made it and I basically copied him when I was starting to experiment with artist oils) can also be helpful to get a bit of a feel for the 'rough and ready' way this works


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_G1C4aBhww
 
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