1:48 Scale ICM Spitfire Mk VIII SEAC, 152 Squadron, India and Burma 1944-45

[Boldman]

So a few weeks ago I started building another Spitfire but went for something a little different, a SEAC Mk VIII. My father was in RAF groundcrew during the war and was posted to India/Burma at about this time. He was also in Africa, Italy and Europe at various other times. He had 5 campaign stars which is quite unusual, including of course the Burma Star.

Anyway I also decided to have the Spitfire "in action" and my intention is to pose it just after take off with the undercarriage partway retracted and the canopy still open. This will of course also require some sort of prop-blur effect...

I've read good things about this ICM kit but its the first time I'd seen it in the flesh, so here is the sprue shot:

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At first glance it looks impressive with different canopies to present it canopy open or closed. It has an engine and its possible to display the guns in the wings. However I'll be building it in flight - or rather my aim is to build it having just taken off. So the thing you then realise is there isn't a pilot! Thankfully there is one left over from a Tamiya Spitfire Mk I I did earlier in the year for a Battle of Britain diorama which you can see in the top right of the pic.

Anyway, I also ordered a new seat plus engine exhausts from Ultracast and I've already got some Spitfire seat belts in the spares box.

Looking in more detail at the sprues however, there are numerous sink marks visible, particularly on the fuselage tail and on the wings. The worst ones are on the upper wings just forward of the ailerons, so they'll be fun to fix!

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There are also numerous stress marks on the backside of the ejector pin marks but I guess these will cover up with the paint.

I also sourced the Spirfire Mk VIII part 1 decals from Barracuda which contains two examples from 152 Squadron, which has a very interested leaping panther logo on the roundels.

So that prop burr effect eh?

During our office move a couple of weeks ago, I found an old discarded screen filter which used a plastic screen with some sort of black transparent layer on it, possibly polarised, so I salvaged this as I though it might make a good "spinning propeller". I managed to get hold of a circular cutter at the Farnborough show last month and spent a long time trying to cut a 3.4 cm disk out of this stuff without the cutting lines going astray.

After 6 attempts I got one cut to my satisfaction (thankfully the piece of plastic was about A3 sized!) by putting masking tape over the whole square section I was using and cutting through that very gradually. I then scribed another line 3mm further in and removed that masking tape so I can paint the yellow propeller tips.

One idea I had was before I masked the plastic, I taped some 1000 grit wet n dry paper onto the work surface and span the plastic over this to give the surface a set of light concentric scratches that gives an impression of rotation. We'll see later if this looks effective or not!

Next job was to slice through the spinner at the appropriate point and fill the holes where the props would normally have been seated. I've sanded the filler down and just sprayed some white primer onto the pieces, so when thats dry I'll paint the spinner white as is fitting for the Spit I'm modelling and will fix the spinner parts to the disk.

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You can see several failed attempts there where the cutter ended up cutting inside the previously scribed cuts and also earlier attempts with the masking tape.

So this one was ALMOST good enough but as I was putting the yellow on I found some faults on the cut so abandoned it.

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Then I got this one which you can see has the circular scratches from the 1000 grade added.

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It was only on looking at this photo that I noticed the straight scratch on the surface. At first I thought it was something behind the disk but sadly on close inspection there IS a straight scratch on the surface.. .sigh This has the yellow prop tips added but it looks too bright so along with the scratch I think I'll have to try again. Next time I might try Tamiya clear yellow for the prop tips...

Anyway here is the spinner cut, filled and partially sanded and primed...

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Next post will be the start of the build proper!

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[Boldman]

So let us begin as usual with the cockpit:

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Pretty much standard fare for a Spitfire, nothing special, although I am using a mud-brown coloured wash to represent the mud and dust that was common in India/Burma.

I'm not fitting the engine so I'm leaving out the difficult firewall and will just rely on the cockpit frame and the engine covers and nose panel to keep the shape of the front of the aircraft. This avoids any of the known awkward fit of the ICM kit. Having a few fit issues already however. Found a lot of flash and in a couple of places the fuselage didn't match up properly, so putting some filler in early before I join this up. Tail wheel cut outs have been removed in preparation for the doors - they will be open in this model as it will have just taken off.

I've got a pilot figure from a previous Tamiya Spitfire and he's being painted up with a khaki outfit as befits the sort of things worn out in the tropics. He'll be mostly hidden in the cockpit although the canopy will be shown open.

Cockpit and pilot fitted and fuselage closed up:

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I've used some Eduard PE Seatbelts I had left over from my BoB diorama. I've left out the engine so had to blank out the area for the intakes which are Ultracast resin ones. in the photo they have a initial coat of Tamiya Metallic grey, they'll get a rust/burnt treatment at The weathering stage. Some filler was needed at various joins in the fuselage and the slots for the tabs for the tail planes needed extensive enlarging.

Next comes attempts to fill some of the worst of the sink marks, but this kit seems to suffer all over in this regard.

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This shows the third round of filling and sanding, ugh!

and finally for now, the air intake and the undercart legs. If you look closely at the top of the legs, you will see my surgery that will allow me to display the Spit with undercart half-raised as its just taking off...

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Next: Wings, wheels and bases... what you thought I'd be building a model that doesn't have a base? Shame on you!

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[papa 695]

I like the look of this so far will be watching with interest

 

[Ian M]

Try googleing propblur and see what turns up. I have seen them used to great effect.

Ian M

 

[treyzx10r]

Andrew looking forward to seeing this come together,here a pic of the prop blurs I've been using

 

[Boldman]

Yes I saw those before but decided not to use them as they represent what you would see if you were taking a photograph, whereas I want to simulate what you would really see with your eyes if you were there

 

[Boldman]

Wings on - reasonable fit, most of the sanding caused by glue blobbing up in the joint. The worst bit was the joint of the fuselage at the trailing edge of the wing. There was a huge gap that needed filling. It was a shocking fitView attachment 35166

In the above photo I am about to fit the gun covers, you can see the sprue added inside the gun port to support the cover and on the right the styrene padding add to the underside of the covers to help them sit at the right height. This was a tricky operation, but went fine.

Underside needed some filler around the intake and the rear joint:

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Rear wheel and open doors added. Since this was taken its been "muddied up" a bit

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Undercarriage legs painted and weathered. I didn't add any extra details on as they will be partially retracted so won't be so visible. Ditto with the wheel wells themselves.

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Wheels assembled, note the extension to make it look more realistic. The covers were obviously shortened in the model to make them work when the wheels are down, but since these will be partially retracted, there was a gaping hole which needed filling.

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and finally in this update, we have a base! Visited Oxfam and picked up a stack of old picture frames for a fiver. Slap a bit of plaster of paris in, colour it up with raw and burnt sienna acrylic paints, add a 3mm brass rod for the support and give it a coat of Kleer to make parts of it look wet.

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Since this picture was taken I've mixed some matt varhish in to dull the surface down a bit and just leave some wet puddles as this is supposed to represent a muddy airfield in monsoon weather in India, which means there will be quite a bit of "muddying up" of the Spitfire when it comes to weathering...

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[treyzx10r]

Yes I saw those before but decided not to use them as they represent what you would see if you were taking a photograph, whereas I want to simulate what you would really see with your eyes if you were there

Man looking forward to seeing what you come up with! Nice progress so far!

 

[yak face]

Coming on great andrew, love the' just taken off' idea. The kit looks like one of icms earlier attempts, their later stuff seems a lot better fitting, not to worry though ,you look like youve cracked this one with a bit of filler and patience!!, Cheers tony

 

[munkster]

Glad to see someone making a better fist of this kit than I did - I had all sorts of filling issues with mine, the wing roots were all over the place. I am still fairly green with regards all this stuff but I did find the kit frustrating. Didn't help that I totally ignored the wisdom of the internet and proceeded to try and include the engine. Very wise that you omitted it - it would have been a total waste of time!!

Really looking forward to seeing the finished product - looks great so far.

 

[Boldman]

So the spinner is done and here is the finished product:

I used Tamiya clear yellow on the edge to retain the transparent appearance and used the same technique I worked out in the prototype, spinning it over wet and dry to give its the circular streaks.

This next photos shows one of the risks of dealing with this material...

fingerprints!! I've got some cotton gloves that I used earlier while handling it, but I obviously need to give it a bot of a polish to get rid of the marks that have appeared since...

Rest of the model is pretty much built. So now it comes down to the painting.

Underside masked off and sprayed with Tamiya AS-32 Medium Sea Gray (RAF) rattle can left over from my 1:32 Spitfire at the start of the year, followed by brush painted XF 52 Flat Earth, which was then masked off with blue tac and masking tape to allow me to spray the Tamiya AS-30 Dark Green (RAF).

I like using the oil paint and cloth method of highlighting the panel lines. I've tried dark washes but never been very happy so its on with the oil pant and rub off with a cloth. I do this before I've "Klear"d it so that the paint gets grubby as well as I like this look. The downside to this method though is of course the drying time for the oil pant and making sure you remove any residue from the surface before applying the Klear otherwise it won't adhere properly. This was left for almost a week before I did any more work on it to allow the oil paint to set. It then got a gentle wipe down with a cloth with some white spirit on to clean the surface but no affect the panel lines. Some extra dirt was added using washes, particularly around the radiators.

Note the circular masking on the wing for the expected full size European RAF roundel. The SEAC roundel used by 152 Squadron was much smaller, so I had to reproduce that masking during the paint stage - which was fun!

The other big job was sorting out a fixing point for the stand. So I'm using 3mm brass rod as the support so drilled a hole at a steep angle behind the pilot to accept the rod. By lucky chance, I ordered a set of 5mm, 4mm and 3mm brass tubes for the Bablyon 5 Starfury guns modification that I'll be doing after this and the Firefly are done. This meant I could adapt a short section of 4mm dia brass tube to act as a collar for a joint so rather than have to worry about permanently fixing the Spitfire to the base, I could attach a short piece of rod into the Spitfire that then fitted into the collar. You can see this in the next photo

The rod has been fixed using Araldite, which is great because it gives a very good solid bond while not reacting with the plastic (unless it gets TOO hot that is!)

The flash has blotted out most of the panel lines from the underside sadly. Since this was taken I've tidied up the area where the rod enters fuselage. Also, the cannon nozzles and covers have been added to the wings.

...and now we are totally up to date. This work has been going on for several weeks but I hadn't posted it on this forum, so decided to do it this week to share this with you. Last night I started on the Klear coat and added some lead wire to the landing gear legs to represent the hydraulic pipes

Tonight I'll do the second part of the Klear and so over the weekend I can do the decals.

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[mossiepilot]

This is coming along lovely Andrew.

Can't wait to see this mounted in it's base.

I think all these dioramas are begining to inspire me to try one for myself.

Tony.

 

[Boldman]

It was pointed out to me that the tail wheel was wrong for a Mk VIII retractable tail wheel. Instead of like the fixed one which hangs out the back at about 60 degrees, the retractable one is vertical. This diagram shows what it should look like

So I decided to scrap the existing wheel and scratch build my own. First fill the gap in the bay so that it will support a vertical legView attachment 35456

Next get the original tail wheel and chop of the angled leg. Replace with a piece of 2mm dia plastic tube them add a 3mm dia plastic ring to represent the rubber sleeve

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(the red is just a bit of dye on the plastic tube that came off with a quick bit of sanding)

I made some incisions around the larger diam ring to represent the creases in the rubber sleeve.

When the green stuff was dry I then drilled a hole to accept the wheel and voila!

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As you can see there has been some progress on the rest of the model as well, decals and weather have been applied and in fact the model is now finished! I just need to take some good photos of the completed build and will post them later on...

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[AJay]

Nice work and like your camo work. I really like the idea of the brass tube for attaching to a stand.

 

[Boldman]

So here is the finished result,the last 4 taken in the garden yesterday morning when the weather was actually quite decent... I was supposed to be working from home yesterday morning - ahem

Hope you enjoy...

 

[Boldman]

This is now complete

 

[mossiepilot]

Wow Andrew, this is really nice.

An action shot made real, well sort of.

Impressive.

Tony.

 

[Brickie]

I've never been a huge fan of the disc-style prop blurs, but it's a cracking looking plane...