AndrewR's Low-back Spitfire XVI **Finished**

[AndrewR]

Watch this space


[edit]Occasionally...

Finished! Did you miss it?

[Ian]

I'm watching but nothing seems to be happening.......

[jssel]

Maybe you have to press "like" in five seconds to see it happen.

[Ian]

lol

[AndrewR]

I'll change it to

"Watch this space. Occasionally. "

[beany]

If he can get enough watchers he can charge for advertising space like they do on Facebook...

[AndrewR]

If he can get enough watchers he can charge for advertising space like they do on Facebook...

And now a word from my sponsors...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

[PaulBradley]

Mmmm, I do like a spot of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious every now and again. Do they have any special offers at the moment?

BTW, I'm still watching this space occasionally.

[AndrewR]

Mmmm, I do like a spot of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious every now and again. Do they have any special offers at the moment?

BTW, I'm still watching this space occasionally.

I'm busier than a busy bee for the next day or so; I haven't even had time to take and upload the box and sprue shots! Hopefully by tomorrow afternoon things will be a bit less hectic.
Meanwhile my sponsors would like another word:

Lachanophobia

Cheers

Andrew

[PaulBradley]

I had to look that one up. Guess I shouldn't offer your sponsors a V8 then...

[AndrewR]

I had to look that one up. Guess I shouldn't offer your sponsors a V8 then...

Only if it's an Aston Martin

[AndrewR]

And I finally have a half hour to get some photos uploaded.

The boxart to PK-50, which is a slightly revamped version of the original PK-2, the Spitfire IX. The main differences being that you can chop out a lump of the fuselage to make a low back XVI, or a high backed IX/XVI...
The box style with the so-called "hockey-stick" logo indicates that this version was pressed in Hong Kong rather than England, after Matchbox had gone into receivership. Some cost cutting is evident, there's no stand for instance, and no window in the back of the box!



Decals for two aircraft, a Belgian RAF squadron mark XVI (the same aircraft depicted in the Heller XVI kit), and a mark IX from a Polish Squadron. Repeat please...



The Belgian aircraft has white codes, the Polish one sky. The decals are well and truly out of register, and are pretty useless. I do have the corresponding set from the Heller kit, and some code masks, so I think I'll use them. The Heller codes are a hideous green colour, totally unlike Sky (unless the sky happens to be emerald!)



The sprues look okay - the detail on the panel lines is raised, not engraved, and is not terribly out of scale - a bit of sanding back underneath should suffice. The quality of the transparent bits is pretty poor, however, and I will try and dig out a Falcon replacement canopy.

cheers

Andrew

[AndrewR]

The customary shot of washing the sprues, which seems to be obligatory in this GB



The sprue gates are lovely and delicate on this pressing, so one of the fuselage halves fell off while I was washing it.



Hello Airfix are you looking at these nice small sprue gates that Matchbox were getting back in the 1970's. Time to raise your game a bit!

Looking at the kit, the wheels look a bit weedy, so I might have to find some replacement ones, if I decide to do an undercarriage down version. On the other hand, an in-flight Spitfire is a beautiful thing to behold...

cheers

Andrew

[AndrewR]

A quick bit of interior priming this morning. My usual mix of Vallejo light grey and bronze green (2:1 ish) to give an interior grey. Pictures later when I have cut the top off the fuselage!

[BWP]

Tch, tch. When I built this kit back when dinosaurs roamed the land, one sprue was brown and the other was jade green.

Not exactly Dark Earth/Dark Green, but at that point in my model career, painting was for losers!