Lancfan's US Navy Spitfire - FINISHED

[lancfan]

cheers Daren, Splash.
The wing has been glued in place, left to dry and the joints have been filled as needed and are in turn now drying.



David.

[lancfan]

With the joints rubbed down the airframe next needed building up ready to begin painting. The undercarriage bays were detailed using plastic card for the wheel wells and plasticene for the leg recesses, the only other departure from standard was to fit a slipper tank sourced from the spares box.



David.

[DazDaMan]

Looking good!

What's the reason for painting the fuel tank/radio hatch prior to actual painting?

[lancfan]

Daren, I painted those first with thick acrylic to make them stand proud very slightly through the final coats of paint.


David

[DazDaMan]

Ahh, right. The fuel tank and the radio hatch DO stand out a little, of course!

[lancfan]

The fuel tank cover is a separate part that overlaps the fuselage skin, my painted line is exaggerated but it does the job, the radio hatch is meant to almost fit flush but the outline can always be seen in pictures so they were a production compromise and did not fit that well and the painted panel works in this scale.


David.

[lancfan]

To reduce the thickness of paint I have primed the undersides in Medium Sea Grey (Revell Aqua 76) and the upper surfaces in Ocean Grey (Humbrol acrylic 105) and I then thinly applied the Dark Green (Revell Aqua 68) at this stage the edges are still untidy but they will be straightened up later, the next step will be to apply the invasion stripes starting with the white bands which will be built up in thin layers to (hopefully) give the realistic "hastily applied" look seen in the pictures of the full-size VCN-7 spitfires.


David.

[lancfan]

I have started on the stripes with the Sky rear fuselage band (Humbrol acrylic 90) the white will untidily overlap this band.


I have applied the white freehand using Humbrol 34 acrylic, The first coat was a sparingly applied thinned coat followed by two (sparingly applied) washes to even the finish and create a worn distemper effect. To complete the stripes the black came next with two sparingly applied (very) thin freehand coats of Humbrol 33 acrylic.


The underside was the scruffiest as I imagine that these stripes would be painted on by someone who had uncomfortably crawled underneath the aircraft to do this job.


At this stage I had only wanted to create the impression of worn and faded invasion stripes, this had been successful but the stripes on these machines was fresher so a further coat of white was applied. When this had dried the yellow leading edge was painted on and the whole model varnished ready for decals. This is the model after decalling and the matt varnish had been applied.


David.

[TobyC]

Makes a pleasant change to see a scruffy one rather than the pin perfect variety often made.

[DazDaMan]

Looking good.

I would love to see a privately-owned Spitfire painted in this scheme someday!

[lancfan]

Finished, Spitfire 5b "4 Q" (serial unknown) flown by pilots of US Navy Fleet Spotter Squadron VCS-7 when temporarily based at RNAS Lee-on-Solent for gunnery spotting duties on D-Day.






David.

[TobyC]

Excellent. Really looks the part especially with the roughly painted stripes. Adds an air of authenticity. .

[DazDaMan]

Yep, very nice.

[lancfan]

Cheers Toby, Daren.


David.

[Clashcityrocker]

That looks most authentic.

Nigel