Daz's Dogfight Double - **DONE**

[DazDaMan]

The wings and fuselage have been joined together, and the tailplane fitted.

I WILL post pics tomorrow, honest!

[DazDaMan]

The story so far....


No problems thus far. The "moving prop" dilemma was solved by simply taking it out of the equation and mounting the spinner without it! Just starting to fill in the mounting holes before any painting commences.

[Stuart]

Nice - and I'm doing the same in regards to my props.

[jssel]

Ditto on the prop for me. Have I already stated that I HATE BLACK PLASTIC!!!!!!!! I packed my spinner with sprue to save of filler.

[DazDaMan]

Undersides painted and undercarriage installed:


The wheels on the model are too fat without some major sanding down, but luckily I had a couple of spare wheel halves that would fit just about perfectly. No idea what kit they came from, mind!

First coat of blue-grey on top:


Now, a dilemma. The box art shows the spinner in what appears to be a dark blue (similar to the roundel colour). I've seen a colour profile in one of the books, and it shows a red spinner. Another profile shows it as yellow. The full-sized example in the same colours based in Florida has it as sky (as, indeed, do most versions). But then, if you look at this photo of TB900 being stripped of paint:



Now, I've done both sky and black spinners in the past on my models (and, since the aircraft was in service in 1945, the spinner *should* really be black, as most other RAF fighters would have had the same). That does not look black!!

[fredk]

Immediately post-WW2 the spinners were painted blue on RAF jobbies stationed in Germany. It was part of the ident to stop low-flying - if a local complained about a low-flyer and it had a blue spinner = RAF, no blue spinner = USAAF. The blue was 'roundel' blue, but not the war-time shade, it was the pre-WW2 blue which was brighter.

[DazDaMan]

I genuinely didn't know that.

As this one was on squadron strength from April '45, it wouldn't be the blue colour.

[DazDaMan]

First coat of dark green now on:

[fredk]

Speedy work there Gonzales

[jssel]

Thanks for that information Fred. Did not know that.

[Stuart]

Wow speedy - it's almost like you've built one of these before.

[DazDaMan]

I've decided to do the spinner red. It'll stand out a bit among the blacks and skies.

[fredk]

Forgot to add; the photo above shows the Spitfire post-war. You can see the code number under the port wing. These were re-introduced also as attempt to stop low-flying

[DazDaMan]

Camo finished and red nose added:

[Stuart]

"Rudolf the red nosed..."

Great stuff Daz - it's coming along well.