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Hi Kev, am always amazed to see the level of detail you can achieve with your builds and this one is no exception. Remarkable piece of work and a true pleasure to see..... Superb start....look forward to seeing more.....  .. One day I may delve into the world of plastic, it will be an interesting experience....  Regards Alan
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 Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Hello all,
Time for another update.
At the end of my last update, I had gotten as far as priming all of the resin cockpit parts. All of the parts that were to be painted in ‘Zinc Chromate’ were then airbrushed with their base colour. I don’t want to go into any great detail about how I painted the cockpit parts, so I haven’t taken any photos of the painting in progress, preferring just to show the completed cockpit after everything had been painted, washed and dry-brushed? As this model will be in a diorama and not as a pristine model in a display cabinet, I have made the cockpit look a little war weary with some general grime, worn away paint and the odd scratch here and there? The photos below show the various parts that make up the cockpit tub after painting and with the radio equipment shelf now added to the rear of the cockpit assembly. The instrument fascia was then added to the instrument panel and the second of the two photos below which show the instrument panel, was taken from a slight angle to catch the light and hopefully show the glazing over the individual dials?
Last photo shows a quick mock-up of the resin cockpit fitted to the aircraft. The tub is sitting too high in the photo but that will sit down more once I’ve done some sanding and adjustments to the plastic fuselage and removed the front wheel well which will be replaced with a resin upgrade as well. The instrument panel/coaming will not be glued to the cockpit tub just yet as I need make sure I get it lined up perfectly once the kit fuselage has been fettled to let it all fit neatly?
That’s all for now, thanks for looking. All comments and criticisms welcomed.
Kev  ModelMania attached the following image(s):
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 Rank: Super-Elite        Groups: Registered
Joined: 31/05/2010 Posts: 5,679 Points: 17,011 Location: Wiltshire
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Kev That all looks very nice indeed. Really like the look of the seat harness you have added. Also pleased to see you have kept your weathering in scale - so easy to overdo this but you have it spot on in my view. Hope the rest of the build goes well. Happy Modelling
BUILDING: Hachette Spitfire Mk 1A, Constructo Mayflower
SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE (Awaiting building): USS Constitution, Sovereign of the Seas, 1:200 Bismarck (Hachette)
COMPLETED: Porsche 911, E-Type Jaguar, Lam Countach
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 Rank: Vice-Master  Groups: Registered
Joined: 09/12/2013 Posts: 577 Points: 1,748 Location: smethwick england
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Wow Amazing detail , you must have the eyes of a hawk. Man he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day will cease to be Greet the last light of the library...We were here!
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Thanks Daran, much appreciated mate!!  
Don't pack yours away though, I wanna see some more!!
Kev
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Rank: Super-Elite  Groups: Registered
Joined: 27/01/2014 Posts: 5,060 Points: 14,980
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Awesome detail and painting skills, looks amazing!
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Many thanks for looking in on my build diary and for your kind comments Tony, Nightwisher and Dave, very much appreciated as always.
Kev
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 Nice work Current builds:-C57,Zero, Lamborghini Countach, Caldercraft HMS Agamemnon,Robi,R2-D2, MFH Cobra .
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Rank: Vice-Master  Groups: Registered
Joined: 13/02/2012 Posts: 651 Points: 1,903 Location: croydon
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Hi Kev . [drool  Wow that looks absolutely stunning and is a great credit to you. Best regards. Mark
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Hello Mark.
Thanks for looking in and for your comments, much appreciated as always and glad that you like my work.
Kev
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Hello all,
With the cockpit being finished in the last update, it was time to tackle another area of the build. I have a lot of modifications and aftermarket parts to add to the main wing area, these include new resin turbo/supercharger covers, new supercharger units, various air intakes, extended flaps, main wheel bays and metal undercarriage, modifications to the kit landing light, identification lights and crew access ladder and an awful lot of missing rivet detail to add to the rather plain looking wings!!
So .... time to make a start on that lot!! I thought I’d start on the top of the wing first by fitting the replacement turbo/supercharger covers and the B33 Supercharger units to each engine nacelle.
The first two photos below show the replacement Aires ‘Quickboost’ turbo/supercharger covers and the area where they will be fitted. The third photo shows a comparison view of the old and the new, after the new resin part had been removed from the casting block. Certainly a lot more detail in the replacement parts including some beautifully rendered open air intakes.
First task was to remove the kit panel from the wing. This was done by carefully scribing along the relevant panel lines with a reversed scalpel blade until the section was able to be removed and the edges of the hole were then tidied up a little. My replacement covers were actually designed for the Hasegawa 1:48 P-38 Lightning kit (unfortunately, they don’t produce one for the Academy kit), but given the kits are both the same scale fitting should be fairly straightforward. However, after scribing along the panel lines to remove the old part, it meant that the hole had become slightly too large for the resin part, so I had to add some plastic strip to three of the sides to get a snug fit. Also, I didn’t want to risk having to use any filler on the joints, which would then have to be sanded and that risked losing some of the nice detail on the resin part, so I decided instead to sand the inserts perfectly to shape by repeatedly fitting the new part to check fit, then removing it, re-sanding, including re-shaping the external nacelle to cover contours and so on until it all fitted perfectly? Very time consuming but at least no filler will be needed and the detail will be preserved! I also had to remove a small amount of material from the inner edges of the two ends of the cover to allow for correct fitting of the supercharger in the next step.
With that job done, I moved onto fitment of the replacement B33 supercharger units, again supplied by Aires ‘Quickboost’ and fortunately this time designed specifically for this Academy kit. There was a lot of casting block to remove!! I have included a detail comparison photo of both the kit and replacement parts – a great improvement I think!
Next job was to fit the PE heatshield around the supercharger which also needed a little fettling to get it to fit properly but again not too much of a problem. As the PE part is metal I decided that I would try to achieve some sort of heat discolouration effect as per the real thing? Some of my reference photos show discolouration, some show them as a uniform colour metal, but I quite like the discolouration and it does get very hot around this area so I decided to see what could be achieved – I can always paint over it later if I don’t like it anyway?! The brass piece was held over a cigarette lighter and heated until I achieved a satisfactory look, paying attention to areas closest to the hot exhaust, other areas being less heated? You can see from the photos below that it's quite a good effect, though a bit dark overall in comparison to the colour of the real plates I think. I may keep it (with a coat of satin varnish to tone down the shine), or I may paint over it later, but I want to see what it looks like on the aircraft as a whole first? The PE part was then fitted to the kit part with CA glue. At first it looked a little too large for the contours of the kit area where it is fitted, and I didn’t want to have to sand it back as there is some nice rivet detail very close to edges of the part which would be lost. However, reference photos show that this heatshield plating is actually folded over and down across the adjacent contours at the edges, and with the brass part being soft and malleable after the heating process had annealed it, I was able to just bend the edges over as per the real thing – result!
The photos below show the heatshield after fitting (the heat discolouration isn’t very evident in the photos I’m afraid) and also some comparison shots between the port wing with the upgrades and the starboard wing with just the standard kit parts (supercharger unit just loosely fitted and panel not removed). There is a significant gain in the level of detail I think?
What will probably be the last two aftermarket parts for the actual aircraft (more to come for the diorama part of the build) have arrived today. They are a set of metal undercarriage legs from 'Scale Aircraft Conversions' and an ultra clear (and more in-scale thickness!) vac-formed canopy set from 'Squadron'. I'm a bit undecided just yet, but I may also buy some Eduard 'Brassin' bombs to add to the aircraft, either fitted to the wing pylons or in the process of being fitted, or I may go for drop tanks instead or even a combination of a drop tank one side and a bomb the other which was sometimes used according to my references, so the two new items above may not actually be the last items purchased for the aircraft just yet!?
That completes this update. The fitting of the cover and supercharger to the starboard wing is exactly the same process and will be done next and then probably painting, weathering and sealing of both superchargers. After that I think I’ll tackle the very motonous task of rivet marking the rather poorly detailed wings before moving on to the dropped flaps and replacement wheel bays!!
Thanks for looking, all comments and criticisms welcomed.
Kev ModelMania attached the following image(s):
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 27/01/2014 Posts: 5,060 Points: 14,980
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Really nice Kev! That must have taken a lot of patience sanding, test fitting and resanding to get a perfect fit with the turbo charger covers, the effort has certainly paid off as the finished result looks awesome
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Superb work on the upgrades my friend, they certainly bring a lot of detail to the kit, really enjoying this build!
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 31/05/2010 Posts: 5,679 Points: 17,011 Location: Wiltshire
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Very nice update. I will have to try and get the hang of this photobook thing as my own build updates are text followed by pictures which is probable nit the best method of retaining readers interest. Hope the rest of your build goes well. Happy Modelling
BUILDING: Hachette Spitfire Mk 1A, Constructo Mayflower
SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE (Awaiting building): USS Constitution, Sovereign of the Seas, 1:200 Bismarck (Hachette)
COMPLETED: Porsche 911, E-Type Jaguar, Lam Countach
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Have just caught up with this, cool work on the detail Kev, she's looking real good
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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birdaj2 wrote:Very nice update.
I will have to try and get the hang of this photobook thing as my own build updates are text followed by pictures which is probable nit the best method of retaining readers interest.
Hope the rest of your build goes well. The big problem with 3rd party photo share is that they are well known for dumping images, where all your then left with is "photo has been removed" and all your hard work to post gone down the pan, in effect you lose control of your images.
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 Rank: Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 13/02/2011 Posts: 2,236 Points: 6,828 Location: East Sussex
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Hi Kev, Just catching up with your build, missed the last update but had a good look this time, well my eyes were glazing over looking at the cockpit section, you have a very steady hand and it shows by what you have produced, and looking at how you have painted the port starboard panels plus the radio equipment this will be a stunner. Well done Kev. Regards Trev Work in progress: Tombstone (Scratch) - San Francisco 2. -The Mayflower ( scratch by plan).
OcCre- Santa-Maria (Kit).
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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davetwin wrote:Really nice Kev! That must have taken a lot of patience sanding, test fitting and resanding to get a perfect fit with the turbo charger covers, the effort has certainly paid off as the finished result looks awesome
Thanks for your kind words Dave, very much appreciated and yes, patience was the keyword but I think it was worth it as you say!!
Kev
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