Supermarine Spitfire FR. Mk.XIVe Finished

Sorry I did not get many postings done on this project, but the time frame of the project along with work and family stuff has reduced the time for updating the blog. Anyhow, some progress photos were put up on Facebook as it was quick and easy to do this straight from my phone.

So back to the Spitfire. It was finished yesterday evening and I have to say, I am pleased with how it turned out. I had tried out a new method of masking for myself to do the camouflage and was extremely happy with the end result. I will use this same method when I get around to painting my Vulcan and Victor, plus any of the other models in my stockpile that have similar camouflage patterns on them. 

The decals were laid down over a few evenings and were sealed with a coat of gloss clear followed by a coat of matt clear. Final detail painting was carried out on the undercarriage bays and radiators, before final assemble of the undercarriage gear. The pre-shading did not show through after the camouflage was done, so I mixed up a new mucky brown colour using Tamiya XF-1 Matt Black and XF-52 Flat Earth, then thinned it to a more wash condition. This was airbrushed over a majority of the panel lines on the fuselage and wings.

The canopy glazing had been dipped in some Johnsons Klear, then when I went to start masking the bubble canopy, I noticed a big mould line straight down the centre of the part. I removed this with various grades of sanding sticks then finished the canopy off by polishing the remaining marks out. Once the glazing was masked, they received a couple of coats of the interior green followed by a couple more coats of the camouflage green. The front canopy section had the front screen finished off with some of Alclad's Armoured Glass paint brushed on before gluing the part in position. The bubble canopy had the two yellow dashed lines decals added then coated with some matt clear to seal them before gluing that onto the fuselage.

The last part to finish off was the propeller, this was painted using gloss paints to save me having to gloss clear it for the decals. Once these were added, a coat of matt clear sealed them in and then the model had some chipped paint marks done over certain areas using a small piece of sponge in a pair of tweezers. This was dipped in some aluminium colour paint, dabbed onto some tissue before dabbing lightly on the model. To complete the weathered look, the model received a light dusting of soot weathering powders around the exhausts, guns and shell ejection holes. Once happy with this, a final blow over with some of my dirt mix through the airbrush to tone the colour down a little more and enhance the in-service look.