BlrwestSiR

Lovely looking Spitfire Peter. The engine is great as well. Can't wait to see it all with paint. Carl

Something to help if you do the digital camo: https://www.greathobbies.com/productinfo/?prod_id=BDRBD0041

Thanks Kai! To be honest, it's the kit that's making this look so easy. Mostly it's just seam cleanup and then screw some parts together. The engine is where the more typical assembly starts.

Peter, I've got a few of them. They do a flat white one which I think would be perfect for the tape that you see on the front cowls of so many F4U Corsairs. There's a textured one for walkways or other coarse surfaces etc.

Peter, the stuff works really well. It's very durable, has some stretch to it and is very thin. Nothing like Bare Metal Foil. Just measure and cut to size. It's the same material I used on the fender but that had a carbon print to it.

Here's the pre-finished body panels. They go on with a couple screws so no fears of glue smears. Next up is the front suspension brackets. Then the first arms themselves. These are cast metal and are pre-painted as well. Upper and lower arms in place.

Not much gluing in the next few steps but some decent progress though. The rear upper shock mounts were screwed into place. These were followed by the rear bulkheads. Floorboards were up next. I then added the steering rack.

I assembled the shocks/dampers. I painted the bodies silver along with the brake rotors. I used Hasegawa's mirror finish self adhesive film on the shock shaft. Then the shocks were assembled with the pre-coloured springs. The transmission was next, a simple assembly. Lastly I removed the excess sprue bits from the chassis and cleaned up the seams.

Something a bit different for one of Tamiya's plastic kits versus their RC ones. Tamiya package their screws and other hardware into small bags. They then label the bag A, B, C and so on. On the back of the label, they provide a 1:1 scale drawing of each and every type of screw in the bag along with the total quantity. Any mix-ups during assembly therefore are on the modeler. Speaking of assembly, I go the steering rack together. Upper and lower rack, pinon and moveable arms at the end. There's rubber boots to go on too once it's all cleaned up and painted. Lastly our older cat Fur, had ensconced herself in the box. Makes it a bit hard to take sprues out without upsetting her.

Very common occurrence with me.

@Jeff, I think it's more the colour of the crowbar rather than its fitment. If I recall, wartime crowbars are either silver or grey whereas postwar, they're red.

Those look stunning.

Being one of Colin Chapman's most successful designs, it doesn't have much excess to it. Except for maybe power.

Ok, the ADHD is strong with this one. That and I can't find one of the prop blades for the B-24. I need to stop putting parts away for safe keeping. So let's see how I do on this one. Inside the box: The body panels are stamped aluminum. In the regular kit, they're left NMF but for this release they're painted in a blinding yellow. One piece main chassis. It's ABS so fairly resilient.

To be honest, I have about three Tamiya Spitfires sitting on SAC landing gear and they all look fine. I think it depends on the shape of the gear legs. Something like the Spitfire which is fairly thick and straight, they're ok. "L" shaped legs like on the F/A-18 or your TSR, they're more likely to bend.

No, no, no. Use them for nose weight. At least then they'll be useful.

That's the one!

There was a Seafire XV conversion available on eBay but the guy doesn't seem to be making it any more. The closest I come to that is the Freightdog Seafire 47. It's still sitting in a drawer. I need to to re-do the wings which @Jeff sent me new donor ones. If Graham at Iconicair ever releases his Griffon conversion for the Tamiya kit, I'll be first in line for one. Or three.

Lovely work Peter. If you need a replacement clipped wing tip let me know. I have lots of them in the stash. Carl

The IX kit can be built as either clipped wing or full span.

Picked up another Tamiya Spitfire IX. It was hard to pass up for $100 CAD. They're close to double that these days. Now to figure out markings for it. Maybe a NMF one? Would certainly be different. Carl

Great job on the engine. Makes sense to not do stuff you won't see. Carl

Ernie, thanks for checking in. Doing an RCAF bird just made sense once I found out we used them. The Eduard Riders in the Sky 1/72 kit was the impetus for this and I almost bought one but then found the decals for this kit. The wing shape is a huge mistake on Hobby Boss' part and Iain is doing a great job fixing it. I probably have the skill to do what he's doing but I knew that if I tried, the motivation to finish would be a huge bear to maintain. I mean, I'm almost to the home stretch and I'm already looking at other kits to build and set this aside again.

Don't look too closely or you'll see a lack of progress. I'm stuck on the props as I'm not keen to work on them for some reason. Need to get back to it and get them done...oh look shiny yellow thing.

Here you go: https://www.zoukeimura.co.jp/download/A1H1p_advice_en.pdf If that doesn't work, here's the page it's on: https://www.zoukeimura.co.jp/en/products/sws03_skyraider.html