Tamiya Spitfire MK XVIe

[GazzaS]

Very appealing paint job, Peter.

[mark31]

What can i say.

Just wonderfull

 

Mark

[DocRob]

You took te hard way Peter, but it payed off. The camo looks absolutely consistent in your pics, not so easy to achieve with your technique, given the contours of the plane.
How do you know, that Tamiya's XF colors are reference right in their interpretation. I think, it's really hard to know the exact tone, as reference pictures of the time had dismal color rendition and surviving examples aged differently, with the way they were treated and stored.  Of course there were advised mixing ratios, but also much improvising.
At last, your interpretation looks pretty cool.

Cheers Rob

[Bomber_County]

Peter, looks amazing……never tried the method you used………..I do swear by this AK product though……and is completely re-useable…….

[belugawhaleman]

1 hour ago, Bomber_County said:

Peter, looks amazing……never tried the method you used………..I do swear by this AK product though……and is completely re-useable…….

I have a stash of silly putty I bought for that purpose! I bought it before I knew the AK

product existed. I've had it for a few years now.......I wonder, does Silly Putty go bad?

[Peterpools]

Thanks Gaz, much appreciated. Feels good to finally be moving in the right direction.

 

[Peterpools]

Mark

Very much appreciated. Hopefully will be finishing up the underside cammo today and the heading in the direction of the finish line.

 

[belugawhaleman]

17 hours ago, Peterpools said:

THE PAINT SHOP

CAMMO WORK PART ONE

It’s been a while since I broke any new ground on the Spitfire as I’ve been backtracking, removing all the cammo and primer right down to bare plastic. Finally, I’m now moving forward again, it surely feels like Ground Hog Day; been there and done that before. Starting right at the gate with MRP Light Gray Primer and inspection revealed some filler had been removed from one of the underside canon wing inserts. Mr Surfacer 500 was used to replace the lost filler, a gentle wet sanding,   clean up with MRP primer again and it was time to start the cammo.

I decided to try and venture into a bit of new ground and wanted to slightly weather the finish. I left the gray as is, will play with it later on while the Dark Green was mottle to break up the solid color look.

My POA was to do the upper surface cammo first, then concentrate on the undersides. First up would be the lighter of the two colors; RAF Ocean Gray 2. My AK paint order had arrived a few days earlier and first order of business was to compare the paint colors to my already built Tamiya Mossie and Spit cowl panels which are not attached to the models and I could hold them right up against the AK Paint sample. I was surprised to see the AK Ocean Gray was much darker then Tamiya XF-82 Ocean Gray RAF 2, I was trying to match and absolutely no hint of a bluish tint as I experienced with Ammo by Mig. Nope, I decided I wasn’t going to keep endlessly buying paints because I haven’t been able to match or buy Tamiya XF-82, realizing every manufacturer has their own mix for specific colors, which rarely match colors from other paint ranges.

Unbelievable, sitting almost right in front of me all this time in the Mr Color section of my paint stash was #362 Ocean Gray. While still a bit darker then Tamiya it was a good deal lighter then the AK rendering and that’s what I went with. Mr Color went on, no issues and dried so nicely overnight.

Next up would be AK RAF Dark Green 2 and the AK Real Color looked spot on. Never having used AK Real Colors before, I took a conservative approach, thinned the paint with Mr Color Self Leveling Thinners, 50/50 mix and no issues at all.  Absolutely a superb paint. The base upper cammo is done.

I had three choices on how to do the cammo:

Free hand but since chemo therapy and just getting older, I shake a bit too much these days.

Blue Tack … OK but never my first choice.

Masks (hard edge) – tape flush onto the surface and nope, won’t work here at all.

Masks (semi soft edge) and that’s what I went with.

Tamiya includes a separate color painting guide and excellent B&W painting guides as part of the instructions, which is what I used. I measured each of the drawing, determined the enlargement needed as the side view draws were to a different scale then the overhead drawing. I needed to make two trips to Staples for the enlargements and then went about cutting up the mask, adding small sections from other views so they would conform to the contours of the Spitfire. Attaching the masks required they be a uniform distance off the model so I could obtain a consistent feathered edge. I used 18mm Tamiya Tape cut in uniform small strips in length and width on my Infinity Cutting Matt and made a good few hundred of ‘rolled tape plugs). Getting all the masks on and in the correct location was another task that took a lot of time. All in all, it took nearly three days of work from the start of the masking process to being ready for the AK Dark Green paint. I attached one image of the masks after I removed them from the Spitfire and saved them – just in case.

Would I apply cammo this way again in the future: absolutely - just requires a good painting guide and lots of patience.

 

Up next the bottom portion of the cammo.

Thanks for checking in

 

Most of the paint masks I made and use for the cammo plus the paints being used.

 

 

Great job on the camouflage! The work you put into preparing the masks was well worth

it! 

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Bomber_County said:

Peter, looks amazing……never tried the method you used………..I do swear by this AK product though……and is completely re-useable…….

I used the stuff(at least I guess it is the same) called Panzer Putty on different occasions. I liked the controllable application, which even works with tiny details added to the surface. I tried it on my T-90 some years ago and was pleased. With a camo on a plane, I was a little dissatisfied, because the stuff is running with gravity. Worse so, but completely logical, differently with the varying thickness of application. The stuff is useful, but you have to work fast and not in the summer heat.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

2 hours ago, DocRob said:

You took te hard way Peter, but it payed off. The camo looks absolutely consistent in your pics, not so easy to achieve with your technique, given the contours of the plane.
How do you know, that Tamiya's XF colors are reference right in their interpretation. I think, it's really hard to know the exact tone, as reference pictures of the time had dismal color rendition and surviving examples aged differently, with the way they were treated and stored.  Of course there were advised mixing ratios, but also much improvising.
At last, your interpretation looks pretty cool.

Cheers Rob

Rob, thank you for the very kind words on the cammo. Once I was back on the path, all seemed to finally go well. Just my way of doing things and sometimes it's easier to restart from a fresh clean pallet then trying to compromise and work and correct what's there.

You are 100% correct in that I have no idea if Tamiya's XF-81, 82 and 83 are actually the correct shade, hue and tone of each color, as every paint company has a different interpretation and they could be spot on and Tamiya off the mark. My goal was to have all three of these RAF aircraft from the later portion of the war, uniform in their cammo colors as they will be next to each other in my display case. What I should have done after all these years of modeling and I won't make this mistake again in these times of "out of stock', is have everything I need for a project on hand and ready to go, so I won't be searching the net, scrambling and then having to make do.

As Gaz said a while back, what I should have done is spend some time mixing and matching colors and save myself a lot of time once I couldn't find the actual paints I was looking for.

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks for Phil and very much appreciated.  AK Camouflage Elastic Putty - absolutely going to give it a try as I have a few more cammo scheme aircraft ready for their turn on the bench once the Spitfire is finished, which hopefully won't be too far down the road.

 

[Peterpools]

Hi Paul

As a kid growing up in the 50's, two toys we always had in supply in the house were Silly Putty and Slinky's. From what I remember, Silly putty never dried up, you just lost the egg it was kept in. Going to give the putty method a shot next cammo build for sure.

 

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Lovely job on the camo scheme Peter. It was well worth the extra effort of starting over. 

Good to hear the AK paints worked out for you as well.

Carl

[Peterpools]

30 minutes ago, belugawhaleman said:

Great job on the camouflage! The work you put into preparing the masks was well worth

it! 

Paul, very much appreciate your kind comments on the cammo work. It was a lot of work until I figured out how to make the masks work together from the different views as they just didn't line up very well and loads of gaps to work around. When all was said and done, I was very fortunate that the work paid off and there no new issues to deal with.

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob, something I'll need to keep in mind and play with a while to figure it out. Maybe keeping the applied putty as thin as possible is the key, who knows but it does look like the way to go.

 

?  

[Peterpools]

Hi Carl, very much appreciated.

Yes, the AK paints I've used were incredible, easy to use and zero issues at all. No question, they are the equal of both MRP and Tamiya Lacquers - now which to use 😉

 

 

[JohnB]

Nice save and camo work Peter. Looking good!

[Peterpools]

Thanks John

Feels like a good one for the Gipper!

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Peter, here's the best image I could find of masking the wing walkway stripes.  Hope it helps. I forgot to add that once I have the stripes painted I trim any written text from the decals and apply those separately.

 

 

[Spitfire]

And nothing goes over the upper wing national markings.

Cheers

Dennis

[Peterpools]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Peter, here's the best image I could find of masking the wing walkway stripes.  Hope it helps. I forgot to add that once I have the stripes painted I trim any written text from the decals and apply those separately.

 

 

Thanks Carl for the help and tutorial photos - it surely helps, I'll be doing the exact same.

 

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Dennis for the reminder. I once did just that and don't want to fall into that pit again. 

 

[Kaireckstadt]

Great build and paintjob Peter. I’m sad for you that you had to redo the camo-scheme. 
Can‘t wait to see your progress!
I only use AK-, Tamiya-and Gunze Acrylics. 
I once used a panel-liner from MiG and it ruined the part. So I decided not to use MiG paints anymore. But this is up to each modeler himself.

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Kai, sometimes it just happens and a weeks' worth of backtracking and masking a second time and done. Surely noting as intricate as your two LED replacement rework.

Paint has always been a downfall for me as I keep trying new brands and I have to stop. Nice choices on the three brands you settled on. I'm slowly narrowing down my Big Three as well:  MRP, Tamiya Lacquer and Acrylic and Model Air. Since I now never air brush without wearing a good respirator and the paint booth, I can use lacquers again and not worry about any further health issues (🤞). Hand painting, I always prefer Model Air. But then again, I just tried AK Real Coors for the first time and they are also excellent ... what to do ?

If enamels such as Xtracolour were available here in the states or the Model Master Enamels still made, I surely would be using them but what it is, it is.

 

   

[JohnB]

Coming along nicely Peter!