Eduard Spitfire Mk. XVI Bubbletop 1/48

[CANicoll]

Thanks Mike and Martin, I do like the kits - easy to build and nice detail as Martin said.

NIGHT FIGHTER SPITFIRE

(Just kidding)

Slow progress but put down a primer coat, finally.  Going to try a different tack to the weathering.  Going to put down an aluminum coat on top of the black primer, then seal it and do the camo coat over that.  The idea is to 'weather' the camo coat down to the aluminum in places.  We will see how it works out...

Exhausts have an initial coat of Rust but that will be toned down with subsequent dry brushing and chalk. Nice detail, with open hollow ends

Of course, once I cleaned everything up, I found some parts I didn't put into today's paint plan.  Blast.  Too many bins trying to make sure I don't misplace smaller parts...

 

[DocRob]

Nice progress, Chris. You should test your weathering method on a scrap piece. Depending on the used colors, you may have a herd time scratching / sanding through the camo layer. I would recommend hairspray here. I had difficulties erasing the camo paint of my battle suit from the sandbox built, even with hairspray.
Another thought, wouldn´t there be primer.  I don´t know which color for a Spitfire, but when I sprayed my Corsair, I used aluminum as a base layer, then hairspray, then primer color, activated with dampening and then scratched and weathered, then hairspray again, followed by the top camo coat, again dampened and weathered. As a result, I got a multi layered chipping, showing lots of primer color and where the abrasion would have been the strongest, there was bare aluminum.



Cheers Rob

[Landlubber Mike]

Hey Chris, looking good.  I'm eagerly looking forward to following your efforts here.  I've seen folks do the chipping as Rob did, and have always been curious on how difficult it was to do that.  

Seems much easier, at least to achieve realistic looking results, with the chipping method as opposed to trying to manually paint those scratches in.  

[CANicoll]

On 2/3/2025 at 4:12 AM, DocRob said:

Nice progress, Chris. You should test your weathering method on a scrap piece. Depending on the used colors, you may have a herd time scratching / sanding through the camo layer. I would recommend hairspray here. I had difficulties erasing the camo paint of my battle suit from the sandbox built, even with hairspray.
Another thought, wouldn´t there be primer.  I don´t know which color for a Spitfire, but when I sprayed my Corsair, I used aluminum as a base layer, then hairspray, then primer color, activated with dampening and then scratched and weathered, then hairspray again, followed by the top camo coat, again dampened and weathered. As a result, I got a multi layered chipping, showing lots of primer color and where the abrasion would have been the strongest, there was bare aluminum.



Cheers Rob

Aircraft Primer...Of course.....   Doh.....  Rob, Your Corsair wing looks terrific.  Having to rethink my plan of attack here.  Think it might be, black primer, Aluminum, aircraft primer color (whatever that ends up being), hairspray/chipping medium, camo colors...  Thankfully this is 1/48 and not 1/32 scale!

Mike - Yeah, I never was very good at the manual painting method....  Will see how this turns out.  

Now to run to the store and buy a can of hairspray to practice on my paint mule.

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, CANicoll said:

Aircraft Primer...Of course.....   Doh.....  Rob, Your Corsair wing looks terrific.  Having to rethink my plan of attack here.  Think it might be, black primer, Aluminum, aircraft primer color (whatever that ends up being), hairspray/chipping medium, camo colors...  Thankfully this is 1/48 and not 1/32 scale!

Mike - Yeah, I never was very good at the manual painting method....  Will see how this turns out.  

Now to run to the store and buy a can of hairspray to practice on my paint mule.

I don´t decant it and usually spray two light coats with some minutes of drying time in between. With the smell, I can´t help you, it´s worse than lacquers .
Don´t take too much time for adding the paint onto the dried hairspray. After a week or two, it becomes harder to activate the hairspray with dampness.
Sounds complicated, but really isn´t. It´s a great weathering technique, as it is like the real thing, layered and abrasion is from the outside to the inside, like in real life. With paint chipping you add the chips in form of brushed or stippled or sponged paint, which often doesn´t look correct.

Cheers Rob

[CANicoll]

Thanks Rob!  I'll be letting everyone know how it goes.

[CANicoll]

Ok, after doing some research having some problem definitively finding the color of primer which was used on the later Spitfires.  Best I can find (@Britmodeller) is that there was a light gray primer used on the airframe and back part of the wings.  I've applied the color to the lower surfaces and was moderately successful in getting some 'wear' to show through.  VERY hard to see in photographs so will have to work on that.

Just realized I forgot to take pictures of the painted underside.  oops. Here is the silver coated underside.  I don't expect to show a ton of wear here, more some dirt and oil stains.

Amazing the detail, like the actuators for the radiator flaps.  Definitely overscale and hard to see, but they are there.  If I had the thought, I'd have seen about doing PE actuators.  

SuperBowl Sunday here in the states, but planning on getting some bench time this morning/early afternoon.  Have the canopies masked already, so will do the gunsight and get that installed, then the canopies, door and topside camo painting.

For paint I was hoping to use MRP but realized I have RLM and US SEA colors in abundance, but not many of the RAF colours, at least of the colors I need.  So using my Vallelo Model Air paints which are spraying well so far.

Did a major cleaning session of my Grex airbrush last night. OMG. How was it even spraying? I always take my Iwata HP-C apart after a session, but usually only do the "blow-back" cleaning of the Grex.  I need to do better, especially with the acrylics.  I think the lacquers clean more thoroughly directly than the acrylics.

[DocRob]

Have fun with the Super Bowl tonight (at least, it´s night, where I live), Chris, I will view as well.
I thoroughly clean my airbrush sometimes, specially before spraying car bodies or clear coats. Today, I sprayed a fourth layer of Cobra blue and when I cleaned the airbrush, a glass shaker ball from the Cobra Blue jar was falling out of the airbrush. Don´t know, how it sprayed so well with it .

Cheers Rob
 

[CANicoll]

Rob,  I cleaned my airbrush again after spraying the topcoat, and cleaned it again and even MORE stuff from previous sessions came out!

Here is the first spray of the top camo color - Ocean Gray.  This gives you an idea of the effect I'm looking for - a worn paint job.  I'll see how it looks tomorrow and before I spray the dark green.  I may need to do another coat before the next step and might need to respray some of the aluminum once I get the camo masks on, to achieve a similar effect.

This is a place-holder door and am hoping not a lot of spray got into the cockpit.  That would not be fun.

[Jbert27]

Looking good!

[CANicoll]

Cheers, Jbert!

[CANicoll]

Applied the masks, which are not specifically for the Eduard kit, however I didn't think they would fit this poorly.  The tape is to hold down the vinyl masks.  You can see how far off the model the masks are.

Also did a minor overspray with the flat aluminum to see if I can replicate the Ocean Gray spray effect.  Was getting ready to spray the RAF Dark Green when I realized I didn't have any Vallejo RAF Dark Green. I have MRP Dark Green, but wanted to say with the acrylic Vallejo.  Went to the LHS and the Vallejo Dark Green was... Brown.  I've run into this before where the Vallejo color was just not close. However, picked up the USAF Dark Green to see if it was close.  

Close, but it bothers me that it isn't the right color.  Now I have to wait for the Vallejo Flat Aluminum to cure before spraying the MRP Dark Green.

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking great Chris!  Maybe I'm color blind, but I tend to be surprised at how colors look when it comes to brown/olive/greens - sometimes a "brown" looks green (or even gray), and a green will look brown. 

[CANicoll]

Mike, I think its an 'age' thing... 

[CANicoll]

After letting the Vallejo Model Air cure for a few days, bit the bullet to lay down the MRP Dark Green.  I hope the effect comes through the pictures.  I'd like some of the demarcation lines to be more faded, but I may try working on them in a day or after I'm sure the MRP is fully dried.

With Masks:

Masks removed:

Had a little bit of paint lift on the top cowling.  Will probably paint a fresh square over the area like a patch.  Or might just see about touching it up...

More to come!

[DocRob]

Nice and smooth Chris. Are you planning further weathering on top, maybe a unifying wash or a hint of brown sprayed veeeery lightly overall?

Cheers Rob

[CANicoll]

5 hours ago, DocRob said:

Nice and smooth Chris. Are you planning further weathering on top, maybe a unifying wash or a hint of brown sprayed veeeery lightly overall?

Cheers Rob

Hi Rob and thanks!  Yes, definitely looking to do more weathering on top, but have not thought about the direction yet.  Like your suggestion of the hint of brown veeery lightly sprayed!  I'm open to other suggestions, too.  Thanks!!!

[CANicoll]

Making progress.   Applied the nice Tamiya X-11 gloss coat in preparation for the weathering and washes.  Liking the AK Interactive Paneliner series which flows really nicely over the X-11, and wipes away predictably making weathering easier. The Eduard kit has some beautiful rivet and panel line detail which the washes pick up very well.  Still have a lot of the rivet detail to appl the wash to. Masked the panel and sprayed MRP yellow along the leading edge of the wing.

Showing off some of the wash detail in the rivets.  Lots more to work on.  Out of the box, found there is an interesting divot near the wing tip at the bottom. Not sure where that came from, but rather than try to fix it, I'm leaving it.

Here is the contrast between washed areas (both sides of the wings) and pre-wash (center of the fuselage).  I've seen how heavily oil stained the center section of Spitfires are so will be looking to replicate that look.  Also have to fix the underwing cooler flap that came loose on the right side of the photo.  Left off the cannon covers on the wings to keep from knocking them off.

[DocRob]

The PL made the details pop, Chris, muy bueno.

Cheers Rob

[CANicoll]

Thanks Rob!

[BlrwestSiR]

Just catching up on your Spitfire Chris. The panel wash has really made the details pop. Reminds me more of the Tamiya 1/32 kit than the Eduard 1/48 one detailwise. 

For the oil leaks, I did them on my Spitfire by putting a drop of very thinned paint by the cowl panel line and then immediately spraying with an empty airbrush in the direction of airflow. 

I suppose you try this with a panel wash as well. Might make cleanup easier if it doesn't work. 

[CANicoll]

Carl, you were reading my mind!  That is exactly how I was planning on duplicating the effect.  Thanks for sharing your picture.

[JohnB]

Coming along well and looking good Chris. I look forward to seeing the finished model. 🙂

[Landlubber Mike]

Nice work Chris!  The panel liner really did its job!

[CANicoll]

Thanks Mike and John! I'm slowly trying the AK products but like what I've seen so far.

Playing with the AK washes, black/dark gray underneath, brown on top.

Starting to work on the stains just with the wash.  More to come.

Trying the brown on top.  Liking it so far...  Very hard to see in the photos.  I'll work on that.

I keep knocking off the left aileron so finally just decided to leave it off for now, ditto the rudder.