I just posted Mike Still's article on weathering a Spitfire Mk Vb.

Weathering a Spitfire!

As usual if you have any feedback for Mike or general comments please leave them here.

Thanks Mike!

Cheers,
Jim

Mike,
Great article! Nice and detailed, just the way I like it! Lots of great idea's in there I can't wait to try out. Nice spit too...lol!

Very nice !
Could you tell us a bit more about the way to do the separate control surfaces ?
How you separate them... how you create the leading edge... how you model the hinges...
how you place them...
Well, I'm interested in the ABC of it !

cheers !

Hey Mike,
Like the article, too. Can't wait to see how you weather that 32 scale Bf109 G-6..... :-) :-)

Glad I didn't bore you all to death

Thanks, and I'll try to do better next time.

Penpen-- just for you . . .

I scribed repeatedly along the elevator hinge lines with the back of an X-acto No. 11 blade to separate the surfaces. I then used a Dremel tool with a small steel ball cutter to mill out the hinge recess along the back of the horizontal stabilizers, refining and enlarging that recess with a round jeweler's file.

I glued .020 styrene strip to the leading edge of the elevators, rounding that off with sanding sticks and wet-and-dry sandpaper. Dirty little secret -- I forgot to round down the leading edge of the elevator horn, but that should have been done with only a .010 plastic strip capping on that section.

The rounded elevator leading edges should then nest in the stabilizer recesses.

I also drilled matching holes in the elevator inboard ends to accept a wire torque tube such as links the elevators on the real Spitfire and many other WW II fighters.

Thank you very much Mike !

I wish I could do it as good as you ! Regards! Aleksander

Hi Mike

Lovely job on a beautiful model! :-) She's a great example of tasty, restrained weathering... very nice indeed!! :-)

All the best

Rowan

Jeez, I just got that same model in the mail today. It was going to be my next plane after the Typhoon I'm working on. I'm both inspired and intimidated by the quality of your bird. Hope mine comes out half as well. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the comments. It wasn't my skill as much as it was a stress-free kit that allowed me to focus on the painting and detailing instead of beating my brains out over seams and alignment.

Even though I defend a lot of older Monogram, Revell. Otaki and Airfix kits, I still appreciate a good shake-and-bake kit when it has good detail.

Since I wrote this, some issues have come to my attention regarding the hard-edge/soft-edge camouflage debate. I refer you all to Roy Sutherland's well-considered piece at [url=http://www.cooperdetails.com [/url] Look in "Roy's Rants."


Have fun building that Spit Part-timer. And it will be fun, I promise.

:-) Very nice article Mike, great result. Like I always say, "you just can't have to many Spitfires" :-)
You seam to agree that Spit undercarriage and wheel wells are interior green, thats how I paint mine. Do you have a source of reference to confirm this?
Mal

HOWWWW
GREAT ARTICLE AND EXCELLENT PAINT WORK

ROBERTO

Mal,

I had to think on that one long and hard, and my brain hurts.

I went through Morgan and Shacklady's book on the Spit (all black&white photography, I might add) and i think I may have come up with some answers that may actually put my article into question. And that's not a bad thing, mind you.


Looking at what little was discernable in the book, iot appeared that Spirfire gear legs could be in aluminum lacquer or a range of tonal finishes that suggest either the gray-green primer, painting in undersurface color or maybe even a white or light gray finish. The bulk of the aluminum lacquered legs I saw seemed to be among Mk. I/ Mk. II Spits. Beyond that, it seemed harder to make a generalization.

I guess I've always figured that gear legs and gear wells were most likely to be in some kind of anti-corrosion finish. Who else can jump in this discussion with something more coherent or authoritative? #:-)

Very interesting article and full of useful tips.I'm new to this weathering lark so this will be useful when I build my Tamiya 1/32 Spit. Nolan.