Tamiya Spitfire Mk IX (1/32)

[paddy]

Here we go again and a massive departure for me from recent builds. This is often described as the greatest kit ever produced but I suspect most would beg to differ. Nearly 400 parts on 22 trees +clear and 2 PE sheets make for a pretty comprehensive model definitely not aimed at the beginner. That said the Airfix 1/24 spit has 430 parts but its obviously a lot bigger and both kits contain duplicated parts for different variants, My guess is Tamiya decided to just push the boat out and build the ultimate spitfire model to say to the opposition, put up or shut up once and for all….and 20 years on I haven’t seen any opposition. Maybe the Kotare but its not really aimed at the same market.

Considering you can pick this up for £68.00 on eBay now with free postage from Japan I would class this in the real bargain bucket area ($90)

Of course, the after -market guys have jumped on the bandwagon with seat belts, instrument panels and PE and resin upgrades but I have been down their road before and its mostly rubbish and I will do the best I can with what’s in the box. My plan is to build the Desert version which in this case is more or less a std MkIX with supplied decals to suit.

As for finish I am still undecided (you didn’t expect me to be fully prepared with a plan did you ?) . I think sand would be a real killer for aircraft, it gets everywhere inside and out. I wouldn’t be surprised if sliding hoods and gun mechanisms were a problem as well as everything that hinges or moves Prop wash mixed with sand would make an excellent paint stripper and bare alloy would be bright…ish. Its hard to see how I can add to what’s in the box especially in this scale, I usually work in 1/12 these days or even 1/9 which lends itself to detailing. Fitting a 1mm hex head where a 10mm hex head would have been is easy ….fitting 1/3mm hex where a 10mm might have been on this is not going to happen .likewise you see a lot of this model built with 1mm copper wire in the pit but that would be 32mm in reality and that’s one and a half inch with is a pretty big “wire”/ ”pipe” we will have to see as we go.



Now..where to start ?........... I know, put the kettle on and make a cup of tea, then perhaps an afternoon snooze.

 

[moon puppy]

I bet this one has an engine! I agree, the Kotare kit is not the same class of model. This is a model makers kit so get with it!

 

[Heavens Eagle]

I have the Mk VIII in my stash and considered getting the Mk XVI (both Tamiya) but never jumped on that one. For now I am riding the BIG armor building and enjoying it. I will be watching this build intently Paddy!

 

[paddy]

Italeri supply huge boxes with 2 or 3 trees usually lost in the vast expanse of the box, Tamiya on the other hand know that space is at a premium in Japan and especially in boxes. Somewhere in a small village in Japan lives an old lady who packs The Tamiya Spitfires. She is known as the lady of the trees and only she knows the the order the trees go in the box so you can shut the lid. I made the mistake of taking the trees out and now i cant get them back in, there are hundreds of permutation for the order of the trees in this box , no one ever got them all back in successfully.
Of course the plus side is there is little chance of the neatly bagged sprues crashing around in transit so there is method in their madness...unlike my recent italeri motorcycle that looked like it had already been completed and had a serious accident by the time i opened the box.

 

[paddy]

Paul
The MkVIII was interesting, Jeffrey Quill thought the 8 was the nicest of all Spitfires to fly but it was designed as a new aircraft, Stronger with hard points, retractable tail wheel, larger tanks so greater range and built with the middle east in mind so hot and dusty conditions. It was basically a new build.. The Mk1 was superseded in the field by the MkII this morphed into the MkV which in turn was fitted with a Merlin 66 and became the MkIX, All of these aircraft were upgrades of the previous built in a hurry in response to the Germans advances, for example the MkIX was a direct response to the FW190 that almost made the MkV obsolete in Europe overnight. In fact the RAF cancelled plans to use it straight away when it was found to be almost ineffective against the FW190.

The upshot was that the MkIX as a progression of the MkV could be built on the production lines of the MkV where as the MkVIII was as i say a whole new aircraft and it was side-lined in order to get the MkIX in production straight away. The 8’s that were built mostly found their way to the far east as they were easily adapted for Volkes filters etc.

This is the tail of my MkIX showing how Tamiya had forward planned the MkVIII with its retractable tail wheel.

 

[centaur567]

Will there be teeth? Gary S.

 

[paddy]

Sorry Gary I'm not qualified

 

[Sharkmouth]

Sorry Gary I'm not qualified

What markings are you going for?

 

[paddy]

Don t worry Saul, i am just going with the kit markings

Which is basically this

 

[Rhino]

Don t worry Saul, i am just going with the kit markings

View attachment 188325

Which is basically this

View attachment 188326

It is a hard landing, indeed that prangs a kite into such bits. (Insert Monty Python RAF Banter in Polish here!)
Not very cricket, that.

 

[moon puppy]

Hairy blighter dicky birded feathered back on his sammy.

 

[paddy]

Blimey this is a lot harder than i remember , what looks ok on the bench looks awful blown up in a picture

it will blend in with some weathering i hope later on..
I very nearly went for an after market IP but i am a bit defeated now by this scale knowing it will never be seen. Rather like Paul and his large tanks, i think large scales hold a lot more interest for me now due to fat fingers, Duff eyes and the opportunity to scratch.

One thing very wrong is i notice the compass ( i have a real one on my bench) has a black interior and an off white needle so the opposite of Tamiya's decal. That's an easy fix.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Instruments are not always the color of the decals. On my 251/1 build, the large tachometer is white with multicolored bands and this is pretty much consistent through my reference photos. The other 4 small instrument dials in the decals are all black dials. Turns out that in my references the small instruments have white dials and black dials. Not mixed. So the black dial decals are good. It's just that we do have to check and VALIDATE as kit makers do tend to screw stuff up. (yeah, even Tamiya)

As to your photo Paddy, it actually looks good. Yeah some weathering will make it pop, but otherwise Looking Good! I always get a little tweaked with my photos when they have big white particles of "stuff" all over the place. Have to remember to use my dust blower to get them off "before" taking the pics.

 

[jknaus]

Looking good so far. The attitude indicator is also wrong. It more resembles a modern attitude indicator. Should be half black and half white with a yellowish tinged bar across it. Black is down and white is up which is different from the Mk I eyeball where blue is up and green is down lol. Still its hard to see in there once its all buttoned up so not a major problem unless you get super picky.
James

 

[paddy]

Yea i agree its straight out of an F16
The problem was the Decals are reverse printed so its not until you slide them off that you see what colour they are. While i have loads of airscale decals i could use they dont work on this method where the glue is on the picture side so they stick to the back of the glass

and then the glass fits from the back of the panel

this is partly the problem with swapping genera for me, while i know all the idiosyncrasies of Italeri cars and bikes at the moment i have completely forgotten everything i knew about small scale aircraft I am a bit of a one trick pony... if i had my time again i would have used the airscale instrument panel decals on the front of the white painted glass and use a drop of Future to seal.
but hey, anyone who is looking at this with an eye to a future build knows what to expect now so this is good

I could have spent £15 (25% of the price of the kit) on pre printed PE or even 3D printed and found they were still the wrong colour!! I remember my last aircraft build where i tried 3D printed panels and while they were perfect black in the packing picture they were actually a blue/grey when i received them, so wrong i couldn't use them.

I do find it odd looking at you tube videos of people weathering and detailing aircraft to try and remind me how to do it its not an age thing i have never been able to retain information, most things i do from cooking to models are pretty much first builds. Even now i am looking at an F4U i built years ago with amazing weathering that still impresses me now and i have absolutely no idea or recollection of how i did it

 

[moon puppy]

Yeah once it's done no one will notice but hey, adds more color.

 

[moon puppy]

As far as weathering, just take it slow, one layer at a time. you have in your mind's eye what you want, a sand blasted desert warrior right? Start by sand blasting some planels down to the bare metal, then feather some primer and top coat. Then start applying washes...but we'll get there.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

LOL! Zouki Mura "intended" for the reverse decal thing on their instrument panel decals, on the Go 229. They goofed though and the decals werent reversed and the color was all messed up. I ended up using a totally different path to doing the instrument panel that ended up looking awesome.

Looks like Tamiya at least did the process right and the instruments look pretty good.

 

[Steve Ski]

Remembering how we did something is the story of our lives, Paddy, it comes with longevity, HA! Ruck On, I'm in!