**FINISHED** Something a little Different - The Silver Spitfire

[StevenBills]

I just bought some 32nd scale decals for this bird from DRAW decals. I'll be making my Tamiya one into this amazing looking machine - when I get to it
It was this build that inspired me to do it - so thanks!

That's awesome! That just made my day. I can't imagine doing a 1/32 version of this. That's a LOT of silver! But the Tamiya kit is amazing. I'm sure you'll have a great time on it.

So a little bit of an update. Last week wasn't productive, but I broke out the airbrush and sprayed on the Alclad Aqua Gloss. It goes on kind of milky but dries clear. It suggests on the bottle that you spray two medium coats, so that's what I did, at 20 PSI. I don't think it really affected the shine all that much, although I think it may be a bit too early to tell at this point...

I'll let this dry and see tomorrow if some of the shine is gone. I'd hate for it to go from a shiny metallic look to just a gloss-silvery look. Does that make sense?

Anyway, the next step is decals, and I'm still waiting for those in the mail from Poland. Hopefully those turn up any day now...

Thanks for looking!

SB

 

[StevenBills]

Got the decals in the mail today!

I'm really pleased with how good these look. Here's a shot comparing them to the ones I printed off myself:

As you can see, mine are slightly fuzzier and not as crisp. Very happy with these.

Now it's time to mask and paint the anti-glare panel as well as the walkway on the wings. Stay tuned!

SB

 

[kerick]

I like the shine in your photos and those decals from Poland look great!

 

[StevenBills]

Thanks kerick!

I finally got back to the Spit. I've been working on the new Bandai SD, thinking it'd be a quick build, but now there's LEDs involved, hull warping, etc... So I sucked it up today and cleared that off the bench and got this guy back out.

I masked the walkways and anti-glare panel, and painted them:

I painted the anti-glare panel with gloss black because there's some decals that go on either side of the cowl (the IWC sponsor logos). So once I get those two decals on, I'll hit it with some Testor's acrylic flat to seal them in. Then it'll be on to the rest of the decals!

That's all for now. Thanks for watching!

SB

EDIT: Oops, I just noticed that I missed some masking around the canopy. I'll hit that with some silver to fix it later.

 

[kerick]

This really looks great! Wish I could lay down silver like that!

 

[StevenBills]

Thanks! It's honestly all in the prep. A good gloss black base really helps the silver shine.

SB

 

[StevenBills]

Okie dokie, it's been a while since my last update, but I'm still going on this, albeit a bit slowly.

So I applied the IWC decals on the anti-glare panel, and they stuck out like a sore thumb. Like, the edges of the carrier film showed up really bad. So, I applied 2 coats of gloss clear, and then used a 3200 grit sanding pad to sand down the edges of the decals. Neat little trick.

Here's one decal before sanding:

And here's the other side after sanding:

Then I masked and sprayed silver around the canopy (fixing a slight error I made earlier, and then sprayed flat clear onto the anti-glare panel as well as the walkways, and here's how it came out:

I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, although it's not perfect. Getting the curve of the black around the cowl symmetrical on both sides was difficult, but I think it's pretty close enough. I also painted the exhaust pipes, but these photos are before I did that.

So the next step is to get all of the decals on, and then paint the the fabric control surfaces a dull aluminum color.

Thanks for looking!

SB

 

[Lunajammer]

Gosh, you're doing a nice job here. So much patience and skill. Keep it up.

 

[kerick]

That's awesome! I'm always impressed with such a great paint job!

 

[Analyzer]

The lettering looks painted on!

I hate masking curves, rounded edges

 

[StevenBills]

Thank you for the kind comments! It's going slowly, but surely. Analyzer thanks for that. The sanding trick really helped the decals look better. I hope to get on some more decals tonight. Stay tuned.

SB

 

[Madhatter]

I agree with Analyzer - the deals do look painted on now. It's looking fantastic. With the curved lines of the black, you could use the Tamiya 2mm white tape as it's flexible and made just for situations like this. None the less, you've done an awesome job on this and I'm looking forward to the next installment

 

[StevenBills]

Thanks for the kind words all. I have a little update for you: All the decals are on! A few issues with them, though. I messed up the G-IRTY decal on the left side. the R and T are skewed a bit, which I'm pretty bummed about. I'm going to try to fix them with some black paint, although part of me just thinks that that'll mess it up even more.

My four year-old son scratched the right round decal while it was still on the backing sheet. Again, I'll hope to fix it with some paint.

In that second photo you can slightly see some crazing on the inside of the canopy, most likely from not letting the suerglue cure fully before cementing the canopy on. I guess my PFM trick didn't really work. I had read somewhere that PFM protects the clear parts against crazing, but I guess not. Sad face.

Anyway, I'm getting closer on this one now. There's still a few details here and there to paint silver (the rear-view mirror, for example), but it's getting close to being done.

Thanks for looking!

SB

 

[StevenBills]

Calling this one done! It has sat on the desk while other builds caught my fancy, but I saw it today and thought I'd finish it up. Here are a few photos:

(don't mind the crooked G-IRTY decal )

Thank you all for watching this build! It has certainly been a learning experience with the NMF. If you'd like to see some more photos, you can see them on my Flickr here.

Again, thanks for watching, and if you have any questions, please ask away!

SB

 

[Madhatter]

that looks awesome Steven! I really like that. So much so that it inspired me to do the same scheme but in 32nd
I didn't notice the skewed G-IRTY and still haven't - but then I'm also not looking
Thanks for sharing something slightly different to the norm

 

[mugatu]

Amazing paintwork.
I wish I had your skills with fine painting and weathering. And constructing. And patience LOL

 

[Analyzer]

Excellent!

 

[StevenBills]

that looks awesome Steven! I really like that. So much so that it inspired me to do the same scheme but in 32nd
I didn't notice the skewed G-IRTY and still haven't - but then I'm also not looking
Thanks for sharing something slightly different to the norm

Thanks Madhatter I can't wait to see what you do with your Tamiya Spit!

Thanks for the kind words, all!

SB

 

[gedmac66]

Thanks for sharing this wonderful and informative build &
Congrats on producing a beautifully finished model !

Ged

 

[patrickivan]

Good stuff! Nice to see such a great job done to one of my top 10 fav planes.