Progress on the Spitfire PR.IG!

I've been having a hard time with the intro to this post without a figurative ton of sentence fragments and the like. I'll keep it brief and in bullet form to outclass the mental obstacle. Take that brain!

• Progress on the Spitfire PR.IG
• Yay!
• Delay due to:
• Stug IV build
• Work
• Lack of enthusiasm
• Apache build with Thing Two
• Nervous about the upcoming steps with resin underside, etc
• Other reasons not mentioned above
• Pictures and words below

Some stuff I picked up for this round of work.

I was able to pick up these half round strips at my local hobby store. Well actually, it was just one strip. As I was looking at the stock in the store, I noticed this package was supposed to contain five strips but it only contained one. Someone had pushed the other strips out of the bottom seam. I took it up to the register and I got the last strip for free! I can't stand thieves, but man, it really worked out in my favor. I only needed the one strip anyway. It was cut to length and cemented to the elevators. Did I mention this before?

I took a razor saw and cut notches for the hinges.

I then took some strip styrene, cut it to size and glued it into place.

The rough hinges. They will be sanded down and rounded prior to attachment.

I made some modifications to my jig since the last post. I glued the jig to a sheet of styrene and added a back plate for support. I taped it to the cutting mat so it wouldn't slide around and I also used a piece of double sided tape to hold the horizontal stabilizer in place as the elevator was glued on.

It worked pretty well.

On to the cockpit. After some test fits, I realized that the rear bulkhead needed to be 90º to the floor. It's not obvious per the directions. I had to un-glue the seat because when the bulkhead was at 90º, the strap pulled away from it. It would have been weird to have a seat belt that was coming off the rear of the seat attaching to nothing. The seat needed to be un-bonded and re-positioned.

After I sprayed flat black on all the seams, I found areas that needed some more filler. I used Mr. Dissolved putty to do that.

Seams were sanded down again and with the help of some embossing tape, the seam lines that should be present were re-scribed.

I primed and sprayed RAF Interior green on the front area to prepare to place the canopy.

Instrument panel in place.

It doesn't look too shabby in there.

Wings glued on and taped while the glue sets.

Here's one of the areas I was frightened of. The major resin enhancement. It's super glued in place.

I taped it up in preparation for gap filling.

I used Milliput Superfine White Putty. I pushed it in the gaps and smoothed it with a wet finger or with some random metal smoothing tool I have.

While it was still damp I took the tape off. I figured it would be easier before it hardened and I can address any issues while it was still malleable.

I've gotten the courage to sand all this down so it will blend together. I'm currently re-scribing panel lines back to where they need to be. Hopefully today I will fix up an area that I turned into a hot mess while scribing. I'll add a little super glue, let it cure about 20 minutes and sand it down and re-re-scribe the panel line.

Thing One's Apache Update and Transition

If I didn't mention it before, and I'm sure I did I will say it again, this kit is terrible. The part numbers are all over the place on the sprues. Instead of going in numerical order they go 20, 73 and 36 maybe right next to each other, so finding the part is especially difficult.

Since I've been woefully behind on creating posts, we've got a lot going on this time but at least we will finish up the construction phase. Let's get to it.

The underside coming along.

Why would a manufacturer put their name on the outside area of a part? Yet another irritation from this horrendous, garbage kit. Thanks Revell.

As I mentioned in the title, this post is about transition. Just as I had, Thing One lost interest. After the runaway success of the P-51 Mustang, Thing Two wanted a challenge. He took up the mantle of this ridiculously junky kit. Brace yourself for a lot of pictures.

Okay, I actually did the masking here. It took all of about 10 minutes. I wanted to see how fast I could do it throwing quality to the wind. It was mostly straight edges, easy peasy.

Snipping parts.

Glued and clamped the back wheel together.

Snipping.

Gluing.

Attaching the missiles and rocket pod. Thing One did the opposite side.

Gluing some random part.

Gluing the rear elevator together. This was a mistake, as I will point out later.

Get all that glue in there boy!

More gluing.

Thing Two used Micro Kristal Klear to attach the clear parts. Here he is using a moistened cotton bud to clean off the ooziness. Saliva on the cotton bud does wonders. I also didn't feel like getting water. I was conserving energy!

Tada! Thing Two did a pretty good job, especially during the dry fit. Things didn't exactly line up, but show me something on this kit that does.

The rear wheel, what an exciting picture.

I taught Thing Two that little parts disappear when they are snipped without being held. I showed him how to hold the part with tweezers and cut with the knife. Not bad for a 6 year old!

All the tiny hand holds and foot holds are what drove Thing One from this model. Thing Two took it on without complaint.

Gluing more foot holds.

See that horizontal bar at the top? The two elevator halves should have been glued with that sandwiched in between. Modifications had to be made. Just for the record, I wasn't really paying that close attention to the directions either.

Construction completed!

We gave up on some of the foot and hand holds because of the poor fit and some appeared to be missing. I said the heck with them and Thing Two agreed. Now that the assemblage has completage, the model is ready for priming and painting. We will be going for a non-traditional paint scheme for this model. The U.S. Army Helo Drab just seemed too pedestrian.

Thanks for checking in!