Spitfire PR.IG: Some Details and Decals

How am I going to open this blog post? With words and stuff. Progress is being made, here's some pictures.

What's with the tools? I need to measure a couple real thin strips of tape for masking, and the calipers are a great tool. I placed the Tamiya tape on top of some Scotch tape to keep it clean and maintain its stickiness.

I masked the areas of where the gun ports used to be to paint the red patches. The extremely thin strip of tape from the previous picture is in the middle.

Bottom masked.

All masked up and ready to go. Well.........

You know what? Let's not take any chances. Red would be hard to cover up with the light pink of the Spitfire.

Sprayed, the fastest part of this whole process. Now just need to undress.

Oooooo, the anticipation....

Tada! OK, not great, I ended up getting some bleed through. One thing I will take note of next time is to mix the paint a bit thicker when spraying on masked areas.

You may say some are uneven, but in real life they may have cut these patches by hand, so there.....justified.

Now that the major painting is done, it's decal time! I've always had trouble getting a nice smooth surface after applying the gloss coat. I thought the surface was a bit rough after painting, so I took a chance and took some sandpaper to it. I used Tamiya P2000 grit sandpaper and ever so lightly went over the surface. What do you know? It knocked the roughness down and gave me a much smoother surface. It also removed a few hairs that were embedded in the paint!

Like anything there were a couple of downsides. A couple higher protrusions lost some paint and will need to be touched up. A couple small areas were left with some streaking, which is the best I can describe it.

It was then given a couple coats of Alclad's Aqua Gloss all over.

Let's get to the decals.

Toothpicks worked pretty well for holding the Spitfire. Got my references and ready to go with Micro Set and Micro Sol.

The decal set I ordered from the UK.

So many options! You know what this means? I need to build more Spitfires!

I finally understand what a thin decal is like. I've only recently had experience with Tamiya decals that are nearly so thick, you could almost use a broomstick handle to push them around. These decals were much more difficult to move once they got on the surface. I had a little tearing on the blue roundel areas once they settled around a protrusion that I'll have to touch up.

I did the decalling over a couple of nights. It prevents you from putting your finger on a soft decal. I also don't like to rush the under decals before doing the red dots, since they are still soft and settling. I have some significant silvering on the "ZW" and the serial number, really disappointed about that. I may try carefully masking the "ZW" and spraying some thinned paint over the silvering to help blend it, a suggestion from Mr. D at the last club meeting. I'm just stuck with the serial number the way it is.

Some small details. I sprayed white on the tips and then yellow.

Painted with Model Master Aircraft Interior Black.

BAHHHHH! I also had a little bleed under here as well. It's not until after this that I read and realized that I should avoid thinning the paint as much before spraying.

That's all here for now. I'll be working on some of the smaller details, so hopefully I can wrap this up in a month or so! ...or so I say now.

Mini-Project Time! The Cheap Paint Station

Welcome. This is going to be one of those modelling related, but not an actual model update post. 

Problem: Painting and holding little tidbits.

Previous Solution: Toothpicks and skewers with alligator clips in some sort of foam or the plasticky foam stuff.

Issues with this solution: The foam is flexible, things flop around, the skewers are too long, it's difficult to stick things back in the foam while painting especially if you're using the blunt end.

New Solution: Use cut corrugated paper strips similar to the Mr. Hobby Paint Station. Why pay $13 when I always have cardboard and glue?

I started with the nicer flaps of a cardboard box.

I figured the dimensions I was looking for. One inch deep and six inches long.

Cut cut cut.

Stacked, the dry fit I suppose you could say. I actually used four inches wide.

Time to use some Tacky Glue and assemble.

Nice even coat.

Stuck together. Forever.

Added a bottom.

I now use one sided tooth picks, the kind that are pointy on one end and blunt on the other. I attached the alligator clips to the blunt end. This is a future project I have not yet posted, what could it be?

I made two of these over a couple of evenings. They work really well and are a great fit for toothpicks. If you want to use anything thicker than a toothpick then it may be tight. Corrugation sizes may vary.

For future versions I will create a jig to make sure that all the pieces are exactly the same in length and depth. Adding the bottom piece was a bit challenging because the depth wasn't flush on all the pieces.

One last item of note is that the Mr. Hobby Paint Station appears to use a wider corrugation. Thanks for stopping by!