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.