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Hello
all, and may I say what a fantastic website this is! As this is my first
submission I would like to say many thanks to all the contributors and how I
hope to aspire to the talents of the many modellers who display their fantastic
models on this web site.
I
used to build model kits when I was a child and spent all of my pocket money on
them to the despair of my parents who, although it kept me quiet for several
hours thought it was a waste of good money! Many years went past and I had the
‘urge’ again to have a go at building a plastic kit. I did a bit of research
and found that 1/48 quarter scale was the ‘choice’ of the pro modellers and
so I purchased an ICM Spit Mk IX from my local hobby store which had previously
been reviewed on this site.
The
kit itself on initial inspection looked very good even though the plastic was a
bit soft. It has lots of additional ordinance you can choose from but I wanted
to build a clean Mk IX. Then we come to the engine. As I am a novice at building
kits and naďve about how modellers these days are sticklers for accuracy I
jumped in feet first and wanted to show that RR Merlin. I quickly found out that
it wasn’t accurate in scale or detail and worst of all the kit cannot be built
with its panels on if the engine is fitted. I decided to work around this
problem and have the panels removed and soldiered on. The next problem I found
was that the wings did not fit to the fuselage correctly and so I was welcomed
to the world of filler – something I never did when I was a kid! Fill, sand,
fill, sand was the order and this was taking some of the gloss off reuniting
myself with the hobby again. However I persisted to the best of my ability as I
was determined that I was going to finish this damned thing!
Painting
was a breeze in comparison to building this model and for me was the most
enjoyable part. I used Tamyia acrylics over the top of enamel undercoat. Panel
lines were drawn in by very fine pencil and then a coat of paynes grey oil
paint. The decals on the original model didn’t look in very good condition as
they were old so I bought some fantastic Techmod ones which applied very well
over a couple of coats of Johnsons Klear. To finish the kit I sprayed it with
matt acrylic varnish.
Overall
I really enjoyed this kit as it introduced me to new modelling techniques that I
wasn’t aware of. I made several mistakes throughout the project but have
learned from them (I hope!). I am now looking forward to building more kits and
working on my currently poor skills and hoping to contribute further to this
site…
Lee
Click on
images below to see larger images
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