This post describes my build of the Airfix Spitfire MKIIa (Al Deere) provided in the Airfix ‘Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight’ gift set. This Spitfire model is based on the one flown by New Zealand pilot Alan Christopher Deere during WWII.
I started the build by removing the cockpit and the 2 fuselage parts from the sprue. After cleaning them up I assembled the cockpit which went together with no issues. I used Tamyia Extra Thin which is a far cry from the thick cement glue I used in the 1970’s.
Once I had assembled these parts I primed the cockpit tub and fuselage sides with Vallejo grey primer. This was a departure from my first model, where I primed everything all at once while it was still attached to the sprue. I’ve seen that done several times on YouTube videos, but I felt that it actually complicated things for me.
Next I painted the cockpit and visible areas of the fuselage. I had to mix my own color from the paints supplied in the Vallejo set I’d purchased earlier. Most of the paints supplied with the Airfix gift set were unusable, so I had to mix the colors myself.
Once this had all dried I then added a gloss clear coat (Vallejo) and waited for that to cure. After the gloss coat had cured I added a wash made from heavily diluted Vallejo paints. I know this wasn’t ideal, but I was restricted by what I could afford to get at the time.
I moved on and closed the fuselage up fixing any joint issues using Vallejo plastic putty. There wasn’t too much work to be done and I started to tackle the issues I identified. Once I had sanded the down the joints I proceeded to add the wings and tail section. It all went together without any issues.
The Airfix Spitfire was beginning to look like an aircraft now. Once assembled I primed it with the Vallejo primer and let it all dry.
I allowed the final primer coats to dry and cure then moved on to adding color. This is where the Spitfire begins to look like the actual aircraft. As you can see, there is a lot of detail on these more modern toolings. Before painting I added all the ancillary parts required and then mixed a color I thought resembled photographs of the real Spitfire. I was pretty pleased with the result.
I moved on to the top of the Spitfire. This was an area that I was pretty nervous of dealing with. I had never painted a camouflage pattern before, especially with an airbrush and I must admit that the Gaahlari GTS-06 kit made this a lot easier. I removed the masking tape after applying the final color and was satisfied with how it came out. Getting this paint scheme under my belt gave me confidence for my next build. Once again, I had to mix the colors myself using reference photographs of the real Spitfire.
I then applied some gloss coats and got to work putting the decals on. I used Micro Set to apply them and once dry I applied liberal coats of Micro Sol to bed them down. They looked great when I had finished. I then airbrushed on a few coats of gloss to seal in the decals and was ready to move on to the next stage.
The first part of the weathering stage was to add some chipping to the wing roots and panel edges using some silver paint and a fine paintbrush. Then I brushed on some charcoal dust to create the exhaust staining. I sealed this in with a couple of matte coats of varnish. Next it was time to move on to using some oil paints to really dirty up the aircraft.
I had seen photos of the underside of a Spitfire that was really dirty and had a lot of oil streaks and grime so I tried to replicate this as well. I was really pleased with how it came out, but next time I probably won’t go so far. Next I added the soot streaks from the gun ports to replicate the gunfire from the eight machine guns.
The next step was to add a gloss coat to seal in all the hard work. I could see the finish line in sight. I went ahead and added the undercarriage, rear wheel, propeller and radio antenna to complete the construction. The last stage was laying down the matte coat and the wire from the antenna to the tail.
And here is the final result. I am really happy with what I achieved with this, only my 2nd, build. 🙂
Thank you for reading my post and I hope you enjoyed it. Next on the bench will be the Airfix Lancaster B III, so keep an eye out for that one as the build was/is a lot more complicated than the two spitfires I’ve build up to date.