1:48 ICM-a-'gawa Spitfire (or alternately titled: "A Tale of Franken-Spitfires")

JMac

cut. glue. paint. repeat.
Joined
May 24, 2009
Messages
2,812
I love to start new builds, finishing however is the real challenge. Early next year I want to commit to a "side-by-side build" with a friend; during that build we are going to both build the same kit at the same time. But before that I want to clear my bench of some started shelf queens.

This thread is for a couple builds I started in 2013 but never finished. My intent was to take the best features of two spitfire kits and merge them into a wonderfully accurate Spitfire IXc. Remaining parts from both kits would go towards making a somewhat less uber Spitfire XVI. Shortly after starting the project Eduard released their brand spanky new and best in class Spitfire IX kit, and I lost total motivation to finish up.

Now I'm out to complete both spitfires once and for all. Hoping that some support and encouragement from my fellow SMA'ers will help to push me to the finish line.

The next series of updates will be just getting everyone to date on the progress of the build. There is so much that I can't do it in one sitting.

Where I started;

The two kits I based the project on. The Hasegawa (re-boxed in a Revell package) Spitfire fuselage is well known to be too short, where as the ICM fuselage is generally agreed to be the correct scale length. The wings of the Hasegawa are way nicer in terms of detail than the ICM. I planned to join the ICM fuselage to the Hasegawa wings and tail...easy right? :p

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I planned to add the following after-market to my build.

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As well I wanted to include the Aires cockpit (originally made for the Hasegawa kit). Although very well detailed and moulded, fitting this unit into the ICM fuselage would come to sap a ton of build joy from the project.

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Thanks for looking. The next update will cover the test fit.

Jason
 
Here are pictures of the initial test fit of the ICM fuselage to the Hasegawa wings. This test fit helped me to decide where I was going to cut and how much of a fit issue I had on my hands.

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The biggest issues I could foresee were;
1) the fit of the wing roots (too tight towards the front of the wing and too loose at the rear of the wing)
2) a huge gap on the underside
3) the ICM fuselage halves were slightly warped, and the front of the fuselage was not sturdy (making cutting location estimates difficult)
4) the ICM parts were not as nicely moulded as the Hasegawa parts, and I found sink marks and flash in many areas.

I decided to fix the underside gap I would swap the rear triangular portion of the wings.
Here's the cut to the wings and the tool I used. The ICM wing is blue-grey, Hasegawa is the mid-grey.
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After that I cut the tail from each fuselage half at the same panel line using a razorsaw. I also pre-cut the areas around the cockpit access door.
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Although most of the pictures I show are for the Spitfire IX (ICM fuselage with Hasegawa wings), the above steps were duplicated for the Spitfire XVI (Hasegawa fuselage and ICM wings).

Next update will be about the resin wrangling.
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.

Jason
 
Happy New Years Eve SMA. :)

I just wanted to continue the background to this project.

After cutting up the fuselages, I began to paint and fit some of the resin aftermarket I had bought for the project.

Below is the painted Aires resin cockpit. This was painted using Vallejo Model Color and Model Air paints. The entire cockpit is Aires, with the exception of the seat which is Ultracast. The Ultracast seat was slightly modified, by adding parts carefully removed from the Aires seat (the seat adjustment lever).
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Here is the (almost) stock Hasegawa cockpit painted up. Again I added the Ultracast seat - I prefer the moulded resin seatbelt to PE ones. The IP is the kit decal.
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Once I had the cockpits assembled I began to look toward fitting them into the respective fuselages. In order to fit the resin I had to remove the moulded on details and then thin the fuselage walls. The walls were sanded and scraped as thin as I felt I could risk - by the time I stopped removing material they were less than 1 mm thick.
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I closed the fuselage and added the tails with a shim to replace material lost from my saw kerf and general sanding. I also finished removing the side access door, and assembled the complicated ICM nose.
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The Hasegawa fuselage inside was painted, the cockpit installed and closed. The ICM tail was added to the Hasegawa fuselage exactly as described above.

After closing the fuselage I added the top halves of the wings to the assembly. My estimates on cutting and fitting proved to be inaccurate; the ICM fuselage was slightly warped and very flexible. This meant that I first cut too little off and then too much. Once I fixed my cutting goof-ups, I shimmed the joint with PS and added a spreader to the fuselage.
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Surgery then commenced on the Hasegawa wing bottom. The moulded wheel bay was removed, a Vector resin replacement was fitted, painted and assembled. Also you can see how I grafted the rear triangle of the ICM lower wing to the Hasegawa lower wing.
The original moulded wheel bay is shown on the left, the right shows the amount of material removed to fit the Vector replacement.
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Vector bay fitted on the right side.
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The inside of the resin bay (fitted to the wing), prior to painting and assembly.
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I'm thinking one more of the background updates and then I'll have everyone who's interested caught up with the builds. Sorry about the length, a lot happened. I originally had a different intent for sharing this project, so my photo quality will drop soon as I shift from less interest in documenting the build(s) and more time actually building.

Thanks for stopping in and looking.
Jason
 
Really interesting to see how you tackle this. Taking notes.




Joe
 
Thanks Q and Joe. :)

With todays update I'm crossing the border from the past to the present.

Here's a set of pictures of the Spitfire XVI. With everything assembled I began to blend in the seams. Seams tended to be especially bad at the joints where parts from one kit interfaced with the other. In these pictures the wings are just "tacked" to the fuselage, I still had to finish gluing and filling the joints; some of the gaps are quite noticeable.
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The process was repeated for the Spitfire IX.

Beginning of the seam filling and blending for the XVI.
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Sorry no pictures of the IX at this stage. ::)

Filling and blending generally obliterated panel lines and details in the affected areas. I checked my progress with the old tried and true "prime and sand" method. The following pictures are of the builds today; I've begun to re-scribe and restore lost panel lines and details.
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As always, thanks for stopping in and taking a look. Questions and comments are welcome.

Jason
 
Quite the challenge but it looks like you are moving right through. Looks very good.




Joe
 

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