Airfix Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VIII 1:24

Wings

The whole lower wing is moulded in one large piece. A lot of strengthening spars and ribs have to be added here, and the instructions state that these should be all dry-fitted until everything is in place, which makes sense. It all went together very well and once all the parts were dry-fitted and locked together, everything was glued up to make a very solid assembly.

The guns were also fitted. All the panels are going to be closed on this build so none of this will be seen.

Once the lower wing assembly was dry, it was carefully lined up and fitted to the fuselage. I also prepped the upper wings too.

The rest of the large main assemblies were built up too. Rudder, elevators and coolers/radiators.

The engine cowlings were built up into one assembly. I added just enough of the engine to support the prop and exhaust stacks. It was then time for the main event…building these sub-assemblies into a recognisable Spitfire.

All the assemblies went together superbly with no issues at all. No gaps were evident anywhere, great stuff Airfix!

I also added the wing tips here too, as well as the windscreen and rear cockpit clear part. The exhaust stacks were fitted at this point as well.

The whole assembly was then masked off ready for paint.

Painting

The whole assembly was given a good coat of Mr Surfacer 1500 black thinned with Levelling Thinner. As you can see, all joins were pretty much perfect. There is no filler here at all, all credit to Airfix.

I added the prop parts to this paint stage too.

I then added the under shading layer using light grey, and white to highlight the upper most surfaces.

The topcoat was then applied using Tamiya lacquer LP11 Silver. This is the first time I have used these lacquer paints from Tamiya, I was very impressed! I thinned with the Tamiya Lacquer Thinner, Retarder Type. They sprayed great and left a perfectly smooth finish.

Then onto the finishing touches to the paint scheme. The wing tips were done in red and yellow stripes and the anti-glare panel with MRP-137 Jet Black.

I thought that the silver topcoat would cover all the pre-shading, but I was happy that it turned out okay in the end. There was still a subtle shading effect evident that looked pretty nice.

At this stage I wanted to try out the decals on the rudder. I did think about painting these stripes but elected to try the decals instead to save a bit of masking. Masking around the elevators and getting the stripes all the same would have taken a bit of time! The decals were really good, and once dry looked painted on anyway, happy days!

I painted and decaled the prop blades and spinner too while the main paint was drying.

Decals…