Peter s

Properly printed decals would be the most useful thing. I've printed my own before but white on clear is virtually impossible to do at home. The old airfix club "flames of victory" Swordfish/Sea Hurricane combo actually came with two wings (cannon or .303 versions) and the Spit Va kit has loads of extra spit parts too. A Spit IX with cannon wings and "no weapons but two downward camera wings" and an extra pointed rudder would give you a good IX and an "almost" for the NHS version. The side camera clear part from the XIX or a blank plate would potentially allow you do an accurate PR armed IX (and easy conversion to do anyway with a standard IX) I do think the current catalogue is very short on Spitfire variants but the new tool Vc is a good start.

Thats a mistake I made with mine. Its got tanks on the inners and matra's on the outer. It LOOKS good 😆 You can't help but think the RAF missed a trick there. Ditto the Tucanno. Good COIN-OP aircraft in other airforces but ours couldn't carry weapons.

I've a mate in Australia who bought a Beaufighter from a local hobby shop (Closing down sale... some things are similar all over the world) He got two Sprue C's and no sprue A. Parts service couldn't help in March but a parcel arrived last week with a Sprue A. Well done spares dept for that one too. I've only tried it once and it was very unhelpful with me but being pragmatic its a courtesy service and one provided by no other manufacturer so I should be more grateful.

Thanks! It took me years not to panic when something looks wrong or overdone half way through a build. Learning to have faith in the final result doesn't come easily. I've got the Vintage classic SM-79 part built now and its the same.... its looking rough as hell at the moment but once the decals are on and all the fine details painted I'm hopeful it'll be worth sharing shelf space with the Heinkel.

It does help that I work in a lab because generally speaking these thinners are simple mixes of chemicals and you can buy in bulk for a fraction of what model shops charge. I'm most familiar with Tamiya acrylic thinner. Thats about 50% isopropyl alcohol, 50% water with a bit of glycerine as a thickener/retarder. You can google the exact recipe easily. You can buy a LITRE of glycerine for about £6. Your pharmacy will sell you the Isopropyl alcohol (as surgical spirit) for the same. Its "funny" what you describe because I've rarely had the same problem. That makes me think the real reason for your problem isn't the paint. What do you prime with? Try a can of vallejo spray primer and see if you have the same issue. I used to use that religiously on 1/16 resin figures (which is the reason I have so much model colour) but with planes I now just prime with a XF- tamiya by airbrush so I don't brush paint large areas with vallejo anymore. My painting area is probably 18-26'C if thats relevant. Our house is fairly humid normally to the point I bought a dehumidifier which pulls loads of water out of the air. If your house is unusually dry that may be a factor too.

You're quite right. I actually DID make an XI (fairly well too) using the old Airfix IX bit as a base, the wings from the XIX and a pointed rudder surplus from an Eduard kit. I gave it US stars though as I had a few other PIR in RAF colours. Unless my brain is going foggy again I thought the main difference between X and XI was pressurisation? I had a few weeks of photo-recon fun and made an armed Mk IX Spit recon version (as used for Market Garden) also based on the old IX kit. Thats pretty easy.

I bought 100 kids paint brushes for £10 on eBay... ie 10p a brush. Use them and throw them away each time!

Just to confirm: model COLOUR ie the brush painting stuff, not model AIR the spraying stuff? I've never really needed to thin either for its intended purpose. If the colour starts to dry up on the palette a little tap water is all it needs. COLOUR thins nicely with pure ethanol for spraying (it needs heavily thinned) but pure alcohol curdles AIR. I've got a bottle of proper AIR thinner which I only use when I need a thin paint (like blotches on the side of a bf109) and that works really well. A lot of people swear by car screenwash. Its a mix of water with some meths and a little detergent. If you can some handy why not try it on a something that doesn't matter and see if its any use? I can sort of see the point for retarding drying if you're brush painting in warm weather but for spraying as long as it doesn't dry in the airbrush the faster it dries the better especially if you're masking. Wet paint getting under the tape is the last thing you want. Thats why I like pure alcohol or surgical spirit. The paint sprays on touch dry instantly

I've had conversations with traders and my understanding is that retail outlets get first dibs on stock that arrives at the Airfix warehouse, therefore if there is high demand for any particular product it won't show up on the webstore. If you're searching for any Airfix products, Jadlam are likely to come up trumps. That makes sense and is true in the wider world too. The very best single malt whiskeys go to people like Bells, Grouse etc who are big buyers. What goes in the bottle labelled "finest 15 year old single malt" and sells for £40 a bottle is the stuff they can't sell to the blenders who make £12 bottles..... (you can tell A) I like my malts & B) I worked in a high end off licence for 6 months). I wonder if Jadlam et al negotiate a lower price by buying bulk too. That would be expected.

Easier said than done. I think the Spit in question is a MkX PIR (4 bladed prop and a merlin to my eye) not the Mk XIX PIR airfix do with a 5 blade prop and a Griffon engine. I had the same thought (my wife is NHS and actually likes Spitfires) but the best fit for the actual Spit is the nasty Special Hobby Spit X.

The reason I mention it is that I did a red arrow a few years back & if you fit them during the build you can't get the long white underwing decals fitted. It shouldnt be a major issue for the red-white-blue one though as you mask the red wing tips front to back, not side to side. Its something that really isn't made clear in the instructions for the red arrow though and its a major problem when you fit the decals. I had to carefully slice them into bits and slide each section into place. Actuators sound like the correct word.

I did a Spit V from a Norwegian squadron with those markings. It was unclear whether they were raid markings or a "training thing" from the immediate run up. The Norwegian Spit Vs may have been playing the "bad guys" in the training. Either way it made a cool model. I tend to wince at Special Hobby. They CAN build up into good kits but they're fiddly as anything at times and I tend to enjoy painting far more than building so this little one did me nicely. Its rare I don't finish a kit at all (they may not survive for long on the shelf but I generally finish them). One aborted early on was a special hobby barracuda. I just made a mess fixing tiny bits onto the wings & knew the paint job wouldn't hide it. I keep mentioning Clostermann (maybe because the Big Show is cheap on Kindle at the moment so I downloaded it.... I've got the paperback too). Whirlwinds dive bombed the Munsterland but I don't think they got mentioned in the book.

I wondered why the above was moderated for language. Should read "HORNBY" collectors 😆

1/72 109's are as small as I can really model. I've done a Tiger moth competently but only competently. The tiny size was one of the things that limited its development beyond the G. Bigger and bigger engines and weapons on the same small wing didn't really work out. The Spitfire was capable of evolving much further. That swiss story is dodgy from start to end.....! Probably not a story they like repeated either. 109s (especially CASA and Czech copies) ended up with a variety of weird power plants, most of which made them dangerous to fly so I understand why they wanted proper DB605s

Its good enough... D's are rare. The reason I mention it is that in "the big show" its one of the few planes that gives Clostermann trouble and a FW190-D / Tempest both in new tool would be a great dogfight double.

Looking very good so far. I'm not sure what the technical name for the 8 little vanes under the wings but there's pluses and minuses to fitting them during the build. Its easier to paint the plane with them off (essential for a red arrows because of the wing decals) but a pain fitting them neatly after painting without damaging the finish

I was surprised the Gladiator was the most issued kit so you may have a point. Airfix's usual criteria is that it favours British and favours models not represented well by other firms so the Whirlwind ticks both of those boxes. For a limited production run of aircraft it fought hard so there's a fair few decal options. If it had been half the price and I could have picked up two I had the crazy idea of a "what if" and paint it in D-day stripes with 60lb rockets.

Not a chance..... as a financial investment something is worth what someone else will pay and if you have reason to think that in the future someone will pay more then its a sensible buy whether its an airfix kit, a stamp, a painting or a Dutch tulip bulb (really... 16th century Tulip bulbs sold for more than houses in Holland). As a model kit to build its inferior to a £7 new tool. I've bought a few antiques on eBay recently (the Whirlwind was £25) but those are to be built. My favourite James May program had him outbid a load of Horny collectors for a vintage model train then in front of them he ripped the box apart and played with it. Good on him!

A new tool Tempest would compliment both the Typhoon and Me 262 nicely. A 190-D would be a fine rival too.... I've the old Airfix lined up to do a new v old with the new -190 D and it looks in need of a re-work. A lot of late war Tempests (ie none D-day stripe) had massive Yellow outlined roundels on the wings. P51s kept mistaking them for 190s (understandable from some angles especially the Tempest V with the radial style cowling) Clostermann seemed to have more problems with the USAAF than the Luftwaffe in his!

Cool. I haven't looked recently but at one point my trio were the only pics on the product page. The red/white/blue one worked pretty well too. I always used to fear paint or glue on canopies so ended up with some bad fit issues fitting at the end (A4's too.... ) I've got more confidence in a good masking tape now so its less of a problem.

I think I saw one in Maplins (the now defunct electronics store) a few years back. I wasn't modelling aircraft at the time but it was an absolute bargain. It would be great if everything was new tooled but this one is pretty sound as it is. I'd save the limited number of likely new tools for something more popular/harder to source. The new tool Beaufort was a perfect example.

Model colour and a big wide brush normally works for me. I rarely did HUGE areas but I used to do 1/16 scale and even an oil drum in that scale is a big lump of plastic.

Both are brilliant jobs! I rather like the idea of the underwing rockets but the kit ones are a bit crude. They're remarkably easy to scratch. Just evergreen styrene tube, the tip of a cocktail stick for the rocket and some brass wire to mount the tubes. PS I've got a fair few RAF pilots serving in the Luftwaffe too. The 1960s mask is quite good for a German fighter, especially a jet like a 262 but its the helmet thats utterly wrong. The "other pilot" you often get with the weirdly spread legs is the best of the lot but you have to chop him off mid thigh to fit a lot of builds.

I approve! I think the airfix Va kit is basically a IIa. There's a choice of spinners and all sorts of spare parts in that box. BTW for radio aerial cables I use 0.2mm brass rod for the horizontal and for the smaller wire hanging down a bit of my wife's hair. Thats long and reddish blonde and often sticks to models whether I want it or not. Its about the right scale and sticks easily with superglue gel.

WOW! Just shows these older kits can build up well. That looks great. I'm a massive Pierre Clostermann fan so did the Academy as its his version. Damned fine job on the stripes too.