1/48 Hasegawa Spitfire Mk.VII

by Alan Williamson

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The Kit:    Hasegawa Spitfire Mk. VII kit No. 09408

Additions:    Eduard British seat belts

Construction

The kit is built OOB expect for the seat belts, I started this kit back in 2002 with the majority of the construction being do then. The kit was pretty straight forward to build, and the cockpit seemed well detailed so there was no need to buy a resin one. The only problem I had was attaching the wing tips, Hasegawa gives the modeller the chose of two different Spitfire the Mk.VII and the Mk.VIII each has a reshaped wing tip thus the tips are separate. For some reason the wing tips would not line up with the wings. 

In picture 05 and 06 you can see some of the work I had to do to get the wing tips and wings level.  I had to build the wing tips up with Putty to get both edges to line up.

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Pic 5 Pic 6

This is about the time I stopped building this kit and put it back in its box. In 2005 I brought the kit back out and picked up were I left off the wings... Puttying, wet rubbing and re-scribing more work went into the wings than building the kit.  I then put the kit back in the box and moved on to Jet kits, that is until late 2006 it was time to finish the Spitfire off I had to still do a little more work to the wings, but finally the wings were right and it was time for paint.

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Painting

The kit was painted using Humbrol and Model Master paints, with the majority of the kit constructed it was time to go over the kit in a metal finish followed by a gloss clear. Once the clear was dry I placed the colour on to the kit. When the paint was nearly dry I placed bits of masking tap over the paint and ripped it off to give the Spitfire body a chipped look and with that I followed up with more gloss.

 

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Finish

It was time to place the decals on which Hasegawa supplied, with the decals applied it was time for the final cote of gloss clear.  The next step weathering...a bit of pastel chalk was used for the panel lines and Tamyia weathering master kit was used for the exhaust stains and gun pod stains on the kit, followed up with a cote of matt clear to seal the pastel.  Last step was the cockpit canopy, landing gear and fiddley bits and that is that Spitfire finished. 

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Thanks
 
Thanks to Craig at Areoworks for supplying the Eduard seat belts.  For any information on what else Craig supplies drop him a E-mail at aeroworks@iprimus.com.au and he will send a product list.
 
Thanks to Steve Bamford for endless work on this site.
Alan 

Photos and text © by Alan Williamson