Airfix 1/48 Seafire MK F XVII

[andy hood]

Started the build last night

Filled the ejector pin mark on the base of the seat with milliput

Seat , armour and bulkhead painted up

Added an etched harness from the spares box

[andy hood]

Rudder peddals ,control column and instrument panel painted and glued together

Fuselage halves painted and weathered

Fuselage halves glued together

The areas shaded black on the wing edges need thinning down a bit to ensure a good fit with the upper wings

[andy hood]

On the upper wing pieces there are two raised ejection pin marks (marked in black ) that need scraping away, thats as far as i have got so far, so far so good, hehe

[HOUSTON]

Andy

GREAT work so far..

Love the seat harness...

post more please.soon

[Col.]

Suspect you will have quite a lot of views on this thread Andy, myself included, as we take notes for our own builds.

Going well so far. Have you picked a colour scheme?

[Tim T]

Looking good. How are you finding it so far? I bought one the other day but with three GBs on the go I won't get near it for a while yet!

[Silver Fox]

Looking forward to the rest of this, I have one to build and another to do as a XV.

[Miggers]

Watching this as I have one meself.

It seems(looking at my own kit)that the 'pit is pretty good but those "rudder pedals" are pretty duff

and they missed the back of the fuel tank that can be seen behind the pedals.

Easy to rectify,but it would have been nice if they'd have been there.

One point with yours though Andy,shouldn't the interior be Humbrol 90 i.e "Sky" rather

78 Interior Green below the black?

I'll be interested to see Edgar and gingerbob's take on Airfix's colour calls for the cockpit

colours.

Mark

Edited June 18, 2011 by Miggers

[c.smith10]

[davidelvy]

Watching this as I have one meself.

It seems(looking at my own kit)that the 'pit is pretty good but those "rudder pedals" are pretty duff

and they missed the back of the fuel tank that can be seen behind the pedals.

Easy to rectify,but it would have been nice if they'd have been there.

Mark

I thought that, then peered into the cockpit of one of my 1/48 Spits. I couldn't see the pedals.

[Seahawk]

I thought that, then peered into the cockpit of one of my 1/48 Spits. I couldn't see the pedals.

Heresy, I know, to utter anything other than unqualified praise for Airfix products but take a look at the ejection slots. The two MG slots appear to be in different scales and the cannon slot is smaller than either of them. Solution: build with wings unfolded and do not mount on mirror. Turkish carpet makers used reputedly to introduce a mistake into every carpet they made as a reminder that only God is perfect: Airfix patternmakers currently seem to have adopted the same practice. Don't get me wrong, it's still a lovely kit which I look forward to building. Nice to see continued progress on the vexed issue of engraved panel lines.

[davidelvy]

Heresy, I know, to utter anything other than unqualified praise for Airfix products but...

I wasn't defending Airfix on this one. I find the the representation of the pedals odd, given the detail of the parts to which they connect. However, if I can't see it in the finished model I'm not that fussed. Your observation on the ejector chutes does trouble me as although it's not a difficult fix, but an annoying one.

Edit. I've just looked at the lower wing on my Mk XII kit. Unsurprisingly it is the same. Bizarre, but also annoying.

Edited June 19, 2011 by davidelvy

[Seahawk]

I find the the representation of the pedals odd, given the detail of the parts to which they connect. Check However, if I can't see it in the finished model I'm not that fussed. And check.

[Moofles]

while the rudder pedals and a bit clunky, and the ejector ports are...poor, the scope for improvement is massive, you could drill out the holes in the rear bulkhead behinds the pilots seat, do some serious scracth building in the cockpit, the kit has a fantastic base, and with some modellers madness can really turn into a winner, now if only they would do a MK V i would be very very happy.

[Miggers]

while the rudder pedals and a bit clunky, and the ejector ports are...poor, the scope for improvement is massive, you could drill out the holes in the rear bulkhead behinds the pilots seat, do some serious scracth building in the cockpit, the kit has a fantastic base, and with some modellers madness can really turn into a winner, now if only they would do a MK V i would be very very happy.

Agree completely Moofles.

All the lightening holes are earmarked to be drilled out in mine,new rudder pedals and the back of

the fuel tank fabbed.

Vic Schuerman did a first rate series of articles on building and detailing the Hobbycraft Seafire XV

some years ago in SAM.

I shall be digging them out of the loft methinks.

Mark

[Andrew Jones]

Look at the ejector ports on the Spitfire XII in the first photo in the previous post on Britmodeller http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.p...t=0&start=0 , they appear exactly as on the Airfix kit.

[c.smith10]

although the ports are different sizes as seen here

i do think airfix have over done it!

[andy hood]

Watching this as I have one meself.

It seems(looking at my own kit)that the 'pit is pretty good but those "rudder pedals" are pretty duff

and they missed the back of the fuel tank that can be seen behind the pedals.

Easy to rectify,but it would have been nice if they'd have been there.

One point with yours though Andy,shouldn't the interior be Humbrol 90 i.e "Sky" rather

78 Interior Green below the black?

I'll be interested to see Edgar and gingerbob's take on Airfix's colour calls for the cockpit

colours.

Mark

Opps my mistake, the interior should indeed be sky and not interior green, i did a quick repaint of the cockpit yesterday hehe,

[andy hood]

Got a bit more construction done over the weekend, the build is going good, there are a few gaps here and there on some of the joins, but nothing a bit of filler wont cure, i have found the plastic to be soft with this kit and have taken care removing pieces from the sprues, (some parts are attatched to thick sprue gates too)

Rudder, horizontal stabilizers and catapult hook fitted to fuselage

Wings glued together and added to fuselage

Underside, radiators built up and glued on

[andy hood]

I added a plasticard shim to the under wing to fuselage joint, as i thought the gap was a bit wide for milliput or the like to fill it

Bit of a gap on both sides of the main wing to fuselage join to fill

Bit of a gap to fill on the tailwheel compartment too

Dodgy? shell ejection ports on the underwings

[Killingholme]

That lower wing-to-fuselage joint looks a very poor fit indeed. Not something I expected to see.

I model 1/72, but I am still really tempted with one of these... thanks for the build thread. I bet you'll get a lot of nosey people like me dropping by!

Will

[Martian]

Its coming along nicely and thanks for being our guinea pig with this kit. We know whaqt to watch out for now.

Martin

PS: Which colour scheme are you going for?

Edited June 20, 2011 by martin hale

[Miggers]

That lower wing-to-fuselage joint looks a very poor fit indeed. Not something I expected to see.

I model 1/72, but I am still really tempted with one of these... thanks for the build thread. I bet you'll get a lot of nosey people like me dropping by!

Will

I do 1/72nd too Will,but this screamed "Buy me Miggers,you know you want to".......

So I did.

I'll do my usual trick with fighters Andy,fit the upper wing panels first to get a perfect root joint

and then fettle the lower panel to fit.

I'm going to modify mine to have the port wing down and the starboard folded,a bit of careful

cutting on the lower main panel at a convienient panel line and fit the folded stub should sort it.

The line is right by the starboard rad.

Mark

[gingerbob]

It seems(looking at my own kit)that the 'pit is pretty good but those "rudder pedals" are pretty duff

and they missed the back of the fuel tank that can be seen behind the pedals.

One point with yours though Andy,shouldn't the interior be Humbrol 90 i.e "Sky" rather

78 Interior Green below the black?

I'll be interested to see Edgar and gingerbob's take on Airfix's colour calls for the cockpit

colours.

Sorry, a bit late to the party.

Oh no, not me- I'm deferring to Edgar on the subject of cockpit colours. I haven't run across any recipes in my research, as far as I can recall, and I haven't had the opportunity to examine Spitfire/Seafire private areas to the degree that I would like (all in the name of enlightenment, of course!)

I shouldn't think that you can see the back of the fuel tank, as a bulkhead was added early on during Mk.V production, thanks to all the burn injuries during the Battle of Britain.

I haven't got one of these yet (did get the XII) but I have to say perfection or no the Sea XVII kit is one I'm very excited about!

bob

[Hepster]

I bought one of these at Kemble on Sunday, so I'm keen to see how the build goes.

Seahawks quip about Turkish carpets notwithstanding, the ammo ejector ports do look bit weird.

But it does look good, and there aren't any issues that the average modeller can't cope with. Besides, I've built an Airfix TSR.2, so I should be able to cope with any minor fit problems.

So far as I am concerned, the Seafire XVII is another great Airfix kit that deserves every success (even if I got it cheap).