1/48 Eduard Spad XIII

 

Depicted as a aircraft flown by Captaine René Fonck, Escadrille SPA.103 ( GC.15 ), Fall, 1918

This wasn't on the radar at all but one came in one of my shipments of stuff to sell. And for some reason I decided I wanted to build it.

The Kit 

1/48 Eduard Spad XIII - Weekend Edition - Kit No. 8425.

Certainly not a weekend build (for me at least) as there are a ton of parts in the kit. For the scale it has an excellent cockpit although nothing of it will be seen. The decal instruments look great and seem much better than their more modern decals.

The idea was to build this straight from the box - decal seat belts in all. I first put applied the decal to some Tamiya tape and then carefully cut them out. Not ideal and to be honest the harness looks a little over scale. I'd probably should have used some generic PE belts

The fit on this kit isn't the best. I glued the 2 halves together but they were considerably (1.5 mm) thinner than the top piece. So I cut it down the centre and added some shims to widen the top. Not ideal.

This obviously meant the cockpit piece was to narrow so some evergreen stock was needed for it sit on. 

Some serious clamping was needed to get things into place. I still had a slight overhang so this was removed with a standing stick.

I'd posted this on my Facebook page and comment was asked about whether I'd considered the fit of the nose cowling after shimming the fuselage width. Well I hadn't  so I rushed away to check. 

Surprisingly, and thankfully it fit almost perfectly. This doesn't really make sense but I'll take it. 

There were some differences in length between the top and bottom pieces and the main   fuselage bits. I filled these with some card and sanded it flush (or nearly) using my Aluminum sanding blocks.

The kit survived the threat of Andering (i.e. getting binned)  and moved towards the paint shop.

The Paint

• Tan - Mr Color 44 Deck Tan
• Light Green  - SMS RAF Interior Green
• Dark Green  Mr Color Dark Green 320 JASDF F-1
• Brown  -Tamiya Nato Brown
• Black  - Gaianotes German Grey 
• Underside - Mr Hobby 85  - Sail colour 
• The Blue band was mixed from a couple of random blues and a purple to match the decals

These aircraft were, apparently, brush painted so I went with a hard edged scheme . I up-scaled the instructions and printed them out on self adhesive label paper. Then cut the masks out with scissors.

The Eduard decals went on without an issue. 

Rigging

• Ezy Line
• Ammo Fine rigging thread

One of the aims of this build was to try and improve my rigging. I really struggled with it on the Camel. Initially it went well as I decided to rig as much of it before I put the struts and top wing on. 

It all went to custard once I tried to add all those. The fit (and my preparation) wasn't up to it. In the end I managed to get it all together , but not without a few breakages and lot of swearing.  The photos, if you look close enough, will reveal some poor work.

 The Base

Another excuse to use the static grass applicator and use up a old crappy MDF base I've had lying around.

The Photos

1/48 Tamiya Churchill Crocodile

 Depicted as a vehicle from the 79th Armoured Division on North West Europe 1944

Thankfully Tamiya continue with their 1/48 Armour line and thankfully the sometimes release interesting non German subjects. For me the Churchill Crocodile certainly fits the interesting bill. 

The Kit 

• 1/48 Tamiya Churchill Mk. VII Crocodile, Kit No 32594

Aftermarket

• Stowage from the Tamiya and various Black Dog sets

The build is typical for these 48 scale kits i.e. straight forward. I decided not to fit the front guards as I thought the tracks deserved some more attention. I broke the tow cable on the left side during the weathering process so I removed it and ditched it.

The figure is nicely molded I had to include it. I'm pretty happy with how he looks.

Paint

• SCC 15 Olive Drab

I started with Mr Paints representation which I didn't really like . next was Mike Starmers Tamiya Mix for SCC 15 Olive Drab which I sure is accurate but I wanted the base coat a little greener so I added some more XF 58 Olive green.

Weathering

Mainly Pigments for the dust and Oils for the washes. I am still trying to master pigment application and I didn't on this model.  

The Base

One of the aims of this build to use my static grass applicator and have a go at slightly more complicated base.

I started with a piece of timber covered with air dry clay. When this dried it cracked . 

Those cracks were filled with more clay. Once there were no more cracks I used some Tamiya texture paints for the ground work

This was painted with a dust colour. Then the grass areas were painted with watered down white glue and a mixture of static grass applied with the applicator. 

Some wood pieces were also applied along with some more grass

Once everything had dried the grass that had not stuck was dusted off and a couple of sticks from the garden glued one 

The pigments used on the tank were added to the base

I added a lot of grass tufts to add some more interest And then attached the tank blending it in to the base as best I could.

The Pictures

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