Depicted as an aircraft flown by Squadron Leader John G. Pattison RNZAF , D.S.O. D.F.C. Legion of d'Honneur .
One day I came across this web site and after making contact with the owner I had some photos of Sqn Ldr Pattison sitting in OU-N and provided another photo of a line up of 485 Sqn MK Vb Spitfires, these gave me enough information to build this model.
The best thing is that this model ended up with Sqn Ldr Pattison and he wrote me a nice letter thanking me for it.
Sqn Ldr Pattison's wartime records is here.
The Kit
- 1/48 Tamiya Sptifire Vb Kit No. 61033
The Build
Like the other Tamiya kit I have built (Mosquito) it just fell together.In my limited experience Tamiya Kits are excellent and easy for even a amateur like me to build a good model.
My only minor criticism is the exhausts, so I added the excellent Ultracast exhaust set. I also added some seatbelts made from masking tape, and a piece of solder was used of the tube on the right side of the cockpit wall
I also dropped the elevators and moved the rudder, this was the first time I tried this and I was happy with the result.
Apart from those details and the custom decals the kit was made straight from the box.
Painting and Finishing
I used Gunze 302 for the dark green, Tamiya 54 for the dark gray, for the undersides I used Tamiya Sky Grey. As far as I'm concerned these are close enough for the RAF Dark Green, Ocean Grey and Medium Sea Gray colours, the Sky spinner was Tamiya Sky. The only acrylics my local shop stock are Tamiya, so this is why I use them a fair bit, plus I find them very easy to use and clean up well with water and IPA.
I did make a major cock-up which forced me to strip and repaint the upper surfaces of the wings, basically this was due to spraying to thin a coat of Tamiya smoke. The model even got thrown against a wall in frustration at this time, but thankfully no damage was done. I did lose the upper set of decals, but fortunately I managed to purchase another set from the Tamiya agent here in Australia.
It was this model that I finally mastered the spraying of Future (or One Go as I use) I applied several light coats of this, let is set for about 4 days or so then applied the decals. I used an oil wash of a mixture of raw umber and black. For the underside I used a dark grey.
Decals
As the kit doesn't have the type A and A1 decals that the 485 Sqn
Spitfires used I needed I had to buy some. I used the Xtradecal Sets
no's X031-48 (Type A), X032-48(Type A1) and the Tallyho number set.
A flat coat of Gunze Flat was applied and them some weathering with a silver artist's pencil. Another coat of Gunze Flat was applied and she was done. I also whipped up the mounting base to give me a nice platform to display my most recently finished project.
The Photos
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