Airfix 1/48 - Seafire F.XVII

[jjp_nl]

So, I recently started the Eduard BF-110G build, but I have the feeling that build is gonna be slow going for the time being. I wanted to do a more straigt forward build to go with it. Back in July I got this new Seafire XVII as a birthday present, and since I like the looks of this puppy I decided to have a crack at one of the latest offerings of the folks in red. I found it to be a surprisingly big box and I wondered why that might be, but once openend it was quite clear why the solid top opening box was so big. Airfix provided two sets of wings, in the shaps of parts used for to build it up with wings folded and another set of parts to build it up with wings down.

At first glance it seems like a very nice kit indeed, perhaps apart from the panel lines being a little heavy handed (this time around I intend to spray a few coats of primer on the model to hopefully make to panel lines appear a little less heavy handed)

Off wel go:



PICS 1-4: The boxart on the rather large and sturdy top opening box, and the contents of the box consisting of two large sprues, a sizeable decal sheet (with a good amount of stencils, and markings covering three different a/c) and a seperately bagged set of clear parts
PIC 5: Cutting and cleaning up some of the parts needed in the near future was the first thing I did.
PIC 6: With the major parts of the airframe cut from their sprues and cleaned up it was on to a little fryfitting. It seems the overall fit will be very good. I did spot a few areas that might need a little filling and sanding (mostly the join of the fuselage halves) but other then that it should be pretty straight forward as far a filling and sanding is concerned.
PIC 7: Here's where it gets interesting. Upon close inspection of the wing parts I've found that this particular shot suffers from some serious sink marks. I rubbed the wings down with some high grid sand paper to make sink marks better visible and ran a bead of Mr.Surfacer 1000 over the sink marks I've found and then gently sanded this down until the sink marks blend in with the rest of the surface. The upper surfaces suffers a tad from sink marks, but it's easy to fix.
PIC 8: However the sink mark mania was only just beginning. The lower surfaces had A LOT of 'em. These parts were on the receiving end of the same treatment as the upper surfaces of the wings. Slightly rubbed the surface down with fine sand paper to reveal sink mark, apply a bead of Mr.Surfacer 1000 to them and then gently sand it down until the sink marks are gone. Again fairly easy to fix, but I do feel Airfix didn't quite pass mark as far as quality control goes. It's a brand new kit for G*ds sake. I don't mind an occasional sink mark, it happens in this line of business, but just look at the lower wing surface.... Either way...it's fixed now and checked with a brushed on coat of water soluble black paint (hence the black panel lines) Looks OK, and I'm pretty sure a few coats of primer will also help to cover up any remaining depressions in the plastic)
PIC 9: After the whole sink mark business was done I went on to glueing some parts into the interior. Not exactly a 3rd party resin cockpit set as far as details go, but still, reasonably well done. The appropriate colors and some dry brushing should go a long way in picking out what details are present.Interesting note is I glued these parts in place with Acetone. I saw the guy gluing entire models together with Acetone and was rather impressed by how his seams ended up looking much cleaner and how much less workin in cleaning them up he had. So I gave that a try as well, and indeed it works great. Kinda like Tamiya extra thin except even thinner and way cheaper, and on top way cleaner joins.

[Airframes]

Good stuff Jelmer, looking forward to the build progressing.

[Crimea_River]

So am I. I've seen a couple of builds of these new Airfix Spits and they looked pretty good when done. I wasn't aware of all those sink marks though.

[Airframes]

Me neither - think I'd better check the Mk22/24 I've had stashed away for the last 13 years !

[jjp_nl]

Me neither - think I'd better check the Mk22/24 I've had stashed away for the last 13 years !

I think the MK.22/MK.24 is OK, I have that one sitting in the stash as well, and all is good with that one. Pretty difficult to compare a brand new tooling of a kit with a completely different kit of over decade ago. Perhaps Hornby pressed the actual companies who produce their kits (I wanna bett these are 3rd party companies) to deliver the goods maybe leading to sprues being removed from the molds too fast. I recall a somewhat similar thing back when their new tool BF-110 just came out. wings as warped as a wheel. Asked for replacements and guess what I've got me two additional pair of wings and each set was even more warped then the one before (and I wasn't the only one)

[Crimea_River]

Jelmer, if you like, I can post a bunch of detail shots I took of a Seafire Mk XV on the weekend.

[jjp_nl]

Jelmer, if you like, I can post a bunch of detail shots I took of a Seafire Mk XV on the weekend.

That would be nice indeed Andy! I\m particularly interested in a few pic's of things like wheel wells, radiators and such. The office is all but done now and without aftermarket stuff to spice that up there not much to it really.

I also took out my Spit 22./.24 to check for sink marks, just to be sure. Wings are 100% OK. one or two odd sink marks on the fuselage, but no drama there. Again, it struck me what a great kit that it. The surface detail is so much more subtle (right up there with your average Tamigawa kit if you ask me) compared to even te newest Airfix kits. Looking at it made me decide to get a resin cockpit and vac-form canopy for it. That should bring the interior to about the same level as the exterior.

I'm stil hoping Hornby will start using that kit (and the Seafire .47) as an example to raise the bar a bit as far a the quality of surface details goes. They've shown they can do it. Also, hope Airfix will re-issue the Seafire .47 very soon, an odd beast with that contro-rotating prop.

[Wayne Little]

Still looks like a reasonable kit, with some challenges...

[jjp_nl]

Perhaps the sink marks on my kit are an anomaly. I too have read quite a few full and partial build reports of this kit prior to giving my own a go (to be aware of possible areas that might need special attention) and I too (like Andy) have found nothing on a lot of sink marks. I have to say, once you get the sink marks out of the way it's a very straight forward build and goes to together extremely well. Perhaps best to show some further progress.

PIC.1-3: The office is a tad basic (as always with Airfix) I decided to stick with that and not go into full scale detailing every little bit (I want to focus on the exterior with this one)
PIC.4: Fuselage halves joined
PIC.5:Wings and (partial) elevators) glued in place.

A little smear of filler will be needed here and there (mostly the major joins), but nothing too dramatic imho. All in all this is has been a joy to put together sofar. (apart from the sink mark thing)

[Crimea_River]

Good stuff Jelmer. I'll post some pics after I get home from work tonight.

[jjp_nl]

[...] I'll post some pics after I get home from work tonight.

Great!

[Airframes]

Good going Jelmer.

[Crimea_River]

Here you go Jelmer. These are pics of an RCN Seafire Mk XV that served after the war and into 1951 I believe. I didn't include any cockpit pics since a) you're pretty much done and b) I had to shoot through the glazing and they're not that great. Hopefully you'll find some useful stuff here though. Interesting that the de-icer tube is in the port rad only whereas on the Spit Mk IX it's in the stbd rad.

[jjp_nl]

Thanks Andy! there's a few useful pic's up there. A few color things, and maybe some ideas to detail certain exterior parts a little more.

Do you know the 'story' behind this Seafire per chance (after it no was longer used actively)? Was it heavily restored (which imho is something to consider when one uses reference of a museum a/c or restored flying warbird..you never know what they did to it)

[Wurger]