RW PR Spitfire, or nearly....Ready for take-off!

[PR19_Kit]

As a kit, it's truly magnificent, just such a pain to put together. On the extra parts front, it comes with FIVE props as well! 

Er, delete that, it's actually got SIX props! 

There's a 2 bladed wooden Watts prop on one of the smaller sprues, but the blades are separate items so I didn't spot it as being a whole prop at first.

[NARSES2]

Must admit when I start on mine my first job will be to go through and remove the unused parts from the sprues.

I read somewhere it has more unused then used ? 

[Steel Penguin]

As a kit, it's truly magnificent, just such a pain to put together. On the extra parts front, it comes with FIVE props as well! 

Er, delete that, it's actually got SIX props! 

There's a 2 bladed wooden Watts prop on one of the smaller sprues, but the blades are separate items so I didn't spot it as being a whole prop at first.

and now i have the mental image of you having used them all in some kind of bizarre multi bladed nose thing 
2 blades farthest forward then 3 then 4 etc.

[PR19_Kit]

I read somewhere it has more unused then used ? 

LOADS more, I'm keeping a tally of all the bits I've used, and I'll count up the spares when I've finished too.

[PR19_Kit]

I've done the basic painting of the cockpit bath, but Hataka's idea of 'Interior Green' is nowhere near green enough for my eyes, so I made my own mix by adding a bit of French Vert to the mix. It may not be perfect but it looks better. The rest of it's OK, but lots of detail painting's needed now. The single bristle brush will be back in play....

No pics of that bit till it's all done

I've put the halves of the fuselage together, and it feels very odd doing it without having an already glued a cockpit in there.    They give you a radio aerial for the spine astern of the cockpit, but the PR1Cs didn't have radio so you have to cut the aerial itself off and glue the base into the hole for it. In my case the teeny weeny base is now in orbit somewhere, so I used the good old PSR repair technique on it. That's the red arrow., and the green arrow shows the leading edge of the wing fairing, which for some reason are separate parts! Why? They're a big fiddle to arrange in position, and every other Spitfire kit in the world moulds them there already!



The wings, being part of the range of Spitfire Mk 1 kits that IBG do, have gun ports and link ejection ports too, so you have to fill them up for the PR1C, I figured that heavy sanding would do no good to the superbly fine detail they've moulded into the wings, and everything else too, so I filled them from the inside, and then lightly sanded off the excess putty that had extruded later.

The landing gear bays are fully modelled, with a three part assembly that also includes the main fire bulkhead! It looks a bit odd, but it seems to fit OK.

They would have you glue a small clear part over the previously drilled main camera port (you have to drill that yourself, but the position is moulded into the wing underside) but that means the camera port is not fluish with the bottom of the aircraft, so I left that part off and I'll use some PVA for the port later on.



The upper wing halves are then just glued on top, and like everything else in this kit, they fit perfectly. 

Then come the ailerons and the wing tips too. I noted that you get the clipped wing tips as well, moulded in clear, which is interesting., that's maybe so you can model the nav lights more properly.



And that's it for today, detail cockpit painting tomorrow with luck. Parts count so far is 59. 

[PR19_Kit]

This kit is amazingly accurate, the parts just fit, always. There's no trimming needed, apart from cutting off the sprue gates, and even they're small, and despite the complex shape of some of the parts, they go together perfectly.

But, there's SO many of them! Even the underwing oil cooler has separate parts for the front and rear of the cooler element itself, and the latter part is LESS than 1 mm square! It's just impossible to hold it, except with tweezers and you run the risk of firing the parts off into outer space doing that. So far I've only lost one part like that, but that was just due to luck I'm sure.

The 'Used Parts Count' is now up to 72, and there are part ID tags going up to 90 on just one sprue, and each sprue has parts independently numbered!     There'll be over 100 parts left unused when I've finished, and I'm not sure if that should be classed as amazing or stupid.

The wings are all assembled now, and await me detail painting the cockpit before inserting it into the fuselage and then adding the wing assembly underneath.

[PR19_Kit]

The wings are done, with the radiator and the camera pod under one wing, and the oil cooler and a fuel tank under the other.



I had to sand some of the extruded putty off from the link ejector ports, which was a pity as some of the ultra-fine detail is now gone, but maybe it won't be too bad under some paint, and as Lee says 'No-one ever looks underneath'. 

The cockpit's done as well, as far as it's going to be anyway. There's no way I'll even try and apply those minute decals in there, it'd need doing before the parts were assembled, and that means painting it first too. I just can't figure out a sensible way of doing that. I did use the instrument panel decal of course, and that needed a chunk cut out of the top of it to fit round the camera control panel, but even then it didn't fit too well, but it's there anyway.





Now all I have to do it assemble all the bits................

Oh yes, while being amazed over the sheer volume of parts in the kit, I found TWO more of those aerial bases, complete with aerials, on another sprue! So I've glued one in place just behind the cockpit and I'll trim the aerial itself off AFTER it's set, a much better idea.

[PR19_Kit]

Hmmmm, having glued the cockpit bath into the fuselage, it seems IBG have got one of their drilled holes in the wrong position. 



The red arrowed hole, which they say is meant to be the vertical camera port, is way too far aft, and it should be where the green arrow is. There's a very slight hole marking there in the wing moulding, but it's slightly off centre. It's not in 100% the correct position, but it's a lot closer than the first one. I've re-drilled it, and I'll fill the other one later.

[PR19_Kit]

I wanted the prop on the PR1C to rotate and there's no way it'll do that the way IBG have it. They'd have you put a very tiny styrene plug through the back of the front bulkhead of the engine compartment and glue the prop backplate onto the minute part of the plug that sticks out. For sure it would have been NON-rotating then, so I re-engineered it!

I superglued a toothpick into the back of the prop and enlarged the hole in the front engine bulkhead to suit, and cut the toothpick to length so it would just  pass through the firewall that's part of the wing assembly. Then drilled quite a large hole in the firewall, and drilled a toothpick sized hole in a bit of scrap styrene which I then trimmed smaller than the firewall.

Then I glued the scrap styrene part over the firewall, and with the glue still wet, put he whole assembly together, and I could then slide the scrap styrene around so the prop was centred. Bingo, it worked. 



The two holes are arrowed red here.

Oh yeah, you can also see that I've PSR'd the gun ports in the wing too, to be sanded off later, plus the cockpit bath is in place at last too. 

[Freightdog862]

The number of parts in that kit is very intimidating! Give me a simple Matchbox Spitfire kit any day. Watching with interest, although in no way inspired to try one myself 

Colin

[steelpillow]

I usually end up re-engineering the prop attachment so it spins. I don't hold it out the car window going "Zoooom!" any more, but I do like to be able to set it for display as I feel like at the time.  Building the thing onto the fuselage before full assembly and painting is asking for trouble. Some people just push-fit them and remove them after for travel, but if you don't re-engineer that then the thing often droops and won't sit straight. Extra internal bulkhead for far end of shaft, plus hole in back of prop for front end, is the way to go.

[PR19_Kit]

The number of parts in that kit is very intimidating! Give me a simple Matchbox Spitfire kit any day. Watching with interest, although in no way inspired to try one myself 

I'm with you 100% there Colin, I doubt I'll build the other IBG PR Spitfire I've got, it's an amazing kit, but it's mentally hard work building it.

I'm going to retract my earlier comments about how accurate the fit of the parts were, because the MOST important fit of them all, the wing to fuselage fit, isn't very good at all.

With a Spitfire the wing fairing is what it's all about, it should be a smooth transition from fuselage side to wing upper surface, and because the cockpit bath for this kit  is a trifle too deep, the large wing/lower fuselage panel won't fit up high enough, resulting in steps at the wing root. I filed the bottom of the cockpit bath some before I fitted the wing too, but there's only so much I could do.



You can clearly see the step here, and there's a noticeable gap further aft, and lower, both arrowed in red.



That lower gap's even worse on the other side too, it'll need some PSR for sure, but I'm not sure how to over come the wing root steps. PSR will ruin the upper surface detail, so I may file down the fuselage part, a LOT, to try and smooth it all out.

I'm disappointed that this most vital fit doesn't work properly.

[DogfighterZen]

It's a shame that so much detail is put to waste by such a flaw... those fit issues are making me think twice about which 1/72 Spitfire kit i should buy... maybe the Eduard kits are a bit better?
Starting to think i'll stick to the simpler kits Airfix or Tamiya for a Mk.Vb/c...

[PR19_Kit]

I certainly think other manufacturer's offerings are better value for money, unless you really WANT a vast number of spare parts for numerous other Spitfires of course.

My 'Spitfire Spares' box is about get a massive increase in its population! 

[Captain Canada]

So many parts ! That's really wild. Looking good so far !