On the bench (Jun 2022)…

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Eduard Spitfire Mk IXc (Late)

Yes — this place is called The Tank Hangar, but I’m building a wingy-thing anyway. Eduard’s latest efforts are supposed to be simpler, better engineered, and more user-friendly than their early, limited release kits. But, for all the praise their line of 1/48 Spitfires has received, this Mk IXc still feels a little like something you’d get from a limited run manufacturer. Yes, the surface textures, level of detail, and quality of moulding are all excellent. But…

This kit has some strange engineering choices and parts breakdowns. The upper and lower engine cowls are separate from the main fuselage mouldings, and both are split into two parts down the centre-line. Why? If you’re going to mould these separate from the fuselage halves, why not make them single pieces? In particular, that would avoid the awkward split of the carburetor intake into two. Likewise the radiator housings under the wings seem to be broken down into twice as many parts as necessary.

And, though the cockpit goes together pretty well, it features a number of butt joints, where parts just line up against each other. On a Tamiya kit, these would be grooved and tabbed for a much more stronger and more positive final assembly.

Fit is generally good, but I did manage to get one wing root mis-aligned with the fuselage. It was probably just me, as the other side fit perfectly, and the wing to fuselage join is just about perfect everywhere else. Still, I can’t help feeling that a Tamiya kit would have been more idiot proof.

And that’s where I am now — currently a little stalled, as the next steps are to re-scribe the sanded out panel lines on the fuselage and to mask the canopy for painting. Both of which are uncharted territory for this armour modeller (clear parts — eek!). Time to muster my courage, though, and get on with painting.

Meng Whippet

Meng is making some really dubious engineering choices these days; most of their new kits feature bizarre parts breakdowns for major assemblies and wildly over-complex indy-link tracks (with multiple parts per link). Fortunately, their Whippet dates from 2015 — before they lost their way. It has a reasonable parts count, good fits, and really nice tracks.

Meng has also innovated in a good way with their breakdown of the Whippet’s complex superstructure. This is a serious challenge: you not only have multiple armour plates meeting at seemingly random angles, the whole thing is covered in prominent rivets. Moulding each plate as a separate part would make it easy to get the rivet detail right, but would be difficult to engineer into a tight-fitting, strong structure as a whole. Moulding some of the plates together as single parts would be stronger and simpler, but the mould would hit one or the other plate at an angle, mis-shaping the rivets.

Meng squared this circle by moulding multiple facets of the superstructure together, but as single parts laid out flat. This way the mould can hit the rivet detail square on, while the part has seams scored in it for bending into the correct angles after you remove it from the sprue. Brilliant! Strong, simple, and everything fit very well. To even out the numerous joins and scored seams between armour facets, I ran a line of polyester Perfect Putty along all the seams with a wet fingertip. In the photo this makes it look as though the kit required a lot more putty work than it actually did.

Build time was quite short, in fact. Neat sprue attachments made it easy to clean up the many little road wheels. As they’re steel and mostly hidden by the side-skirts I just painted them in place — quick and easy. The tracks were also a delight: individual links of some kind of ABS that just snapped together. The only negative thing I can say is that the kit doesn’t include the wooden stowage boxes you see in almost every photo of in service Whippets (the Takom kit does have ’em). It was easy enough to scratch build a couple of boxes from sheet styrene, though, dragging a razor saw over the outer surfaces to create some wood grain. I filled these with oil cans and other spares box detritus, and that was construction finished.

Painting was pretty straightforward; Whippets all seem to have been a single colour green in service. I wanted to dress mine up with the Red-White-Red recognition stripes usually painted on the track horns, though. A long ago experience with the Emhar Whippet warned me off any attempt to use decals for these, so I very carefully burnished multiple applications of Tamiya masking tape over many, many rivets. This worked better than I expected — only a little touch-up needed — and was certainly easier than trying to make decals snug down over such a bumpy surface.

Weathering started with a base coat of airbrushed dust (Tamiya Deck Tan) followed by Tamiya diorama texture gels and enamel washes for mud on the lower hull and tracks. I went heavier than I usually do (WWI and all that!) and am pretty pleased with the result. Now I need to get on with some pin washes to bring out the details. And, I’m going to try a Zaloga style dust wash (rather than pigments) for the lighter dirt effects higher up the vehicle. Getting close now; this beast is almost done!