Douglas Bader

Steffen Arndt
First of all I split the box content to both kits to work on each separately even though I'll build these side by side. So here is Bader's Spitfire Mk.I and I will make another gallery for McKellar's mount.

As always it took me a while to get the cockpit done. The many options regarding the markings and time frame while working on two kits do not make things easier. All in all I am pretty happy with the result but I know it is a rather basic job.

At the same time I was working on the wings. Here eduard has the straight wheel bay rear wall interchanged (R18/R19) in the printed instructions. It was corrected on the online version. It is pretty obvious as one of the parts has a cutout that fits over the inner structure ... if you are at this point of the build you will know what I mean.

Steffen Arndt
With wing and fuselage done I glued these together. The fit is good though I needed a little bit of filler to blend in the wing to fuselage joint.

Steffen Arndt
Thank you! I have added the control surfaces at the tail, the coolers an the u/c legs. I am not sure if the instructions have some more errors here or if I just made one or another small building mistakes. The legs did not fit as good as I expected, but it was manageable.

Steffen Arndt
As with the other kit I have attached the gun sight and put on the fixed canopy parts

Clifford Keesler
Looking nice.

Steffen Arndt
Cheers Clifford!
As with the other Spit I I have glued in the cockpit door with Maskol and cut one of the spare closed canopies to shape to fit in (also attached with Maskol). I masked the canopy with the included kabuki tape masks set for the armored windscreen. I sprayed interior green first and the underside got some black... here it is a little bit more as only the wing will be black/white and front and rear underside silver

Steffen Arndt
After some more masking and painting silver and white I finally started with the upper camo today. I used Mission Models Dark Earth as the first layer. These paint works pretty well though I still prefer Gunze and Tamiya.

Steffen Arndt
For the camo I copied Tamiya's large instructions As per Eduard instructions this has the mirrored scheme compared to the Tamiya kit (I always forget which is A and B) So after some weeks on and off this is ready for Mission Models dark green. (...which is in the paint shaker right now)

Clifford Keesler
Looks good all masked up ready for paint. I am growing rather fond of Mission Models paints as well as MRP acrylic's.

Steffen Arndt
Cheers Clifford!

Well, I would prefer Gunze or Tamiya acrylics any time. But I bought some of the MMP (Mission Models Paint) and Mr. Paint products to test these. I still have to use Mr. Paint (bought some jet colours for my Iranian F-14A) but I have tried the MMP and the results are so so. The colours are good but the behaviour of the paint is not to my full satisfaction.

1. sometimes I need to touch up with a brush but the MMP paint does look very different to the airbrush application (I'll add a photo to the McKellar gallery later today to show what I mean.

2. When airbrushing thinned paint I got some build ups that have a totally different tone than the base paint. This only happens with some colours. I had bad results with Azure Blue for instance

To round things up: MMP is not bad but I prefer Gunze/Tamiya. I thint it is a matter of formation fluid as Gunze/Tamiya are alcohol based while MMP seems to be kind of water based. I also know people who get premium results with Revells acrylic paints, while I always have similar problems like with MMP. So from more objective point it is probably a matter of handling and mistakes on my part.

Steffen Arndt
Here is the kit after airbrushing the DG and a gloss coat with Tamiya X-22 Clear Gloss.

you may notice the sunk in plastic near the wing tips ... this is the result of too much glue. Nothing I can do about it without ruining the whole surface as you can see here I tried. Stupid mistake. luckily it is the underside.

Clifford Keesler
I like Tamiya paints also. Gunze are kind of hard to get here in the States, the ones I have been able to get I like. I used to use Model Master acrylics, but they have discontinued alot of their colors, so can't use them any more. So hence the MM and MRP. I have used Ammo of Mig and vallejo. Vallejo is kind of hard to get the right thinness to spray.

Steffen Arndt
I also started applying the decals on this kit. I prefer to apply the larger decals first to get a bit of easy progress. Still it was necessary to start with the wing walks ... now on to the many stencils

Clifford Keesler
Looking very nice.

Steffen Arndt
Well, it has been a loong time since my last post. Several weeks of applying decals were not much fun and I lost a bit of motivation. Still the stencils are on and sealed and I applied my usual sludge wash of umber and black (more black on the upper side very little below). Before flat coat I want to attach the wheels and u/c doors.... but first I will be on x-mas vacation and avoid this double project ... I started a tank for a little variation