Starfix Supermarine Spitfire
| KIT #: | ? |
| PRICE: | $3 from a vendor |
| DECALS: | Yes |
| REVIEWER: | Terry D. Moore |
| NOTES: | Run Away. Run Away very fast. |
| HISTORY |
The
history of the Supermarine Spitfire has been written ad infinitum and
doesn't not bear repeating here. The history of this little project, on the
other hand, requires a brief explanation. I purchased this kit primarily as
an exercise to see if I could build a model like I did in the dawn of
plastic modeling, when kits were somewhat more "basic". I took this model
with me on a short trip and my only tools were an Xacto knife, a bottle of
glue, a paint brush and 4 bottles of paint. No files. No putty. No
airbrush. And NO references.
| THE KIT |
The Starfix Spitfire has a handful of parts that resembles a Spitfire. Unfortunately the version of the Spitfire is completely unidentifiable and although the box says it's 48th scale, the only thing that appears 48th scale are the exhausts. The tail appears to be closer to 72nd scale and the wings...? Well, my guess would be somewhere between 1/53rd and 1/62nd. That's just a guess, however. The model has a generous amount of raised rivets and the rivets on the wing are not even parallel to the centerline of the aircraft. The canopy is not very clear which is a good thing as there's not much of an interior. The model also comes with bomb racks and 2 shapes that appear to be bombs. The decals? The less said about them, the better.
| CONSTRUCTION |
Basically
I built it following the kit instructions, one step at a time. There was
nothing out of the ordinary. Parts fit was adequate although I did scrape a
few seams to make the parts fit better. I even got the prop to spin.
| COLORS & MARKINGS |
I painted the model to follow the colors on the box. I used Testors
Modelmaster RAF colors applied by brush. Since the kit "decals" were
totally unusable, I went to my decal spares box and substituted those from
an old Airfix Anson. Amazingly, they still worked. My guess is that the
Anson decals were at least 35 years old.
| CONCLUSIONS |
I completely satisfied the requirements of my little exercise - to see if I
could finish a model the "old fashioned way", like I did 40 years ago. It
took me just under 3 hours to completely finish the model, probably a
little bit longer than it took me those many decades ago, but not by much.
And I didn't need to waste a good Tamigawa kit!
July 2005
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