Supermarine Seafire Mk.III - Model Airplane Maker Let's Get Pacific! Groupbuild

Gordon Sørensen
I Think Octopus is an offshoot of Pavla. The kit includes resin cockpit, wheels, exhaust stubs, air intakes, and various misc. pieces I will probably loose before I mount them anyway..
Had to go to Hobby Lobby to get some new Super-Glue. The old stuff I had must have 'gone off' - couldn't even glue my fingers together…
Attached the resin cockpit sidewall detail, painted with Humbrol 78, and applied a wash from AMMO.
The are no locating pins on the fuselage, lined up the panel-lines of the fuselage before clamping.
There is a large gap on the lower rear fuselage for the arrestor hook. Not sure if there was a big hole on the real thing. I used a little sheet styrene to make a roof so you can't see into the black hole.
The resin cockpit detail was mounted from underneath, and the bulkhead need a small amount of trimning to get it to fit. Should have trimmed the Instrument Panel a bit more, as after I secured it, a split appeared in the fuselage just in front of the cockpit. Used a little filler to cover that, hopefully won't throw the canopy mounting off.
The wing roots took a bit of trimning to get a good fit.
The horizontal stabilizers don't have any locating pins, so just butt-joined against the rear fuselage.

Skyhiker
Following

Gordon Sørensen
The supplied Resin Wheels are nicely cast. The kit plastic wheels both appear to have sink marks. The kit wheels are also 'covered hubs' while the resin are 4 spoke wheels…

Gordon Sørensen
Added the horizontal stabilizers and cannons. Painted the prop spinner and after assembly noticed a gap between the backing plate and spinner. Filled that with putty. The kit-Included resin wheels are 4-Spoke, but all the pictures I looked at online and in books showed the Seafire IIIC using a 5-Spoke wheels. Got a True Details set out of the stash and painted those up ready to install. Painted the exhaust stubs and Resin main landing gear legs. Tried a Chrome Pen for the Oleos, but didn't really see' shine' like I expected. Might go over it again now that I used a AMMO by MiG wash on them.
Traced the camouflage paint markings.

Gordon Sørensen
Attached the shorter resin air intake. Depending on which profile picture you look at, the air intake size/type seems to vary….
Used Humbrol 90 for the lower surfaces.

Gordon Sørensen
Canopy is vacuum formed, and thankfuly they supplied two in the kit.
Started painting the camoflague with Humbrol 123 Extra Dark Sea Grey and 224 Dark Slate Grey.

Gordon Sørensen
Ever have one of those days? I was looking at the painting instructions from the Airfix 1/48 Seafire IIIc (same markings that I am planning) and noticed the colour-callouts were the exact opposite - Slate Grey where the Extra Dark Sea Grey was… Looked at a other painting instructions from CMK and High Planes and finally decided that Octopus/Pavla must have got it mixed up.
Luckily, Tamiya Laquer Thinner is a great paint remover.

Gordon Sørensen
Clear coat on. Ready for decalling!

Gordon Sørensen
All the kit roundels decals fell apart after touching the water. The spares I have are so out-of-register they are unusable.
Need to see if I can get any aftermarket Xtradecals from Hannants, or maybe I will be able to find some at Telford…

Moreno Baruffini
Hi Gordon, I'm sorry, I have this in my stash but I found your build only just now...Great build indeed!

Gordon Sørensen
I was at Scale ModelWorld in Telford and picked-up the Xtradecal British Pacific Roundels. Got all the way home to Canada and found out the roundels are the wrong size for the Seafire…
If anyone has extra roundels, the wings seem to be 50 inches in size. In scale, they are about 33 mm wide with the roundels being 17.5 mm. The fuselage ones seem to be 16.25 mm, which should be 46 inches. If you can spare them, let me know….

Moreno Baruffini
Ok, I'll check, I should have them in my stash 🙂 I'm a bit busy now, please wait until the weekend 👍🏻

Gordon Sørensen
Moreno - thanks so much!

Moreno Baruffini
You are welcome! Please check PMs 😉

Gordon Sørensen
Thank You Moreno! Got the FAA roundels on, with a few issues on two of them. The decals were very brittle, but managed to get them in place. Will do a coat of Testors Dullcote, then just need to add the prop, arrester hook, and gear to finish off.

Moreno Baruffini
Great news! Eager to see it finished! 🙂

Gordon Sørensen
Lost the exhausts somewhere, replaced with a set from an Airfix Mk.IX in the stash. Highlighted the panellines with an Architect Pen, then a coat of Testors Dullcote.