Hobby Boss Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vb 1:32

The instructions tell you to assemble the wings halves together and then attach them to the assembled fuselage. I decided to approach this slightly differently as I wasn’t sure how good the fit was going to be and I didn’t want and gaps or steps at the wing roots. I therefore attached the upper wings to the fuselage first making sure there were no gaps or steps. At the same time I attached the upper and lower cowls and this was all left to dry overnight. As I mentioned earlier the wings contain the machine guns and cannons. As these were never going to be seen I just glued them in position and without painting them.




One thing I should mention here and I forgot to take any photographs to illustrate this point is a problem with the lower halves of the rear stabilisers. For some strange reasons the top halves are correctly formed as riveted metal surfaces but the lower haves are formed as ribbed fabric surfaces!! This is very strange and a very obvious error but fortunately it is very easily corrected. The ribbed surface can be rubbed down until all evidence of the fabric and ribbing is gone and then the surface can be re-riveted with a riveting tool using the upper surfaces as a guide.

After letting the upper wing to fuselage join dry overnight the lower wing was attached. This seemed to work quite well with the wing halves lining up correctly. I did need some filler though around the lower rear wing to fuselage join but nothing to major. The flaps were fitted in the up position and again the fit is good. With everything joined together the wheel wells were masked off and the masked up canopy was attached. The panel lines were then pre-shaded and several thin coats of Gunze Sangyo Azure Blue were applied to the underside. Note that I haven`t attached the underside radiators at this point, they were also spayed Azure Blue and will be attached towards the end of the build.

The colour scheme…