This
is the fantastic little 1/72 Hasegawa kit finished in the markings of
top-scoring Norwegian ace, Svein Heglund, from 331 (Norwegian) Squadron.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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The
Hasegawa kit is an absolute joy to build, no major fit problems whatsoever and
with a very good level of detail. Technically Heglund’s MA568 was an early IXc,
however not wanting to do a lot of scratch-building I built the kit straight
“out of the box” so it’s actually a later c type. The only addition I made
were some seatbelts made from Tamiya masking tape. Paints were Humbrol,
163 and 106 for the Dark Green and Ocean Grey respectively, with 64 for the
Medium Sea Grey undersides, and Tamiya XF-21 for the Sky coloured spinner.
After
a good coat of Johnson’s Klear the Norseman Decals were applied which were
beautiful. The only area which was a bit of a hassle were the Norwegian flag-coloured
cannon barrels, where you have to paint the barrels red (Humbrol 60 is nearly a
perfect match for Norwegian flag red) and then apply the white and blue stripes
which are together as a decal in the Norseman set. In 1/72 this is a fiddly
business and I found that a small dollop of Micro Krystal Klear glue works a
treat to make them stay down. Also, don’t bother with the kit decals for the
stencils on the spinner, in 1/72 you virtually need a microscope to see the
things, I ended up using a sharpened artist’s black pencil to carefully draw
these in and the result was, in my opinion, better than the decals.
Once
decaling was finished another coat of Klear was applied to seal the decals in.
At this point I attached all the various bits and bobs, propeller and spinner,
and undercarriage. I had to use the pitot tube from an old 1/72 Airfix Spitfire
I kit as I’d lost the Hasegawa one (once they’re on the floor you’ll never
find them). Next I used Humbrol’s Matt Varnish and weathering was applied of a
black/dark grey wash in the control surface recesses and wheel wells and a very
light wash in the panel lines. A combination of an artist’s silver pencil and
Humbrol 191 was used for paint chipping, and pastels were used for the exhaust
and gun stains and general dirtiness in certain areas. After that the whole lot
was given a very light coat of Testors Dull Cote to seal the pastels and there
you have it!
All
in all a very fun build and a kit I would whole-heartedly recommend to anyone
interested in making a 1/72 Spitfire IXc. References used were the Norseman
instruction sheet, Osprey’s “Late Marque Spitfire Aces”, various websites
and my battered but much loved copy of Svein Heglund’s autobiography, “Høk
over Høk”, which is a great read for anyone who reads Norwegian.
Hope
you like her.
Tim
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