Polishing a turd...

[The Wooksta!]

There are kits that fall together like a dream, that look fantastic in the box, only a hint of glue and they clip together. Kits that are pleasurable just knowing that you have them, gazing upon their parts is like looking at a beautiful woman* This, however, is definitely NOT one of those.

This is, or rather started out as, the worst resin Spitfire kit ever.  I'm saying resin because I know that there are some abysmal Spitfire kits in injection - Merlin, PM, Eastern Express, Starfix, Modelnews, Pavla/Octopus to shame several.  Yes, Gentlemen, this was the Seafire FR47 produced by Kitbits/Final Touch/Whichever name Mr X was using to avoid his creditors and disgruntled modellers who wanted to break his kneecaps.

It is quite frankly awful.  Where do I start to list the faults?  The wings were the wrong shape, the wheel wells in the wrong place and incorrectly shaped. The cockpit gaping maw.  No panel lines AT ALL, the camera port is too deep and too far back.  The wing roots on the actual wing were deeper than the mating surface on the fuselage.  The fin was the wrong shape.  The tailplanes were too thick and more importantly, were for an different mark of Spitfire entirely.  On the plus side, some of the bits were rather nice, but these had been cast by a different company and were thus lightyears ahead of the quality of the rest of the kit.

I bought one in 1992 and was utterly crushed when it finally arrived from Final Touch themselves months late, a lasting disappointment which I can taste even now,18 years later.  Over the years, I struggled with it and even managed to get it together in 2001 as a fictional PR25.  However, I wasn't happy with it, so it got stripped and left to rot in an Airfix Spitfire PRXIX box.

But the model below isn't that kit, or at least, it wasn't the one I bought in 1992.  Last year, I was sent a parcel and I opened it, finding a resin fuselage, wings, tail surfaces and radiators.  Nice, I thinks, a free kit!  Imagine miy disappointment several seconds later on realising just what I'd been sent.  It was like opening a door to find a turd wrapped in a newspaper on fire.  Into the box with the PR25...

And then I found it in late September whilst searching out another kit.  To hand was one of my cast Spitfire F21 wings.  Hmmn, it fits the fuselage, well, sort of.  Is this salvagable?

From the nightmares I'd had back in 2001 with the PR25, I knew that the tail surfaces needed work, so I hacked off the tailfin cast with the fuselage, dipped into my resin bits box and pulled out the tail surfaces for a Spitfire F22.  They were gash ones with biggish air bubbles because I wasn't about to waste something good on this crock of horribleness - if it didn't work, then nowt spoilt.  Bit more work with the tailplanes to get them to fit the mating points on the fuselage and we're good to go.  Except that there was more resin butchery to come.  

Now, I don't know quite what this kit had started out as.  Sometimes, looking at a limited run or resin kit, the more experienced eye can see where the pattern makers have robbed bits from elsewhere.  This one, I knew from experience of Final Touch "kits" was definitely a pirate 'bitsa', cobbled together from various kit parts.  I suspect the Rareplanes Seafire FR47 with an Airkit Spitfire gull wing centre section.  Which meant that the wings were separate pieces and my cast wing is all one piece.  

The first one I'd cast had somehow ended up with a piece of Playdoh cast into it slap in the middle under the fuselage so I'd never used it.  That'll do!  Out with the razor saw and they were ready to fit.  Plenty of PSR ensued.

The front of the engine need rebuilding, partly to get the thrust line sorted but mainly to sort out the cack-handed way that it had been cast to start with.  I also hollowed out the ram scoop.  The less said about the nightmarish mould seam along the fuselage, the better...

I'll not bore you with the rest of the build, limited as it was to swearing, applying more filler and then sanding it off.  Priming it was interesting - more filler, more swearing.  This one continued to fight me all the way.  It took a dive during spraying, writing off the u/c.  More swearing.  Easily replaced with a spare set of Airfix PRXIX gears.  The decals went on and then I realised that the camera port is too far back, hidden under the roundel. Cue more swearing, neighbours beginning to think I have Tourettes.  At this point, I just didn't care, I wanted it finished and I wanted to be free.  Free of it.

So, this is the almost finished article.  It's still fighting - the tail wheel and doors disappeared somewhere between Telford and Newcastle.  I'm beyond caring now, because the MPM/Special Hobby kit is just around the corner and I can do the Spitfire FR26 properly with a kit that by comparison will fall together like a dream, that will look fantastic in the box..  Hang on!  I'm starting to sound like Swiss Toni!

This is it, a Spitfire FR26 of 2 Sqn, 2nd Tactical Air Force.  

[NARSES2]

Have to admire the perseverence Lee

[Thorvic]

You do realise that title is a prime candidate for changing your avatar signature !!!

[kitbasher]

As another person mugged by a Final Touch Seafire I have to say this would have attracted what Edmund Blackadder would have referred to as the Witchsmeller Pursuivant as only witchcraft and wizardry could have got one of That Firm's kits to look like this model.  It really is fantastic, Lee.  Whif of the year if only on bravery grounds as far as I'm concerned.

[Taiidantomcat]

Wow! You would never guess that was such a bad kit!! Nice work 

[The Wooksta!]

Believe me, there wasn't much left of the original!

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

You do realise that title is a prime candidate for changing your avatar signature !!!

Do it, do it 

Ian
Great turd Lee, looks superb 

[The Wooksta!]

I'd give it another go if I could get another fuselage, but it'd be an F26 rather than the FR.  Or then again I'd use a Ventura FR47 fuselage with my wing.

[chrisonord]

My Mastiff lays a turd that I am sure will be long/wide/ round enough for you to get another fuselage out of Lee, would you like me to send you one or two??
Chris

[noxioux]

I'm no judge of accuracy in these matters, but if that's a turd, half my builds are pre-digested intestinal matter.  I think she's a beauty.  And anybody can throw together the new shake-n-bake kits.  Excellent build, regardless of circumstances.

[The Wooksta!]

As I've said, apart from the fuselage, there's nothing of the original left. Although I think the canopy might be from the kit - but that bit was by Airkit and thus far superior anyway.

The almost parallel PR25 had the u/c written off - some careless arse sideswiped it off the stand at Telford and did a runner.  Had I actually cared about it, I might have been angry.

[The Rat]

All I can do is quote Kipling - "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din"! 

[Captain Canada]

Turned out beauty !

[anthonyp]

Nice!!!  Always a sucker for contra-rotating props!   

[Joe C-P]

Fine work, sir! And I admire your perseverance in the face of adversity.

PS: The Mythbusters showed that poop can be polished, so don't be afraid to try!