Refurb: Nichimo 1:48 Spitty

[tor lives]

Hi all,
Some may recall that, a little while back, I commenced a refurb on a very old, very banged-up Nichimo 1:48 Spitty. Well I have been plodding along at a very slow pace with this project and here is the visual story so far.

Here she is after the disassembly and caustic-soda bath clean up. Some of the replacement parts are in attendance and the preliminary installation of scratch-built wheel-wells has also occurred at this stage





At this stage the interior received a lot of scratch-building attention:





Scratch-built wheel-wells also received some more attention:



Fuselage closed and surrounded by replacement parts, (that probably cost five times that of the original model ):



Some cockpit shots:





A quick test fit of replacement parts:





Bogged to within an inch of it's life:







Ohhhh.....and after much deliberation and mind-changing, I have decided she is going to be a WIF racer carrying the very stylish black/gold "John Player Special" colour scheme....inspired by below pics:



TOR

[hrtpaul]

Looking great man. And I lurve the scheme you've chosen. How are you gonna go about decals for it with all that gold? I'd love to do the same scheme if only I could sort the decals. I reckon I'd use a 1/48 Airfix Spitfire PRXIX as my base kit. I'll definitely be following this mate

[tor lives]

Yeah Paul.....declas are going to be a challenge but ebay maybe my friend.
I won't be doing either one or the other of the above JPS schemes exactly, but rather a hybrid, and this will depend on what decals I can get. That's the beautiful thing about WIFs though.....no one can tell you that your model is wrong
TOR
PS: the original kit is supposed to be a Mk 9 Spitty but given all the changes I have made, (eg: props, rudder, canopy, undercarriage etc), it too is now very much a hybrid.

[Nicolas_Fantich]

Ray,

Tabu Design produce aftermarket decals for motor racing subjects. These include the provision of 'some' sponsors' markings which are typically not provided by the kit manufacturer because of advertising restrictions in some countries. They also include car numbers. I've got myself some JPS decals for an early 1970s Lotus this way.

Some of the Asian online modelling vendors (HLJ, Hobby Search, Hobby Easy, etc.) carry these and similar decals. BNA Modelworld also carries a range of motor racing related modelling products, including decals. While stocks can be a bit thin for some of these, searching these sites might help you at least identify something which will suit your project and you might track availability on eBay.

HTH

[Adam the Akrodude]

Looks like a wicked project Ray. Looking good so far too. Spitties look so great in civvie schemes.

Time for me to get into modelling mode for Expo!