Hasegawa/Revell 1/32 Spitfire Mk XIV Kitbash

By Loic Bridot & Russell Camp

This article is about a Spitfire Mk XIV that I did not build myself.

For many reasons, this is one very special build to me. It was the very first build thread from our missed fellow modeller Russ; he was definitely a one of a kind modeller and a great person. It was built as part of the RAF 90th birthday Group Build in which I was also involved with my first build thread on LSP. We found out we had the same kind of crazy ideas and this is how our friend ship did begin.

So, this is a kitbash based on both the venerable Hasegawa MKV/VI and Revell MK 22 kits plus a bunch of scratch building. Almost every part of the kit was modified (wings, rudder, fuselage, etc...) and the result is astonishing but let's have a quick look...

Here is a quick dry assembly to give a first idea of what the final result should look like:

Then the rework starts with the wings including scratch builds radiators:

The tail and rudder were heavily modified too and rebuilt with styrene and putty:

Now the engine to fuselage fit. You may note the special cuts in there to blend the enormous Griffon cowl with the early Mk V fuselage. Lots of attention to details in this area, especially on the bulges shape:

Quick view of the cockpit and pilot. Typical Russ's build must feature a pilot in the cockpit...

Time to have a quick overlook at the assembly before painting: looks pretty good!

Let's paint the bird... Oh no, wait ... another Russ special is the usual flight simulator shots to figure the paint job before starting spraying!

Now, we can start the paint job and decaling:

And the final result!

As per usual with Russ, this build was completed within the blink of an eye ;)

I hope you like it and you may want to have a look at the complete build thread on our forums.

© Russell Camp via Loic Bridot 2011

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This article was published on Thursday, December 01 2011; Last modified on Saturday, May 14 2016