Airfix 1/48 Seafire XVII

Airfix make some goood Spitfire kits in 1/48 the Vb and Mk1 are seen as being the best of that type in scale and they make some more esoteric marques in the form of the XII and this Seafire XVII..

I saw a really nice build of this kit on one of the forum and fancied doing one but the price of the kit put me off a bit.. However I had a work trip to Wellington and grabbed 10 minutes in model craft and hobbies and found a kit being sold by them OBO a local modeller which was a lot cheaper than the retail price.. So I snapped it up.. and then spent my savings on some Barracuda Resin bit to improve it...

The biggest issue with the kit OOB is the propellor blades are poorly shaped so I used a set of blades intended for the Airfix  Spitfire XIX and replaced the rocker covers with resin items along with the exhaust stacks and finally I added in a resin PR camera to make a FRXVII.. Decals came from Xtradecal..

Here is the boxing I used...

Here is the build in progress...

The kit gives you the option for folded wings and I decided to run with that it was the first folded wing Aircraft I've built...

Paint was relatively easy and the Sky Dark Sea FAA scheme looks really nice as usual for me I used Gunze colours...

Here is the finished model...

Weathering was kept light as the aircraft were well maintained in real life so it just had a bit of a panel wash and some exhaust staining..

The finished model featured in Airfix Model World Magazine..


Thanks for looking...