This is my build review for this new release from Airfix, a bit of a mixed bag and not overly enjoyable for me. I try and highlight the good and bad with this kit and complete the construction stage of the model.
Not having build this kit i can't be sure, but a common problem with spitfire kits is the destortion of the center section of the fuselage leading to wing root gaps. reading both the fuel tank cover at the top was to wide and the wingroots leave gaps suggest this is the case here... carefully bending the parts outwards might work, as well as attaching the top wing halves to the fusalage before attaching the bottom. revell designed a tab in their 1/72 scale spit mk II&V to hook the wing to the fuselage, probably knowing the parts might destort slightly. All of this being said, given they've been at it for over 80 years or so Airfix should have avoided this or at least created slots and tabs to force parts back into their original dimentions. Thanks for taking the time to put this kit together and pointing out any issues.
I suggest you make a final effort and finish the plane, it's ready for priming and painting. Besides, you'll feel proud after finishing a kit that fought you all the way from start to finish. The issue with the wing gaps has happened many times to me, with Eduard, Hasegawa and Dragon. I solved those issues by widening the fuselage with a spreader sprue.
Thanks for your honesty mate... I ordered it just for the Kit Kat... mine arrives Monday but not so excited about the build now. Might do one of my Eduard Spitfires first instead.
The kit is there if you want a XIV and it seems the Griffon engined ones are a little scarce in 1/48, hard to know what’s best to do but I thought it was worth pointing out the problems I found and I hope it can be of use! Good luck on the KitKat 😬
@@HarryHoudiniModels Loved your video about the panel and wing root gap "fix". A piece of sprue. Ha ha. So simple and effective. I went and bought this kit based on your terrific video
Having exactly the same problems. Good reference material is totally suggested on this one. It is my first Airfix kit and I expected more for the price to be honest. I was surprised when I asked the clerk about Airfix and he responded :"well they became a little bit better nowadays" I bought it because people always claimed how great Airfix is. Thanks for showing the hard truth.
Type 184 I have just bought this kit and am so concerned I have come on line to check if I am missing something and possibly to give a heads up for anyone who may be interested. I am sorry to say I totally agree with the comments regarding sprue D. I know that you can get seam lines on the best of kits, but the levels of flash are quite bad and have taken a lot of cleaning up. The sort of thing I would expect from tired molds rather than a brand new release. Not sure what is happening with quality control. The exhausts are a real issue as all the parts for the rudder pedal assembly. Some areas are very tight to get to depending on how picky you are. The instructions also seem to be incorrect at stages 1 and 4. Part D14 looks to shown in the wrong location at stage 1 (see stage 9) and part D40 is shown too far forward on the seat bottom at stage 4 (see correct position at stage 6). The latter could cause a real issue for someone following the instructions to the letter as it involves a delicate part that supports the seat and won't allow too many chances to correct if you get it wrong. Don't think I have missed something here - the instructions are definitely out. This could prove troublesome to those who may not be old lags like me. While the prop is good, the sprue gates are on the blades themselves when they may have been better on the hub. Sprue gates are poor in positions on a number of parts that could cause issues for the novice. Really wanted this to be a good kit and support Airfix, but here I am posting for the first time ever. A tad disappointed with what I also hoped would be a quick build, but will press on.
John Edwards i Agee with you in everything you have said being a bit of a novice modeller myself. Just getting back into modelling again after several years away from it. It reflects back to the 1/24 scale hawker typhoon b1 for me that was a mountain so much flash and mould lines, poor fitting parts, out of alignment in several places. And for it to be a new kit new mould too it was so bad. But it might just have been the kit I had. I had to give up on doing what I wanted from it and ended up just bashing it together.
@@harrymarwick2529 Sorry to hear your issues with the Typhoon. Just the sort of thing that can put people off. However, Airfix do some very good kits at a reasonable price point and I think they make a real effort to get across how the internal structure of an aircraft was made up. I have had a look at some of their other kits i have in my stash and they look to be better. Perhaps just an issue with the two kits above - hopefully!! Have another crack...
Thanks for an honest build review and pointing out quite fairly all the good and bad points of the kit. Also, I'm quite willing to finish the kit for you if you'd like. I'm happy to pay for postage to Australia and could upload the final result on my Channel - Studio Gekko.
An honest to point review, I personally would paint it finish it off. Set light to it and let it take flight from the nearest upstairs window of the house . 😂
In Australia Eduard kits are a cheaper than Airfix and they are 10X's better, don't get me wrong Airfix is my all time favourite kit manufacturer but I prefer to build their late 60's early 70's kits.
Agree with your review 100%,just wish that I’d seen it before buying kit. Cockpit tub details were impressive but struggled to get fuselage halves to fit snugly with tub fitted even with much filing of seat sides etc.Wing fit was poor and had problems with tailplane dihedral and elevator fit At this point,less than half way through I binned it.I have returned to modelling after 40 years looking for a hobby to get me through long covid and for me kit making should be fun. I don’t give up easily,after all I’ve completed a couple of Italeri kits which were dogs but this strained my patience. I get that some enjoy all the fettling and making good but if you expect a decent fitting straightforward accurate out the box kit with an enjoyable build than this is probably not for you.
The 1/48th RG Mk.XVI is a good kit. Even comes with a Merlin, not just exhaust stacks. I hear you though, these kits aren't free, so the modeler should NOT have the responsibility of engineering a fix. Tamiya {to me} is the best manufacturer going. Precise fit at a decent price. Then RG. Eduard, well the old tan plastic kits you want to blow up! Patients are a needed requirement. The new "grays" I haven't built yet. The rest, it all depends on you level of masochism. But I'm referring to AC, not Armor. I haven't built any Armor, yet.
The problem with this kit over all others is that it's extremely accurate, and matches up perfectly with the Eduard Mk VIII or XVI. As such you can graft the tailfin, engine and radiators onto them and make a beautiful, extremely accurate XIV...at huge cost. Crying shame, as their 1/24 Typhoon is excellent, and I hope Airfix's 2021 kits are engineered and manufactured a bit better.
Thats a real shame to hear this for a brand new release :/ I appreciate the time and effort gone into making this video and I am glad for the heads up as I WAS planning on buying this kit. - Ivan
Cracking review J ! Totally with you and totally understand !!! I couldn't believe it when I first saw how many folk got one !! It's almost made me feel a little " well you've sent all of those folks one , why not me or them ? " But then I've only got just over a 1000 subs !!! So I'm not worthy I'm a peasent in airfixs eyes !!!!!! Ha ha ha
Lol, firstly you’re not missing anything (other than a KitKat) and the distribution was bit weird, not sure how I made it in there! Hope you are well 👍
Hi! Well, I've seen the builds from Scale-a-ton and AlexModeling and I must say that this lady looks unfinished... I've been stalking this kit for a while now and after listening to your opinion I'm slightly disappointed. The frame with the details seemed a bit sketchy from the very beginning but in your model I see some other problems too. It seems that Airfix has rushed this kit on the market. Such a shame... I was having high expectations. Thanks for showing us the bad points of this kit.
I’m glad it was of use, I think after looking up about the kit that it’s a lot of existing parts ‘re-sprued’ hence the radiators not fitting and the fuel tank cover being iffy but I think a lot of the problems are coming from their choice of plastic too, some details are very soft, I found it hard to take the kit seriously tbh
No other Mk XIV anyway... Airfix panel lines are always the biggest issue... None of the issues seem beyond a bit of care. What did you think of the PR XIX?
As I said before I don’t think the fact that it’s the only one excuses the problems and yes they’re perfectly easy to fix, I just don’t want to. Never built the PR XIX but I’m guessing it shares parts from this and the Mk Vb (which I did build).
@@ChampionScaleModelling I have to say, the fit of the separate cowl bulges in your video seems absolutely terrible, the worst issue of them all in your kit...: The good news is that these are actually moulded-in on the PR XIX fuselage, so kit bashing these two sould solve neatly this ugly problem, while bringing us closer to a high back wartime variant... Oh, that and brass guns of course.
@@snappedbydan There is, but it is not really worth talking about, as it is based on fanciful drawings that are very far off in all the outlines (compared to the new Airfix). For a high back, better to kitbash the Airfix PR XIX with the Airfix XIV...
Making this perfect is beyond beginers or even intermediate modellers. It's a TRAIN CASH. AIFRFIX: Do it properly or don't bother...this is not acceptable in the 20th year if the 21st Century! 🤬
Interesting. As a new model from Airfix in 1995 this wouldn't be too bad but it's a current brand new mould and as usual from them its awful. It is sad that the best parts are the interior bits that can't be seen! I've watched the other builds and reviews of it but there's something about how it just doesn't look right - not sure how or where as I'm no expert in anything Spitfire related but it looks a little strange. Perhaps Airfix should have stopped trying to be funny with the Kit-Kat and concentrated more on getting the basics right, again. But the fan boys will rush to their defence and still claim they're the best model company out there!!! Thanks for the review.
How many Spitfire fr mk XIV are there in 1/48? Rather a Spit fr mk XIV than the endless P-51D's... Besides, the panel over the fuel tank is oversized on the original. i.pinimg.com/originals/e4/07/ac/e407acae8d50f10b31bb17ef8b815ea3.jpg
You may have my missed my point but I take on board what you say, also the fuel tank cover is too shallow not too wide, so you have to stretch it to fit the gap (or overlap) and that then causes more problems e.g fit of the windscreen, gaps at the front of the piece etc. None of this is beyond most modellers, my point is that the problems shouldn’t be there from a mainstream manufacturer in 2019 and the slightly obscure variant is not a good enough excuse (IMO).
You seem to have some issues here . First of all the Spitfire has quite a steep 6 degree dihyderal angle ; So I am not sure scale a ton was correct about that . Alex modelling does not seem to have these wing to fuselage issues . the front cover over the fuel tank is very poor fit on the real aircraft ; so you don't want to over correct that part . Maybe a little thick ca glue . certainly don't want it dead flush . Presumably Airfix will correct some of the poor quality control . In future release . Airfix is half the price of Tamiya and despite almost perfect tooling the Tamiya decals are truly awful . I get the feeling you had no enthusiasm for this subject so maybe just as well to leave it . I never rush to buy new Airfix releases ; always cheaper later . I've said before if they got to making kits in England they would have more control over quality . They need to pack them better too .
