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Finally had a chance to the get the Beacon Models Spitfire and Bf109E onto the bench.

Having followed this project since day one I had great expectations and I can genuinely say that these models completely lived up to them.



From the glossy and clear instructions to the high quality parts breakdown and easy assembly, these kits are easily comparable to the best loved Sweet, Platz and Eduard, but with the added benefit of having richly detailed cockpits too, which Eduard and Sweet in particular typically lacked at all.



Finely detailed seats, accurate cockpit wall protuding detail, visible panel instruments and even a representation of the Spitfire control column will definitely reward a little careful painting. It is only a pity that the canopies cannot be posed open as provided.



The kit boxing only comes with one scheme for each aircraft at present (although with great detail including stencils), but in the plastic there is a great selection of options including multiple props and the cannon wings for the Spitfire and different bomb loads and even the E-1 wings for the Emil.



Beacon do also make a bonus decal sheet with letters and numbers for both types and when combined with aftermarket, there are loads of scheme possibilities, so I'll be making my first two models into an early Mk1 Spitfire and a Bf-109 E-7 Trop using decals from the Sweet Fabric Wing Hurricane set and Armory 109E Mediterranean boxing.



Assembly was so simple that both planes were on their legs within a couple of hours, even allowing for cockpit painting and research. A little seam line filler will be needed but it is a world away from the all-filler Mark 1 Spitfire 14s and Armory Emils.

Progress on the Spitfire Mk I



As I am making this into an early war model, it was my first chance to try the iconic, but short lived, white and night underside scheme.



As I am brush painting primarily, I dusted the underside with white from a Tamiya rattle can earlier this week to give an easier base to work on.

The two tone scheme was hand painted without masking, so a little rough on the divide, but meant I could speed up progress and as the plane will be permanently affixed to the vignette, the underside won't be directly visible.



An undercoat of brown has also gone down on the upper, ready for the rather odd looking RAF B scheme camouflage for this particular marking.

Greenery

My first session on the 109 with AK Interactive RLM79 (1941) was very yellow!



Fortunately I managed to knock the yellow back considerably by blending the two AKI RLM79s to make a more yellow earlier version of the colour, without the bright yellow of the pure tone they provide.



Undersides decalled so far.



Meanwhile on the Spitfire, my Mark 1 Decals letters arrived for the 24" codes.



These were combined with the excellent stencils from the Beacon kit. You can see in contast the much thicker roundel which was purloined from an old Sweet Aviation Models kit and has nasty edges, but hopefully will be reduced by decal softener and a varnish coat.

Got these two back on the bench at long last. The 109 had decals fitted without any issues and matt varnished. Canopy and matt varnish on the Spitfire too.



I fitted a canopy to the Emil. I decided to try the three part posable canopy provided in the Armory kits as the Beacon model is just a single piece. Although width and depth are the same, the Armory canopy is about 1mm shorter, leaving a fractional gap. This won't be very noticeable on the open canopy, but would preclude using one of their closed canopy parts.



I also fitted the final parts to the Spitfire including the lovely two blade prop.