SPAD XIII, a successful French biplane fighter aircraft of WWI, the heavier and faster improvement of SPAD VII, and also the plane that we keep mispronouncing as a potato.
Our first ever model kit was a biplane – 1/72 Stearman. During that build, we lost the canopy, the decals were tear apart, and we were completely ignorant that there was rigging involved. Armed with a few more years in model-making, we are not making the same mistakes on this 1/48 SPAD!
Included in this kit is a late version of SPAD XIII.Being the ProfitPACK Edition (as oppose to the Weekend Edition), this Eduard kit provides four marking options, a photoetched set, and a masking sheet.Before gluing and painting, we identified the parts that does not need to be glued to avoid any mishap.As the parts are very small and delicate, we primed and painted them whilst they were still on the sprue.It is a frustrating fact that you can hardly see inside the cockpit once the model is finished. And it is so much more interesting to start gluing the plane together to see what it looks. Nevertheless, we do need to start with painting inside cockpit and adding the furnitures. Otherwise, once glued you are not going to get your paint brush in there. Plus, if you left it unpainted you might see random grey patches when you look inside the cockpit.Similarly, we painted the upper and lower plane and the fuselage before gluing. Otherwise you’ll have to paint around the support structures.You can choose between using a decal or photoetched detail on the instruments. We chose to us the photoetched version because it was more realistic and added more depth.The seat and seatbelts were glued into place.Once the top of the plane was added, the exhaust pipe, Vicker machine guns, and the canopy were stuck firmly on.The ventilation air intake panel was added and painted inline with the camouflage scheme.The struts and control rods were added before the upper plane is glued in place. This part was much trickier than we anticipated because the struts are very thin!If getting the struts on was difficult, adding the upper plane was a total nightmare. Getting the upper wing aligned to the struts whilst the glue slowly dries, without everything suddenly collapsing…was quite a challenge. After a lot of gluing and repainting, this is what we have!For the rigging, we were going to use fishing line. Then a customer walked in and suggested “Why don’t you try wires?” And what a great idea that turned out to be!We used 0.38mm piano wire. We measured the length required on the model and glued on with superglue. Finally, we added the decals and the model is complete! Disclaimer – no canopy was lost in the making of this plane.
