Tamiya 1/48th Swordfish Mk 1

Lt Commander Esmonde's Swordfish Mk 1, 26th May 1941 - Bismark attack where one of the 15 Swordfish hit the rudder of Bismark, allowing the Home Fleet to Catch and Sink her. Esmonde won the D.S.O for leading the attack. On the 12th Febuary 1942, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau made a dash to leave France and return to Germany. Esmonde lead the attack of 6 Swordfish, all of which were shot down by German Fighters. Esmonde won a Postumous Victoria Cross for this action.

Building out of the box, with the addition of the Tamiya Etched Bracing Wire Set.



Right got that out of the way. If you build in the order that the instructions tell you to you will have a hard time with the fabric on the inside of the cockpit, so this needs to be tackled first.

Fill the ejector marks with some Mr Surfacer 1000


Then sand off with a sanding stick, well actually 1200 grit wet and dry superglued to a cocktail stick.



Paint the interior with interior green. SECOND ERROR IN INSTRUCTIONS - if you beleive the instructions the area being masked off should be plain canvas ( true in a later war swordfish ), however this is a pre-war Swordfish so this area should be silver dope - the exterior was re-painted at the outbreak of war, but the interior wasn't.

Masked off the area for the Silver dope.



Sprayed with Model Air Steel - slightly duller than the aluminium called for but looks better. Some of the ejector pin marks weren't quite flush. I will have to see what they look like with some 'dirt' added and may have to fix them. I may leave them as they will be very tough to spot once the interior is in.



I built up the pilots seat, and made some belts out of tape.


The built up the crew quarters floor, with the radio and observer's seat.



Finally attached the sides, and the magazines for the Lewis gun.



Added the top deck of the interior, seatbelts for the gunner and the dinghy.



Painted the detail on the sides of the fuselage, and 'dirtied' the silver dope. Added the side windows, and instrument panel.



Fitted the cockpit interior to the fuselage.


Then glued the fuselage together


Masked off the cockpit interior with blu-tac, masked off the fuselage side windows with Parafilm, and attached the tailplane.


Masked the Windscreen with parafilm on both sides. This shows just how much I like this stuff, it's simple to get really sharp edges to the masking by simply pressing the parafilm onto the windscreen and trimming off with a sharp knife.


Sprayed the anti-slip panels, and masked them off ready for painting the rest of the painting. I will have to plan how to paint this quite carefully and paint during assembly as once it's assembled it will be very difficult to mask off.

First you need to build up the hub, with some of the Photo Etch.


Then sprayed the main engine with gunmetal, and sprayed the interior of the cowling.


Then coated with some Tensocrom Oil, which dirties up the engine nicely


The exhaust collector was sprayed first with Titanium Gold, then a pinstripe masked off, then with Metallic Gray, and the whole lot assembled.
The final result is:



Started by masking off the engine and collector ring with tape



Then blutacked the engine to the fuselage, and sprayed the Sky for the underside



Then another masking session to mask off the underside of the fuselage and cowling ready for the Extra Dark Sea Grey / Slate Grey.


Then tacked the struts in place with some bluetac and drew on the camoflage pattern. This allows me to know which struts should be which colour easily without having to refer to the diagram all the time.



Finally sprayed the Slate Grey followed by the Extra Dark Sea Grey - these colours are NOT the colours the instructions call for but the instructions are wrong - these are the correct FAA colours for the time.




The center section bracing wires:


Then building up the main struts, and cross bracing wires


Assemble the wings:


Add the other cross bracing wires:


Then add the lateral bracing wires:


All of the bracing with the tamiya bracing wire set is reasonably straight forward, they are mostly the correct length and fit with some tension in the holes you drill during construction ( or slightly after if you forget !). The only problem is that being steel they are a bit 'springy' so can have a tendency to launch at inopportune moments. It is very impressive how solid the construction becomes once the wires are in place.

Anyway finally attaching the wings to the fuselage:


Starting to look like a swordfish now, though it will need a dab of filler at one of the wing joins and I will have to tidy up some of the paint.

Added the bracing wires for the tail:


Unmasked all of the fuselage / cockpit


Fitted the undercarraige legs:


Then had a burst of work where I forgot to take photos as I was going. Basically got most of the little detail parts added like, oh say, the Torpedo, Lewis Gun, Flare Racks, Bomb racks and wheels and fitted the engine.

I have sprayed with a couple of coats of Klear to prepare for decals.






I gave the whole thing a wash of Promodellers dark dirt, then CAREFULLY removed it - approx 50 cotton buds later.....

Rigged up the Elevator / Rudder cables using thin wire


Added the landing lights, entry ladder,navigation lights and the radio mast. Then added the radio antennae using fishing line.

Final Pictures



























  • Kit manufacture: Tamiya
  • Scale: 1/48th
  • Type: Swordfish Mk 1
  • Extras used: Tamiya Photo Etch Rigging Set, Fine wire, Fishing Line and Tape for Belts.
  • Paints and colours used: Xtracrylics RAF Extra Dark Sea Grey, RAF Slate Grey, RAF Grey/Green. Tamiya XF-21 Sky. Also used Vallejo Model Air paints for the interior detailing. Promodeller Dark / Black / Light washes. India Ink ( thinned and neat ), Alclad Aluminium