An epic paint session

Construction has picked up in the 72 Land production line, so it was time to turn some attention to the paint shop.

First order of business was to put the matte topcoat on the relatively new Folland Gnat. The model did have some fit issues, culminating in big problems with the canopy. Normally I would blame this on personal ham-fistedness, but I have heard of others having problems in this area as well.

Next came a couple of projects that needed some RAF Gray Green portions. The primary victim was the internal bits of the Valom Bristol Brigand: cockpit and wheel bays. The cockpit will still need some detail painting, and then I’ll finally be able to get the major construction on this one completed. I think it is an interesting plane – sort of a steroid-bloated Beaufighter.

There were some detail bits in the Meteor NF11 that needed a metal color: wheel wells, landing gear, etc. I tried using one of the bottles of Alclad I’ve had issues with. Although it seems to work better on smaller pieces than it does on the exterior of an aircraft, I was still less than pleased with the result. I do hope that whatever is causing these variations in formula evens out soon. One of these days I’ll buy a new bottle of Alclad and it will go back to being the best airbrushable natural metal paint out there. Or so I hope.

In any case, I didn’t have any fully functional Alclad to put on a B-50, which was going to require a lot of paint in any case. I took a stab at using Model Master Metallic (aluminum) and wasn’t really too impressed with it either. Not a very smooth, even finish. So that has me in the quandary again – is it my airbrush? My technique (or lack of same)? The Northwest’s humidity? A personal hatred by the airbrush gods?

Finally, I got some of the interior green into the gear bays of the Revell Halifax. I’m getting close to beginning the overall paint work on it, but I’m dithering on whether to order the Eduard masking sheet. I do love those sheets, but I don’t have a local source for them and postage for one item kind of negates the savings of buying online. I know I can do basically the same thing with regular Tamiya tape, but the pre-cut masking sheets make things so easy. Insert whine here.