A grey day in Seattle

As in Neutral Gray. As in Italian underside grey. Well, to be honest it is weather grey in Seattle too, today, but I was specifically referring to the painting session that happened last night.

Whole lotta grey going on. First up was the underside of the P-47 that will be getting captured German markings ("Beetle"). The coat went on smoothly and should not need a surface coat before masking and painting the upper surfaces.

The second color used was a light Italian grey for the undersides of the SM-82 and the Ambrosini SAI-7 from RS. This was actually my first experience airbrushing WEM Paints. Though they do need a serious amount of thinning, I thought the paint went on smoothly. I'm not sure the satin - tending toward matte - is going to work well, though. I am so used to Xtracolour paints, with their gloss surface, that I have no glosscoat paints on hand. And I don't think that this surface will prove to be decal-friendly. I guess we will have to wait and see on that one.

The other problem that came up is an airbrush issue, not a paint issue. My Iwata continues to have trouble pushing paint out. I'm pretty sure this is a cleaning issue. I am just not very talented at breaking down the brush and getting all the bits of dried paint out. In past years I would have sent the airbrush down to Iwata in Portland and gotten it deep cleaned, but that is not feasible at present. So I am just sort of muddling along until I can figure out how to do my own deep cleaning. Wherever the partial blockage is, it is deep inside the body, and not in a place that is easy to reach. More info as the story develops.

Next up will be the Olive Drab uppers on the P-47, Italian green uppers on the SM-82 and maybe the underside of some Hobbyboss Hurricanes.

As the grey days in Seattle convert themselves into what I am hearing is a pretty formidable winter storm, it should be interesting to see what effect this has on this Saturday's Seahawk playoff game. It should be a wild one in any case. The statistic that has me worried is that the #1 seed is 2-5 against the #6 seed in the last 7 years. Yikes! Nonetheless, GO HAWKS!