Canopy work

Perhaps the modelling pace is finally starting to pick up a bit here on the 72 Land small aircraft production line. Now if only my ongoing job hunt was showing any signs of life.

Occasionally a mass of partially complete models will coincidentally cause a repetition of some common task like cockpit building or adding landing gear. This is most common when you build a batch of similar aircraft (which I’ve noticed seems to be a trend on the rise, at least if some folks on 72^nd Scale Aircraft or Britmodeller are any indication). Concurrent tasking is almost required when building in batches, since the whole group tends to move down the line together. And lo, I do have a small group of those in process right now.

When I bought the Xtradecal sheet with all those anniversary schemes, I also picked up a second sheet covering war weary P-47s. These were mostly razorbacks in OD/Gray, thereby avoiding the difficulties of the fearsome NMF. Since I also had a decal set saved off for an

OD/Gray bubbletop, I decided to put 3 into the front end of the sausage grinder. Unfortunately I’m fresh out of Tamiya P-47s (by far the best 1:72 kit I’ve ever built), but I do have a stack of Academy versions that I picked up due to some sale in the distant past. They’re not as nice as the Tamiyas, but they are buildable, so onto the stack they go.

The other task was what I alluded to in a previous entry. A hurricane of canopy masking. Though the Tornado and Hawk are lagging somewhat, the Demon, Eurofighter (I do have a psychological hurdle in calling it a Typhoon) and Phantom were ready to roll. I personally prefer using an Eduard yellow mask whenever the need arises, but I didn’t have any for two of these three types. So I did it the old fashioned way. To be honest, with bubble canopies like the Demon and Eurofighter the Eduard sets are not that cost-effective. However, the Phantom would have been a pain, so I was thankful to discover an unused masking set. The bottom line is that it gets them all one step closer to painting.