Post-turkey paint session

While nursing a turkey hangover, I got a chance to catch up a bit on some models that needed paint. The main event was a whole flock that needed at least some White bits: wheel wells for the Eurofighter, Phantom, and Tornado, the underside of the F3H Demon. I’ll need to let it cure for a while yet (it was still a bit tacky last I checked) but that will allow me to move forward on a bunch of projects.

I also put a coat of Model Master Aluminum on the Sword P-47N. This was not Alclad, unfortunately, since I still haven’t run across a bottle of functioning Alclad in a while. I remember the days when I was using Alclad White Aluminum for the interwar RAF biplanes I was doing at the time. It covered well, adhered well, and really looked like what it was supposed to be. The last few bottles I’ve gotten (from multiple sources, I should add) have seemed to be short on metal pigment; they don’t cover at all well, and when you try to let the spray linger on a spot to increase the coverage, you get quick runs and still no coverage! To be fair, I haven’t bought a new bottle in probably a year, so maybe whatever was wrong with the batches has been resolved. I only hope it wasn’t a regulation-mandated change to formula, because if it was the usefulness of that paint line may be at an end, and that would be a true shame. I can’t say I was terribly impressed by the MM job – I think it would be more effective in evoking a doped silver paint job than NMF – but given how snakebit the P-47N has been I’m just glad to the see the end of the tunnel.

The only bottles of Alclad I have that still work are older ones of Light Burnt Metal and Jet Exhaust. I use both of them sparingly for, well, jet exhausts and special things like cowl rings on many WW2 RAF types.

I’m in the process of doing some repair work on the B-36 from the Shelf of Shame. Since I’ve also just finished masking for the upper surfaces on the Revell Halifax, I’ll use whatever is leftover in the airbrush once finished with that job to put onto the B-36 (for a RAF46 Bomber Command what-if example). We Scots-Irish are nothing if not frugal and efficient.