One cold session

Sorry lads. Been a bit off the grid for the last week. Yet another round of interviews, which by the time of the third iteration I thought were looking pretty good. Unfortunately I found out on Saturday that I didn’t make the final cut. So things have been fairly grim around here. You get your hopes up and then… well, back to more pleasant things.

Though there were snow flurries in the Puget Sound area recently, I still ventured into the frozen tundra of the garage paint shop to do a bit of work on some fairly advanced projects. But by the time I got back inside, I nearly had frostbite. It has been getting into the 20s F overnight; that was one cold paint session!

First came the three P-47s that are travelling as a group. They needed a color coat of Olive Drab. All of them have some sort of additional cowl, tail, stripe, or canopy coloring, so they have been a more complicated project than I originally expected. Once the upper surfaces get sorted, it will be time to do a lot of unmasking and get all the little dangly bits stuck on.

Next came the Oxford Blue coat on the lower surfaces of the Phantom GR1. This is a raspberry ripple scheme, so it is by definition somewhat complex. Not quite sure why I seem to be gravitating toward multiple complicated color schemes this winter. I’ll have to embark on a nice Gloss Sea Blue USN type to cleanse the pallet.

Finally, the Tornado GR4 needed its lower surfaces painted Dark Camo Grey. This is a GR4, with the second sensor under the nose provided by a Britmodeller correspondent. Just to be different, I decided to build this with the wings folded back (all of the other Tornados I have done had the wings extended).

I seem to have stayed away from the construction end of things for a bit. I at least need to get the three Hawk trainers into process, and it would be a good time to start tinkering with the Trumpeter Wellington also.