annealed copper wire around
micro drill shanks, and securing
with tiny blobs of canopy PVA
at each end. Final touches were
to add the light grey seal strips
adjacent to the framing, which I
cut from painted decal sheet.PAINTING, WEATHERING
AND DECALS – 50
SHADES OF GREY
Painting this model was a real
challenge, despite it being pretty
much a monochrome scheme. The
anniversary tail art was applied to
an existing faded and weathered
grey airframe, so there was no
accurate standard colour reference.
After much benchmarking of
various shades of Tamiya and
Vallejo greys with a museum
aircraft and online images, I
ended up mixing what I thoughtlooked about right, which turned
out to be four parts Vallejo Light
Grey to one part Vallejo White.
I sprayed the areas of the
wing roots swept by the wing
seals a very light grey, and the
engine and fin root exhaust areas
with various mixtures of Vallejo
Air silvers and golds. All detail
painting was lightly pre-shaded
to give additional depth. These
areas, plus the windscreen glazing,
cockpit, and wheel wells were then
masked with Tamiya tape, Blu-
Tack, and tissue, as appropriate.
The windscreen area was
first sprayed black to represent
the inner framing. The whole
airframe was then sprayed with
my grey mix, pre-shaded with
Vallejo German Grey, then the
base grey misted over until the
pre-shading was just visible.
Selected panels were masked and
sprayed slightly darker – ZA492had several distinctly darker
panels along its dorsal spine.
The fin root was masked, and
the fin itself sprayed Vallejo Black,
pre-shaded with light grey to take
the edge off that vast expanse
of flat colour. I mixed a slightly
darker grey for the nose cone,
which was a simple masking job.
Some further detail painting was
carried out at this stage, such as
the bare metal panels around the
gun muzzle, the ECM pods on the
tail, and the refuelling probe head
with its band of green tape. After
that, the entire model was given a
coat of Klear to protect the finish
during decaling and weathering.
I used a combination of the
kit and Cartograph decals, the
latter mainly for the tail art
and crew names. I secured the
myriad stencil decals with Klear,
eliminating any chance of silvering.
I thought some of the stencils,
particularly on the pylons and
stores, were too dark; many are
barely visible in photographs.
With this in mind, I over-sprayed
many of them with a very thin
coat of my base grey mix that
effectively lowered the contrast.
After another sealing coat of
Klear, I applied a Mig Dark Wash
to the entire airframe, followed
by streaks of Tamiya Oil Stain
and Mud weathering powders
behind selected panel breaks and
inspection plates. I paid particularattention to the undersides of the
rear fuselage, which often seem to
get misted with various fluids from
the engines and hydraulics. A coat
of Humbrol Matt Varnish Spray
completed the painting process.FINAL ASSEMBLY
I thought the cockpit opening
looked slightly too wide, so I
extended the cockpit edges inwards
with strips of black painted
plastic card. A couple of small
photo-etch rivets were added to
these strips to represent what
I believe are canopy latches.
The canopy itself was attached
to the fuselage with PVA, and a
couple of pieces of wire were added
just in front of the hinge points to
represent actuators. The various
small antennae were also attached
with PVA after detail painting. The
pylons were now carefully aligned
both vertically and longitudinally,
and secured with Tamiya Extra
Thin Cement. I used Araldite to
secure the stores to the pylons
The kit’s fabric wing seal
inserts weren’t particularly
convincing, being suited to the
swept configuration; they left a
significant gap when the wings
were in the un-swept position. I
replaced these with scratch-built
plastic inserts, covered with buff-
painted paper to get a perfect seal
to the wing roots. The seals wereWWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • NOVEMBER 2017 • 31
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