and was certainly very smooth.
However, it wasn’t as tough as I
would have liked; when it came
to masking the panels in the
latter stages of the painting, to
my amazement, it peeled off –
completely ruining the finish. To
be fair to the product, maybe it
was an isolated batch or my model
wasn’t grease free (although it had
been washed), but it was with huge
disappointment that I realised itwasn’t really salvageable if I wanted
to retain that perfect finish.BACK TO THE DRAWING
BOARD.
After a day or two, I came up with
the rather radical answer – I bought
another kit! But as I’d spent so long
on the interior and was very pleasedwith what I’d done with it (and spent
so much on aftermarket parts), I
really couldn’t just throw it in the
bin. So I broke up the fuselage,
carefully extracted all my carefully
crafted interior, and transferred
it to the new kit. In no time at all
(although somewhat financially
deficient) I had my interior
restored into a brand new model.
This time I went back to my
tried and tested Alclad Gloss Black
base. This worked very well and
provided the required base for
the upcoming Alclad paintwork.
I think the key to metal finishes
is to use multiple shades to get a
real patchwork of panels – very
noticeable on period photos
of these early jets. To achieve
this I used Alclad Magnesium,
Aluminium, White Aluminium,
Dark Aluminium, Duralumin, and
various mixtures of the above.
Note that I didn’t use any of
Alclad’s ”high shine” products
(Airframe Aluminium being one- which, incidentally, I did use on
the external fuel tanks). These are
a little too bright for a wartime
aircraft at the front and are much
more delicate than their less shiny
colleagues. These, in my experience,
do lift when masked, unless you
are very careful, and they must
“IF YOU FANCY TRYING YOUR HAND AT
A METALLIC FINISH, THIS KIT REALLY
IS A GREAT OPTION TO CHOOSE”
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