The Little World

Well that was a bust, albeit ultimately a successful one.

The plan to carefully spray between the lines  – with a Tamiya rattle can – was reasonably stupid thinking on my part. You saw in the last column where I just did the overall brown and went on as per normal. The camo lines were masked with paper overlays on Blutack snakes and the result was quite good. Then I masked off the top portion and laid down the coal black underside with Mr. Color lacquer, also in a can.

The result was as near perfect as I have ever achieved with a spray – it greatly encourages me to use this system again for the big bombers.

Ah, then yet another slight deviation from the upward path. Fortunately not a serious one. But it does reinforce the dictum that one must try everything for oneself and not accept blind advice.

Watching the Flory Models vlog, I noted that Phil advised one person that it wasn’t necessary to entirely coat a model with a clear gloss coat ot varnish or floor polish before decaling it. He said you could brush on a clear gloss under the sections that would take the decal and then compensate for any specularity changes around the decal later when you applied matt coats or washes. I decided to do this with the Fortress Mk.III.

Fortunately for me, I suspected that it might be problematical and took measures to limit the size of the brushed patches to pretty much the area of the roundels, fin flash, and squadron codes. Just as well I did, because even with matting spray, the clear coating is evident. If I had been aiming for an operational aircraft there would have had to be some pretty heavy weathering and washes to cover this.

I make my models as museum restorations and every example has some flaws introduced by the restorers. Either an imaginative paint scheme or one that has one shade wrong. Or, as this one, evidence of repainting around some portion of the structure. I can continue happily with the Fortress Mk III as a display plane with all the doors open. The fact that the underside is still pretty makes up for the fuselage sides near the roundel.