The Little World

Apparently if you paint parts on the sprue trees you are a bad boy. This was the experience of Phil Flory a while ago when he was seen to be doing this – he was taken to task by some enthusiasts in IPMS for not taking the hobby seriously.

Seriously.

The instruction leaflets, modelling books, and internet sites all advise us to paint the smaller parts we deal with on the sprue trees to avoid losing them. The handling is so much easier. We are then cautioned to cut them free carefully, dress the flaws, and touch them over. It is eminently sensible – you can separate things into different divisions of you need to spray them, or just turn the fan pattern down some and be careful. You can thin your paint and brush it on. It is probably better to cut off parts if they are misshapen or flash-ridden and deal with them after that, but there are some things that are nearly impossible to grasp after they are off the trees.

Hence I have no problem with painting the Zero’s landing gear doors on the trees and mating them with the legs to produce as large a subassembly as can be had.

I wonder what the IPMS ruling would be about using tape for a hard colour demarcation? I’ve got clear photos from Google of the aircraft while it was being assessed at Langley, Virginia that show a pretty hard break. In 1:72 I think tape will do nicely for this one.

BTW, if you ever want to hire someone to deal with the subject of topography and the geometry of multiple curved surfaces, get a scale model airplane builder. We’ve learned it all with Tamiya tape. Mummies hold no terrors for us – we can wrap and unwrap ’em blindfolded.

BTW. The wing-root gaps were again present on this Zero – but these could be filled with Vallejo putty in one squirt and smoothed with a wet Q-tip. Dead easy.