The Little World

That’s as in Barbie and Ken…not ” put another shrimp on the barbie “.

The pink undercoat is still doing what it says on the tin. The coverage is superb and the final surface extremely smooth – no polishing sticks needed to get it ready for the colour coat. I did pick up a jar of Mr. Surfacer 1000 the other day, but I’m in no hurry to switch back to it. As long as I can get a full coverage of the pink things are fine. Still have not tried out the effect of a silver or metallic over it, but that is coming.

The Soviet Blue on the underside is not a pure bottle – it is No. 10 Mr Color with a strong dollop of mid green to knock it down to a slightly turquoise shade. Once the current dregs are used on an upcoming Polikarpov, I will mix a full bottle against future use.

Actually I think it is time to go back to the practice of separating the colours for various air forces and navies into dedicated containers. I am starting to mix more custom shades and have a good way of labelling them. It would save a lot of indecision to know that I had a specific scheme in the bottles for each force.

Anyway, the engine cowling is temporarily tacked to the fuselage for painting and the coverage of the blue is superb. I am picking and choosing my days to avoid wet ones for colour coats or varnishes. Also boosting the speed of drying with a hair dryer applied judiciously. What it would be to have a temperature and humidity-controlled workshop…