The Little World

You only have to forget once to weight the nose of a three-wheeled plane to impress it on your memory forever. And there is no effective way to excuse it when you are faced with the fact – other than accepting your fate, putting the wheels up, and the model on a flying stand.

I am wise – I beat out a musket ball as soon as the cockpit is done on any tricycle plane. Then it goes into the nose and stays there.

I have also learned that the best way to occlude the cockpits for painting is to put foam blocks into them and then skin over the foam with a thin layer of Faber Castell putty eraser. This versatile material has also largely replaced the white and blue tac putty for camouflage masking – it is far softer to roll out and sticks to the surface of the model much better. It is also recoverable – when you peel it off with paint or undercoat attached you just roll it up and it seems to absorb the paint.