The Little World

And as the house-keeping has been done for the week, there is nothing left but the Heinkel-keeping.

You are never going to be doing all that much to an early Hasegawa kit – a little filling and sanding where the ejector pins were aggressive, but there is no overweening detail to dismay you. You are best to do it with your wits about you, but they need not be the first-line A-grade wits.

I only get to the half-way point, anyway…

The fuselage went together with no perilous parts – the wheels and spats slotted onto the solid gear struts, and that into the fuselage. I am so grateful to Heinkel for this after their miserable engineering of the He 70 G-1. The business of supplying the wheels and tyres as part of the spat moulding is also good – it means you do not have to paint a separate item and try to sandwich it between the parts. No-one is going to want rolling wheels anyway.

Of course the first hurdle is the undercoat – in this case Mr. Surfacer 1000. I would have opted for 1200 if the final paint surface was to be silver dope, but this one will be different. The spray job was done before 9:00 when the workshed was cool enough to allow the airbrush stream to flow well.

The decals were also sprayed after going through the inkjet printer – with Rapid Thinner in the gloss to prevent the varnish from cracking up the delicate ink. I always lay out at least a repeat of the desired pattern – sometimes two. It is insurance against my own mistakes when soaking off the decals.