Petemack

Excellent work. Oh, the mountain I have to climb to get near that standard. Lovely subtle weathering that makes her look suitably in service and careworn.

Very delicately done. Nice masking round the cockpit canopy ...

I've very much enjoyed this thread. Excellent modelling and interesting info. Like many, I suspect, there is one of these new Hurricanes waiting on my shelf for a future day - my modelling is very slow at the moment. I found the discussion on exhaust staining very instructive and it raised the question of how staining would have been on the Battle of Britain Hurricanes? It was summer (warm) and often they'd be climbing at full boost to get to altitude so how would that affect the stain? That would be on a rich mixture, wouldn't it? Black with a greyer edge perhaps (no doubt they ran much leaner on return from combat to preserve fuel)? Or would the staining be more grey as the richer stain could get stripped away during leaner mix conditions. What do you knowledgeable modellers think? Sorry, messed up the quoting system there. Will get used to it ASAP hopefully

Giorgio - very interesting. I'll have a look at those. Nigel - Completely right, I probably am over-thinking and being over-cautious. Your explanation and experience is the sort of thing I hoped to hear and it makes good sense. I just hadn't seen a discussion of the issue anywhere else. Time to get the (air)brush and paints out, methinks. Thanks all. Pete

OK, that all makes sense. i suppose it's the artists oil colours that cause me the most concern. As a painter my knowledge of oils is that their slow drying characteristics mean that they tend to shrug off other finishes - for example,look at the paintings of Jackson Pollock who mixed all sorts of different paints on the canvas, many of which are disintegrating as the years go on. Or any old masters that were painted without careful regard for the different drying times of successive coats that have crazed and cracked. The rule was/is 'fat over lean' ie the paint with least oil is at the bottom and to be stable the next coats can be the same or oilier but not the other way round. I can see that careful of application of acrylics and enamels could be fairly safe as they both harden quickly and your point about hot solvents is well made. Artists oils essentially never harden (though they may 'skin' to some extent) and that's the bit I find hard to reconcile. Do you take steps to remove residue with a degreasing solvent from areas that don't need to display any signs of wash before applying acrylic? Does the acrylic coat stand up to handling over time if an oil wash is below it? Or maybe the fact that a carefully finished model gets very careful handling means that the finish doesn't get bruised or worn and remains relatively untested for stability? Cheers.

Thanks for your thoughts, Giorgio. An oil paint you can thin with water …? Seems like a contradiction in terms! What make is that? Good point about thicker decals and the effect of a wash. Must remember that. I'm rather like you in terms of time. My current little project is proceeding at a snail's pace but I can see that, like you've found, it could have benefits in terms of the thorough drying between stages. Cheers

Having recently returned to model building after many years I'm very interested in the advances that have been made in detailing and finishing of kits. In the painting arena I'm taken with the whole idea of the oil wash to bring out detail but can't shake off the art and decorating training that says oil and water-based paints don't like each other much. In particularly I'm intrigued by the order in which one applies the oil wash to a model. It seems that many people add this wash after decalling but do you then go on to apply a finish coat, say a matt one, after the wash? If the paints are acrylic and the final coat is acrylic how does it react with the oil? My knowledge of paints says that acrylic should not be applied over oil. What do you do? Perhaps the thinning of the oil prevents it being too sticky and most of it is in the panel lines etc but it seems to me any residue will undermine a topcoat that is water-based. What's the general experience in the application order of the finishing coats? Cheers.