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I'm in an experimentation / development sort of mood at the moment rather than an "out-perform-myself" sort of mood. So, following on from my recent F-86D Sabre Dog completion which was to try to figure out a way to get a natural metal finish I liked (I'm not done with that yet, btw) I thought I would try something that relates directly to our own paint and what can be done with it (and what cannot). I have read about "hairspray chipping" numerous times but had never tried it nor understood how to do it. A casual attempt without knowing anything else was a total failure. I kept reading that it could only be done with acrylic paints but this included everything from water based vinyl types to acrylic lacquers, so I knew that this apparent requirement had to be based on nothing more than the popular position of acrylic=good, enamel=bad despite acrylic meaning anything under the sun really. Thus, I decided that this old piece of Corsair which featured on the F-86D thread could lend its services again: You find with stuff like hairspray chipping that "everyone" just knows how to do it, but nobody has written down how to do it. Eventually I learned that what is required is water for the scratching-off phase at the end. Armed with this little nugget, I sprayed some hairspray straight from the aerosol can (that part is to be refined in the forthcoming) onto the piece shown above - 4 coats, actually, and whilst that dried I thinned down some Colourcoats enamel - which happened to be a matt dark olive shade I had on the bench next to the airbrush - but it could have been hot pink for all I cared here. Anyway, it works. Hairspray chipping works with a Colourcoats topcoat (the chipping coat) at least over an Alclad base. In the forthcoming I shall establish how (not if) to chip between layers of enamel. Also, there's the more subtle task of actually getting good at it! The test there is, admittedly, a mess, however it served a valuable purpose. Under water, I was able to remove Colourcoats enamel with a cut-down paint brush (but it had some paint dried in it - that's where the scratches came from), and I also tried a kitchen scouring pad which was responsible for most of the exposed silver there. Using a kit from the stash that doesn't need much effort, is quite cheap and as common as dirt (so I don't care if I mess this up), I now aim to incorporate this into a model and, specifically, use the hairspray chipping method exposing bare metal and yellow zinc chromate primer in different areas. If anyone wishes to follow, comment, criticise, suggest better ways, educate, point, laugh, whatever, please join in The victim - a nice enough kit. I have always struggled to get the wing join such that I'm happy with it but overall if it goes well I will enjoy having it and if it's a disaster then no real harm done! I'm not investing much in this, but probably will stretch to seatbelts just incase it ends up looking ok in the end. I'm not spending money on them though - instead I'll use these ones from an Eduard SBD Dauntless fret. I don't like the pre-painted ones Eduard make now - the paint self-strips when the belts are bent to suit, and I don't like the superfabric ones either. I need to find a new source of belts or at least belt buckles - but that's another matter I started by spraying most of the parts with Alclad Duralumin whilst still on the runners. After assembly the wing leading edges etc will probably need another blow over