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Hello all! Over the years, I have tried many times to produce a model of an EE Lightning which had a decent silver finish. I had tried Humbrol Metalcote spray, Mr Metalizer paint, acrylic and enamel by brush, but never had much success. The Metalcote finished without a gloss effect and appeared to be grainy The Metalizer, after buffing up, was WAY to shiny (mind you, it did look like metal and you could also use the plane as a mirror but it lost the scale effect). I decided I was going to do a parallel build and use two new techniques (to me) and see how things got on. First up is the 1/72 Airfix F6, and is finished in 74 Squadron markings from 1970 in Singapore at RAF Tengah. This is the one plane I have really wanted to do but, due to the poor finishes in the past, never got round to. It is important to me because of a bit of my history. I was in Singapore, and also in the Scouts. We had a weekend camp over at Tengah, and one of our treats was to go onto the base and ogle their Lightnings. The ground crew that took us round said we could clamber into the cockpit if we wanted to, as long as we did not touch any controls. So we took the opportunity! That sealed my love of the Lightning that has stayed with me to this day. The kit went together pretty well, much better than my F2A I had done a few years ago, and the only issue I had was having to pare away a little bit of the cockpit tub front. I was very much aware of how much needed removing for the cockpit and exhausts modules, but I think I had a good kit this time as very little needed to go. As I do not have an airbrush, I sprayed from the tin some Tamiya primer, and then, after masking off the tail, used another can of Tamiya Bare Metal Silver spray. The result was pretty good to me and it gave a nice, even covering which was well suitable to put the transfers on, which settled like a dream. I picked out a few panels with Revell Silver acrylic with a wide, flat brush to give some differentiation to the surface and ended up with this: I was very pleased with this one for its finish, and also the build process as it was a credit to Airfix. All the best, Ray