Hello
On a bit of a roll in the last week or so and now managed to finish another. This is without a doubt my favourite aircraft in my favourite scheme. I have had this project on the back burner for ages, but when a set of spare of decals from the Eduard boxing became available on another site I finally had all the bits I needed!
This is the Academy kit with a fair bit of AM; SAC Gear, Aires Exhausts and Cockpit and Quickboost's Nose and Pitot. Last and not least it has the Fairy Hobby replacement canopy. This really is an excellent part and greatly improves the shape of the cockpit area and is lovely and clear. It was a bit tricky to fit, as it involves replacing two sections of the fuselage (fore and aft of the canopy) which required a lot of time and effort to get it to insert at the correct depth and blend in.
It is painted in Akan Acrylics which seem to match the pictures of the original I found. When these spray, they spray very nicely and leave a fantastic finish. However they do tend to dry on the tip very easily, this isn't so much of an issue on hard edge spraying however.
I used a fair bit of masking tape on this one, specifically an entire role of 40mm tamiya to protect areas from overspray. The demarcation was also done with Tamiya tape, sliced into then 1-2mm strips and trimmed into shape in situ.
Remarkably, I managed to get it done without any paint seeping under the tape, but there were one or two touch-ups required from minor paint lifts etc. I did the top scheme over 3 weeks allowing plenty of time for the paint to dry before masking.
I am actually quite pleased with this one, hope you like it. (Please ignore the skwiffy pitot, it's not glued in place yet).
Ian
Firstly, the airframe I was trying to replicate:
And the build: