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I finally finished my Airfix Gnat.

Gnat%201_zps0eusnnuv.jpg

The kit itself was a joy to build but the Day-Glo finish drove me to distraction. It took 10 coats of Model Air to get a reasonablly solid finish and a couple of runs on the tail meant I had to strip it and start again. It took over a months worth of modelling sessions to get it to this

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I wanted to do it in this scheme as it took me back to the sixties when I had three or four 1/72nd Gnats, which for some reason was my go to choice of kit if nothing new was out. I also remember passing Kemble on a holiday down south around 1970 and seeing the real thing close up.

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I'd like to build another as I saw them all those years ago in the Light Aircraft Grey/Day-Glo scheme and if I do, I'm going to try an orange undercoat rather than white for the Day-Glo.

Gnat%203_zpszg1myovm.jpg

Thanks for looking

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Definitely worth the extra effort, looks really good. This comes from someone who didn't have the skill (or patience) to persevere with his own day-glo scheme!

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Day-glo can be an absolute sod in full size, never mind on models, where the problem of it often requiring a very thick paint film is of course made worse by the scale effects. Well done for persevering. Last time I did day-glo on a model it was a 1/5 scale sailplane and I couldn't get anywhere with the usually available model shop paints, I ended up working with an aerosol from a car paint factor which gave much better coverage.

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Day-glo can be an absolute sod in full size, never mind on models, where the problem of it often requiring a very thick paint film is of course made worse by the scale effects. Well done for persevering. Last time I did day-glo on a model it was a 1/5 scale sailplane and I couldn't get anywhere with the usually available model shop paints, I ended up working with an aerosol from a car paint factor which gave much better coverage.

I built the 1/72 version and ended up binning it because the dayglo failed miserably. I remember in the 70's my Dad used to bring sheets of the stuff home from work (RAF Leuchars) for my Brother's models.

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