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Spitfire LF.Mk.Vb 1/48 Airfix Club


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10 hours ago, KelT said:

Add in the fact that just starting out there is so much stuff to buy anyway I really can't justify $350 on an airbrush any time soon, that's quite a few kits I could buy instead.

 

I hope they wouldn't cost you that much! You can pick up cheap Chinese made airbrushes for less than most kits cost, although a compressor will be more. But you should model in the way that you want, and it looks like you're getting very good results with your methods.

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This morning I thought my only problem was how I was going to mask the top half of the wing from the bottom while I painted them, how wrong was I.

 

Last night I coated my - not perfect but almost - Med Sea Grey painted under wing with "Long Life" the Australian equivalent of Future, this morning I awoke to a mottled patchy finish. I tried buffing it but with no effect. Tried another coat of "Long Life" no effect. Water no effect. Light pass with Tamiya thinners, hmm that had an effect. I am about ready to throw whats left into the bin right now, but am wrestling with looking on this as a learning experience.

 

Currently it looks like my best course of action is to strip the thing entirely using the thinners and start again. The problem being that I will need to apply "Long Life" again anyway. Oh well, deep breath and perseverance.

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Hmmm... Sounds like there might have still been some damp spots in the paint. Sorry to hear that. Can you strip back just the affected areas ? Or will that ruin the whole paint job ? Dont bin it set it aside and work on something else. Go back to it when you think you can fix it. That or use it as a practice piece to learn how to do fixes like this. 

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It's not likely to have been damp paint since it was over a week ago since I painted it. The whole model was supposed to be a practice kit so it won't go into the bin no matter how tempted and at the end of the day I am learning plenty from this experience.

 

I should have known it was going to be one of those days before I got to my model, the camera stopped working (SD card knackered) and the phone stopped working (no idea on that one yet). Then I had this problem with my model and to top everything off for some reason known only to himself the dog decided to take a leak on the carpet.

 

I am back to laughing about it all now though. The wings are stripped back to the primmer, those thinners do an excellent job, I will wait until I have some distilled water before trying to paint it again, I can't take any pictures of course because both the phone and the camera are cactus. I do always like to get the best for my money so I'm looking at this as "one kit, two builds", double the fun and experience. It has been very educational in terms of stripping the paint off though, I didn't expect it to be quite so easy.

 

I did break my very first piece in the process, one of the little tabs that connect to the ailerons, (too heavy with my paint removal frenzy), I still have it though so I will attempt to re-bond that after I've repainted. I am dreading coating it in "Long Life" again but who knows perhaps I will be an expert brush painter by the time I get these wings done. 😂

 

 

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I managed to get a new SD card for the camera, the phone just started working again so who knows what went on there and the dog is appropriately chastised. I got a little modelling done too. Not great photo's sorry it's dark enough to be night here and I'm thinking I might need to build an Ark next.

 

The underside with the paint stripped off the wings but not the ailerons or the tail.

A: I found that there was a small gap where the wings met the body and since I don't have any putty I melted some sprue in glue to fill it. I was quite happy with the results.

 

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B: There were small gaps either side of the fuselage where the wings met but by putting slight pressure downwards on the fuselage and gently upwards from under the wings while the glue set I managed to close the gaps successfully.

C : For some reason I had a pinhole open on the starboard wing. I managed to fill it with sprue and glue but have no idea how it happened, perhaps too much glue when fastening the upper and lower wings may have melted it?

D : I also had an issue with the cowling just forward of the cockpit being a little proud despite the sides sitting completely flush but a little sanding fixed that.

 

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It was at that point that I discovered PlaStix's build thread of the same kit from 2014, shame I hadn't seen it earlier although I don't think I'd have trusted myself to glue the upper wings to the fuselage before gluing the lower wings and the pressure method worked well enough. I did learn that I'm missing some fasteners but not having the equipment Tony had nor the styrene rod Stix had I instead tried stretching some sprue which I have seen done in videos so often. I used a pin to place them and superglue to fix them. I got better at slicing them thinly enough to avoid lots of sanding as I went on but I'm still not sure about the results, I can't decide whether to just remove them and do without the fasteners? I put the ones on the cowling in front of the cockpit too you can just make them out in the poor photo above.

 

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I guess now I am getting close to painting which I am extremely nervous about. A little less nervous since I found how easy it is to remove the paint, Vallejo at least. I think perhaps my mishap with the Future was a good thing since I was planning on painting the whole upper surface with Dark Sea Grey Vallejo and then painting over with the Dark Green using Tamiya. After discovering just how effective Tamiya thinners are at removing Vallejo I can only imagine the nightmare that would have been. So unless I get chance to buy some Vallejo Dark Green I figure I'll just do them the other way around, Tamiya first Vallejo on top. Will this cause me any issues does anyone know?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by KelT
Stupid auto Smiley's
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi KelT. Hope you are well. Just checking if you have had any luck with your painting? Hopefully it has gone bettter than you thought it might?

Kind regards,

Stix

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You shouldnt have any issues ive sprayed tamiya over vallejo. And Vallejo over Tamiya without problems but i always use future over vallejo to protect the paint. Mostly from masks but from other paints. Ive even sprayed vallejo over enamels and vice versa just have to wait a day or two for the enamel to off gas or you will have issues.

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Wow, thanks for checking in. I had written this post two days ago but I figured I'd not bother anyone with my problems so I didn't post it, but since you asked...

 

Well my WIP has been quiet but I've been very busy. I couldn't for the life of me get the Vallejo to stick to my model, the paint went on beautifully every time but came off just as beautifully. Three times I stripped and repainted it trying different things, none worked which I was very disappointed about since I really like using the paint. It stripped back easily though using just wet (water) cotton buds.

 

I bought some Humbrol 165 to try instead but we only get the cruddy Chinese stuff down here. It was absolutely terrible, like water and I couldn't get a cover on the model at all. On the upside it did stick to the plastic. I had to strip it back again but this time I needed Tamiya thinners to do it. I tried several other experiments but without much success and in the end I turned to Tamiya. I probably don't have to tell you that Tamiya is a different animal altogether. It took me three coats to figure out the mechanics of the paint, the main problem being it's tendency to lift the previous coats. After the three coats I thought I'd got it so I decided to strip it back and do it properly. Vallejo goes on easy and comes off just as easy, Tamiya goes on hard and... yep it was much more difficult to get off. I ended up with these sticky smudges all over the model. In my frustration I grabbed some Orange Power Goo Remover, at this point I wasn't really thinking straight and probably should have walked away for a while but oh no...

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The Orange stuff took of the residue, it took off the primer too and it was looking like a lovely job until it began to dry, what a sticky mess. I suspect it liquidized some of the glue and redeposited it on the wings although it could just have easily been the Orange goo itself.  The only way to remove it was to sand it back, my plastic is no longer pristine and I have seriously thinned some of the details down on the underside.

 

Still this kit was bought for practice so I guess I'm getting what I paid for. I managed to get the underside painted, it took seven coats. To prevent the Tamiya paint from re-activating and stripping the previous layers I thin it with distilled water and a couple of drops of Tamiya retarder, it works well. The only downside is that the paint needs to be very thin to get a good finish so it took seven coats to get it there. Altogether the underside has had nineteen coats of paint, not all at once of course or the model would be the size of a basketball. I have to say I've learned a lot though.

 

Not happy, but content, with the underside I decided to do the upper side. Seven coats of Tamiya Natural Grey and it was looking good even if it was damned hard work to achieve. I was worried about getting good edges with such fluid paint when it came time for the Tamiya XF81 Dark green so I masked with blue-tac, another mistake. After two coats I checked a small spot and noticed I was getting build up so I removed all the blue-tac leaving edge lines. On coat three I managed to remove most of them by adding a little Tamiya thinner to my paint mix and reactivating the previous coat of paint but I couldn't get rid of them completely. Five coats of green and it looks like this:

 

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There are no brush strokes and the paint itself doesn't look too bad but it's really hard work and I don't feel very in control or comfortable pushing about such diluted Tamiya paint. Applying so many coats also means a lot of handling and in the process I managed to get a nasty fingerprint on the port side grey section which lifted some of the paint. It's also pretty nerve wracking trying to get good edges with the thin solution.

I can't say I'm very happy with the current state, some of the ridge lines from the masking remain, then there's the fingerprint to deal with. Meanwhile I continued testing various things on some spare parts and found that diluting Vallejo with Future (50/50) instead of water not only helped it adhere to the plastic but also provided a reasonably robust result which tests with Blue-Tac and Tamiya masking tape confirmed. I am very happy with the results and hope to use this method in future. The paint is much easier to handle than the diluted Tamiya and the finish much better.

 

So yesterday I bought some Mr Muscle oven cleaner and a couple more Vallejo paints and will strip this Spitfire once more. In all honesty the current job with the Tamiya isn't too bad and with a little work I could make the model presentable but I want to try the Vallejo/Future on a large surface area and I really don't want to have to experiment on my next model, so since this is a practice kit it makes sense to use it as such. If I can get reliable results from the Vallejo I'd be much happier as I actually feel like I'm painting with it rather than pushing about small pools of coloured liquid.

 

So there we have it, nineteen coats on the underside and fourteen on the upper and more to come. I will say though that I long ago passed the point of pain and I'm actually enjoying practicing on this kit now. A part of me just wants to give in and tidy up the Tamiya producing a satisfactory end result but the bigger part is yelling at me to take take advantage of this opportunity to learn and get some experience. So unless the Mr Muscle turns my battered Spit into a small blue pool I am looking forward to repainting her, hopefully for the final time, with Vallejo.

 

 

 

 

 

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26 minutes ago, KelT said:

I masked with blue-tac, another mistake. After two coats I checked a small spot and noticed I was getting build up so I removed all the blue-tac leaving edge lines. On coat three I managed to remove most of them by adding a little Tamiya thinner

Have you any Micro mesh ? Or high grit sanding films in the 2000+ grit range. You can eliminate the edge lines by wet sanding them. I would also remove the tac after the first couple of coats like you did.  

26 minutes ago, KelT said:

I want to try the Vallejo/Future on a large surface area

Have you tried diluting the Tamiya this way ? Maybe a 40-40-20 Tamiya-water-future mix ?  The future is acting as a flow emprover and hardener at the same time. Test that out and see if it works. Please feel free to do this ➡️ @Corsairfoxfouruncle It will get my attention if you need help. 

 

Dennis

Edited by Corsairfoxfouruncle
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@Corsairfoxfouruncle

 

One of the things I've learned from all this is that there are various standards for measuring sanding paper. Down here we seem to exclusively use FEPA as all the papers are marked P### on the back, I will keep an eye out for Micro-Mesh in future. I just bought some P1200 today as it was the finest available, that's for sanding the underneath since my previous attempts with P120 left a few scars. I hadn't thought of sanding back the edge lines and I really appreciate that advice I shall bear it in mind if I get them in future. One of the reasons I perhaps hadn't considered it was fear of going near anything with my P120 but now I am better armed. 🙂 I won't bother Blu-Tac masking with the Vallejo though since I find it to be much more manageable with the brush and should be easy to get good edges with.

 

It is tempting to clean up the job I have thus far but I do think I'd be wasting an opportunity to try out Vallejo since I'd much rather paint with them than the Tamiya. I do like Tamiya and everything I used of theirs has been excellent quality but brush painting their acrylics on large areas feels like forcing them to do something they were never designed for. Again the thought of adding Future to the Tamiya never occurred since the paint does eventually dry extremely hard but if I have to strip back the next Vallejo attempt and resort to Tamiya again I will certainly try it.

 

Thank you for the ideas and the offer of help, I'm currently feeling confident moving forward, I hope it's not misplaced. If it does all go dismally then at least we bought a new oven recently and I now have some cleaner for the old one so I'll be able to sell it.

 

 

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We use the same P### system here in the states. They make sand paper up to about p2000 then sanding film or polishing cloth go up to i think P12000. Its a microscopic abrasive meant to polish the surface of whatever its put to. I rarely go over P2000 myself. But if a modeler wants to they can. I also wetsand so as to leave less scratches. 

 

Dennis

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You are going through some trials, no mistake! I'm very surprised by what you're experiencing; I've been using Vallejo Model Color and Vallejo Model Air as my primary paints for more than a decade now and I've never experienced the sort of problems that you've recounted. I wondered whether there was some atmospheric difference, but the Tassie climate is hardly extreme, so I think we can rule that out. You're painting over primer, so that should rule out mould release agent. I'm assuming that you're using VMC, as a 50/50 VMA/Future mix would be incredibly thin and hard to paint by brush. Wish I had some cunning solution, but I'm stumped. Hope the Future mix does the trick.

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@amblypygid Yeah it's VMC I have been using, there isn't a supplier for VMA down here. The climate here right now is probably comparable to an English spring so as you say it's unlikely the cause. I've only ever used the one bottle of VMC and it's pretty thick out of the bottle, I actually like it like that and hope they are all the same. The first four coats of Vallejo were really good it was only when I applied the coat of Future that it went astray. Although I was getting a lot of streaks which I am guessing was the wet paint reactivating the previous coat a little but I can't be certain that was the cause. Down here our version of Future is called "Long Life" and it has a slight smell of amonia and having since read that Windex with amonia in it is excellent for cleaning up paint I suspect that was the cause of the initial problems. Thinning the paint directly with the "Long Life" seems to prevent this as far as my tests on small pieces show. Hopefully that will carry through to the larger areas.

 

Distilled water fixed the problem I was having with bubbles too although that's a moot issue now I'm thinning with Future rather than water.

 

@Corsairfoxfouruncle I checked on Ebay and we get Mirco Mesh here too so I will look out for it. The P1200 was far better than the P120 🙂 no surprises there. I will give it a rub over once more with it wet after reading your post above.

 

I masked the cockpit area by covering it with a piece of paper then squashing a blob of Blu-Tac over it and it seemed to work well. The paper stopped the Blu-Tac turning my Spitfire into the first model with an ejection seat. Thirty minutes with Mr Muscle (I used the Odourless, non-caustic stuff. Quite what that means I have no idea since it stank and I certainly wouldn't want to get any on me to test how caustic it is.) and my little Lady looks like this:

 

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The oven cleaner is wonderful stuff, it did an excellent job. I will leave her overnight to dry properly after her thorough wash with warm soapy water. After a rub with alcohol I'll paint her once more. I'm really quite excited to be getting on with that this time around rather than my previous nerves. I need to glue a stick of sprue or something into her nose this time so that I don't have to handle her while painting.

 

 

 

 

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Hi KelT

The work you've done in the cockpit is great and you thread is educational too. I had not ever thought of using stretched sprue for the fasteners . That is great. 

I am sorry to hear of all the paint woes.  I brush paint and use thinned  Humbrol enamel paint. I have never got on with acrylic paints at all. So I applaud you for your work with them . 

Good luck with the repaint. 

All the best 

Chris 

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@bigbadbadge Thanks for the kind words although I'm not sure about the use of the adjective "educational". Perhaps I could make a tutorial for a hundred and one things not to do. Actually perhaps I should consider making it a series 🙂.

 

I got the underside sanded and painted, it took three coats and dried to a sturdy finish when mixed with the Future. I applied a coat of Future over the top once completed just to make sure I don't get a repeat of last time and it was all good. It's nowhere near as good a job as the first time I painted it but considering the amount of trauma this old girl has been through I'm quite pleased with the result.

 

I also learned the valuable lesson of assembling the parts before painting them. It took me quite some time to get the two intakes to fit properly, they're still not perfect but I'm happy with them and that's all that counts right? Being so accustomed to stripping this model back the thought did cross my mind momentarily, but no more, this girl's due a change of occupation, no more stripping for her. Besides I have so many more areas to screw up, such as decals and clear parts.

 

I also managed to assemble, paint and weather the undercarriage. I used water colours for the weathering and some grey and brown pastels for muddying the tyres although it doesn't really show up so well in the photos.

 

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Top side next I guess.

 

 

 

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On 6/8/2018 at 10:27 PM, KelT said:

I seem to be getting a lot of little bubbles in my paint as I apply it and read that it might be down to my tap water so distilled water is on the next shopping list. I tried different brushes and it's the same with each, without water it's fine but too thick of course but the moment I add water, bubbles. I tried adding the smallest drop of washing up liquid but still the bubbles remain so I will see how I go with the distilled water. 

Hi KeIT

 

Apologies if am duplicating advice already offered.

 

I am intrigued with your bubbles problem. How do you mix the paint before you apply it?  The advice I have seem is to roll the bottles rather than shake?  That will not fix the problem of bubble being added when you add water (which might be a chemical reaction with whatever is in your source of water, and I see you now have distilled water). The lifting of paint is common for Vallejo, but putting the paint of a good coat of primer normally helps and making sure if is really dry before applying another coat.  Cotton gloves help with handling too.

 

regards

 

anthony

 

 

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@Anthony Kesterton

 

Hi Anthony.

 

My problem with bubbles is a thing of the past now that I am using Future and in fact the distilled water fixed them prior to that. For mixing I was putting a drop of paint on a ceramic plate then placing a small pool of water nearby from a pipette. Using my brush I would mix the paint to the consistency I needed. I firmly believe that the bubbles were coming from my tap water since, unlike you guys in the UK where the mains is fed right to the door, ours feeds into a large tank in the garden and supplements the rainwater collected. From the tank it is pumped via a small (about the size of breeze block) pump to the house and I suspect that it was this pump that was adding the air which the mixing with paint caused to separate out.

 

At the time of the bubbles I tried not shaking the paint but rather opening the bottle and stirring but it made no difference. I also read that Vallejo suggest "rolling" the bottle but fail to see how that would adequately mix the paint inside. Now my bubble worries are over I mix like so; if the paint has been standing for a few days I remove the top and stir otherwise I shake like mad with a stainless nut (from a nut and bolt) inside and then stand the bottle upside down for a minute so that any bubbles can rise upwards before I squeeze out the paint.

 

In my research of the problems I did read that Vallejo was notorious for being soft and rubbing off but believe me I tried everything I could to try and prevent it. I even had pieces which I'd painted and left for two weeks, even after that amount of drying time I could take a damp cotton bud and pretty much roll it across the surface to have the paint come off. Not all in one go of course but enough nasty scratches to make the piece unusable. I also read that applying a clear coat to protect it fixed the problem but since adding the Australian (with ammonia) version of Future actually caused further issues I couldn't do that - without buying an alternative more expensive clear coat of course.

 

Of course the caveat to my problems is that all my paint so far has come from the one bottle, perhaps it's a bad bottle? Today I will paint from a different bottle but I shall continue to thin with Future since it works so well and is just as easy as using distilled water. In fact yesterday I painted a practice piece with two coats leaving only ten minutes between them and I left it to dry for ten minutes before applying a piece of "cheap" everyday masking tape. I rubbed down the tape to get a good edge and left it for a further ten minutes before removing it without effecting the underlying paint in any way. After all I have tried in order to facilitate using the Vallejo paint I like so much I just sat and grinned at the sight. I keep coming up with these stupid experiments in order to restore my confidence with Vallejo but after that one I think I'm pretty happy.

 

Yesterday I had to handle my painted under-wings a great deal (wearing latex gloves) in order to fit the two intakes, plenty of rubbing, accidental knocking etc but not a single unwanted scratch in the new paint (it was left for twenty four hours to dry). I couldn't be happier and thinned with the Future it brushes on just as well as when thinned with distilled water. I even made an error on the smaller intake and left the glued seam which I didn't notice until after I'd painted it - when I started this modelling I naively thought that a coat or two of paint would hide minor errors, I now know that they instead shine a great spotlight on them all - so in another experiment I sanded only the seam and then repainted to see if the new coat would blend with the previous coats on the rest of the piece. It worked a treat although I'd not like to try it on a large flat surface area.

 

So now hopefully all my paint worries are over (did I just risk saying that?) and I am glad that I can use Vallejo since its beautiful paint and is a dream to hand brush. I'm mixing it at approximately 60/40 (Future/Paint) although I don't worry about being exact but rather look for the consistency I like. On my 1/48 it dries slowly enough to allow plenty of time for brush painting and even as I finish a coat I can still make corrections over the point of my very first brush stroke so long as I wet the brush with more paint first. I've had none of the streaking I experienced previously and a little paint goes a long way, two drops from the bottle paints the entire underside of my Spitfire, three or four thin coats to get a good finish.

 

Apologies for the long winded reply, I searched all over for a resolution to my problems and found scattered bits of information at best, I figured I'd put everything here in one post in case someone else is ever searching for the same thing.

 

 

 

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I managed to get the topside painted, it still needs the sky band and the yellow leading edges - if they are appropriate I need to look that up, hopefully not. I'm quite pleased with the finish, it seemed a little insane removing an almost good enough Tamiya paint job but I am glad I took the time to do it.

 

I didn't bother to mask as the paint was quite manageable, in fact I pretty much did it exactly as PlaStix does and I am very grateful for his advice and video. I was worried about those leading edges without masking but they were a doddle, thanks Stix.

 

 

 

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The paint job looks great! One pedantic bit of criticism, though I could well be wrong as I'm relying wholly on what others have told me: I don't believe the ailerons could droop like that (the elevators, though, apparently do).

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8 minutes ago, amblypygid said:

The paint job looks great! One pedantic bit of criticism, though I could well be wrong as I'm relying wholly on what others have told me: I don't believe the ailerons could droop like that (the elevators, though, apparently do).

You are right, ailerons move in opposite direction. Beautiful paint job, including the interior. This is going to be an amazing build. 

Edited by Lomcevak
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Ah, thanks amblypygid. That's the disadvantage of only having one photograph and taken from one side. Is it worth trying to move the starboard side aileron up or is that likely to do more damage than good?

 

 

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How well glued are they? I think there's a risk that the pressure required to break the bond might snap the aileron first; if you can safely get a blade into the join then you could weaken it first by scoring. Some repainting no doubt necessary too.

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I just read a little on ungluing parts. They are very well glued and using Tamiya extra thin so melted and welded styrene, I just tested the joint but it is solid. I think I've done enough repainting for one model so I will live with the inaccuracy and learn from it. 

 

I really should have known better but wood and trees is a good idiom. I'll only do it once though right 🙂.

 

I just started painting the yellow leading edges, I really do hate that my fate is in the hands of a little bit of masking tape and I won't know the outcome until it's removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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