Painting begins
First order of the day is to prime with my preferred Mr Surfacer 1500 grey and spend a little time on the upper surfaces in readiness for the gloss white coat. As anticipated the seams are just not strong enough, so I have strengthened the join with some very thin styrene strip. A little inaccurate but can be lived with.
Masking off the demarcation line, the upper fuselage and tail receive a coat of Mr Surfacer 1000 White primer before the top coat of Gloss White.
Reversing the masking the lower fuselage is primed in a gloss black base before adding the metallic topcoat. The initial metallic coat is a Chrome Silver from the Mr Color / Gunze range.
Further masking of the panels and applying differing shades completes the distinctive look of the surfaces as seen in my reference material.
The area under the windscreen and the tail leading edge are painted in an Aluminium finish.
Note that I kept the wing root masked to enable the best possible joint when it comes time to add the wings.
Around the main entrance hatch is a Yellow band on the base of the hatch and both sides, not above.
The nose cone is masked off and painted in NATO Black.
The spine walkway masked and Medium Sea Grey applied, I will add the cross walkways at a later stage after the wings are fitted.
The rudder, tailplanes and elevators are next on the agenda, primed and initially painted before fitting. The tail plane leading and trailing edges are Chrome Silver, with the centre section primed in White, in readiness for the High Visibility Arctic Red panels after fitting. The elevators and rudder are painted in Plate Silver for a more reflective effect.
Once the glue has set on the tail planes joints the seams can be tidied up and the centre panels masked, extending up to the root of the tail.
This pretty much wraps up the main fuselage painting, so on with the wings.
Alan Griffith says
Beautiful rendition of an old kit!
AlanG