Painted silver, not NMF
With the fuselage NMF painting complete, it was time to mask up and paint the wings. As discussed before, the laminar flow wings of the Mustang were not NMF as they left the factory. In fact the wings were puttied, primed and finally painted silver. To simulate this I wanted to find a paint that did not look like NMF, but rather painted on silver. I tested and evaluated many paints (including decanting some Tamiya spray colors) and in the end settled for an Alclad color “Duralumin”. This shade had the right dullness and lustre for what I was after. To start it was a bit shiny, but in the end it received a coat of the new Alclad “Light Sheen” clear.
The following diagrams show the exact shades of Alclad Metalizers I used when painting this model. Side View
To assist me in determining the correct location for the fuselage black and white invasion stripes, I photocopied the decal and temporarily attached it to the fuselage so as to get the spacing correct.
Blue nose
Next on the painting list was the blue nose, spinner and rudder; a fairly simple masking job here. I was tempted to chip and heavily weather the cowling, but in the end decided on a more subdued approach. I experimented with different mixes of blue to find a close match, but in the end followed Dragon’s instructions by using Gunze H15 Bright Blue out of the bottle. Also in this picture you can see the Duralumin finish now applied to the wings and how it clearly contrasts with the shiny NMF of the wing root.
To save time and expensive tape, I used some wet paper towel as a mask on the wings; this is very easy to do and incredibly effective.