Completion of Painting
The main phase of painting was completed by masking up to spray the metallic areas. These are around the gun, the exhausts and the leading edge of the stabilators and tail.
The area around the gun was sprayed aluminium using Mr Metal Color as were the leading edges of the tail and stabilators. This paint is great as once it is dry you can buff it to a shine which makes it look more metallic. The exhaust area got a similar treatment using Mr Metal Color Stainless Steel on top and Iron underneath. All the metallic areas were then polished and the underside exhaust area was given a light dusting of transparent blue to simulate the heat bloom on the metal. All areas were then unmasked.
The entire model was then given a gloss coat to seal everything in.
Gloss helps the decals adhere and hides the carrier film so that the decals will look like they're painted on - I hope :-)
Decaling Commences
Once the gloss varnish was dry I started putting on the decals beginning with the aircraft number and unit markings.
Those of you that are observant might notice that I have put the wrong number 77 on the plane. I did fix this later.
The Aztec decals were not too good in my opinion. They seemed to separate from the backing paper far too easily as if there was not much adhesive - one floated into the water it was soaking in within seconds of being submerged, a couple of them showed signs of silvering as they were drying and one did not even stick after it had dried requiring care with the setting solutions. I was able to address all of these shenanigans this with micro sol, or at least I hope I have addressed it.
I have also started the stencil decals. I'll take my time with these so that I don't inadvertently put my finger on a decal that's soaked in softener. So for the next few days I'll be working on the missiles and other details during the evening and doing the decals at night.
On to part 11.
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