Monday, October 03, 2011

Off with the Alclad on with the Model Air

I got the Ligthing to the point where it was ready for a coat of natural metal. This involved undercoating the model with Vallejo Black Primer. Then there was a lttile trick that I learnt with the previous Lighting that I did. There are thin back lines around the wings which delineate the no-walk areas. I tried on the previous model to use the decals in the kit but they kept breaking as they were so thin and fragile. Having undercoated the model with black primer, i then laid out these lines in custom cut masking tape. All I have to do now once the wings are finished painting is to lift the masking tape and - bingo - no-walk lines. Well that's how it worked out last time.

I got some Airframe Aluminium Alclad for the finish but, as normally happens when I use Alclad, the whole thing looked so unconvincing. Not only was it patchy but I could see a fingerprint in the primer through the Alclad. I know from experience that touching up Alclad is almost impossible so I was already in for a respray - if I continued with Alclad, that would be two resprays - primer and final coat. So, out came a bottle of Model Air Silver - which went on like a dream.

Here is the model after the Model Air layer but before removing the tape. I have a lot more masking to do because the spine on the aircraft is grey.

Here is where we are so far.


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