Light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, I expect that the joke will be on me, as this is probably a lot closer to an Indiana Jones style of tunnel with bad guys around every corner and a missing link of track up ahead rather than a simple smooth ride to the end. Oh well, I'll take whatever this kit throws at me.
Which has actually not been much in recent visits to the bench. Problems have been of my own making, I think.
So last I left off, I had put down the first top side color, RLM 72. Yesterday I set out to complete the top side painting by filling in the still-white primer areas with RLM 73. Turned out mostly okay, but this morning I noticed a couple of places where I didn't get my masking completely aligned with the existing RLM 72 demarcation lines, leaving a narrow but very visible line of white primer. Fixed that up this morning, then set to completing the overall paint scheme on this bird.
That was to apply some hastily painted on white, not in the typical Luftwaffe splinter pattern with the familiar geometric shapes and straight borders, but more like an Allied warbird with curves and meandering shapes. Before I could do all of that, I had to research the hairspray method that I had zeroed in on as the best way to capture the look of the 115 as depicted on the boxtop art, with worn areas in the white, that was due to the harsh environment this aircraft operated from.
First I masked the areas to paint white with a whole lot of Silly Putty.
I next found a can of what appeared to be high-end hair spray that my wife had picked up somewhere. Never seen her use it. Not sure why anyone would want this in their hair but I digress. I opted to spray that stuff right from the can rather than decanting it to spray through my airbrush. Sprayed it over all the white areas. Then I let it sit for half an hour or so, so that the hairspray would dry completely.
Next came the paint, just Tamiya flat white. I did everything I could to prevent overspray through the use of impromptu masks; I've already used a bunch of Tamiya tape on this build, and just didn't want to use any more if I could avoid it. Having said that, I still ended up with overspray on areas where I didn't want the white. That was a quick fix, although one of the photos shows some overspray that I missed. I won't be touching that up, however, as I've since removed all the markings masks and it is not the most troubling thing to look at.
Once the white paint dried, I dug in my tool box for an old toothbrush, and after rubbing the white areas with some water, I set to rubbing those areas with the toothbrush. The theory is that the water will soften the dried hairspray, allowing you to scrape the hairspray (and paint covering it) away and leaving whatever you find beneath. Well, it's not a theory, it's a proven concept. This was my first use of this method, and while I likely overdid it, I think it looks pretty decent. It does capture the worn look I was going for.
The last thing I did today was to remove all the Montex Masks for the markings. I'm not real happy with their performance on this build, as I have already explained that they did not seem to be cut correctly to fit together. I don't know if the pictures really bear this out, but there are spots where you can see white where there should not be white on these Balkenkruez's.
Next up is decaling and weathering. After that, I must engineer a stronger mount for both nacelles. So yeah, light at the end of the tunnel, but it's not going to be a smooth tunnel (especially when you see the big feature this thing is still missing - those floats!)