Hi, All,
I've started building my second bomb clip so I tried out Duke Maddog's method of dipping the bombs in a layer of paint to paint the noses and it worked beautifully. Thanks, Duke!
The bombs were first spray painted with Testors flat olive drab enamel. For the yellow, I used Model Master acrylic Insignia Yellow. I used the paint full strength since it covered the olive drab color of the bomb without re-dipping.
I discovered early on that I needed to limit the amount of paint I was exposing to the air so I looked for something small enough to hold a minimum amount of paint. I ended up cutting off the end of one of those clear plastic tubes that Exacto blades come in. I cut the tube so the lip was 2 mm above the bottom of the tube - the depth of the paint on the 500-lb bombs. You can cut them different depths for different size bombs.
To control the level of the paint, I used a hobby syringe to add a few drops now and then. Once I was done, I could suck up any left over paint and put it back in the bottle.
The Verlindin bombs have a grove in the nose that defines the painted part of the nose. This is a good reference point but I discovered that if you let the paint wick into or above this grove, it tends not to do so evenly and you end up with an uneven paint line. If you adjust the paint level so it comes to just below this line, you get a nice even line almost every time.
As I dipped each bomb, I stuck it to a strip of masking tape I attached to my overhead light. This kept the bombs vertical while the paint dried. At first, I wicked off the bulb of excess paint but I discovered that this tended to thin the paint around the end of the nose and the olive drab color showed through, so I just hung up the bombs and let the paint dry with the excess paint.
Again, thanks Duke for the idea.
Cheers,
Russ