Well, Dora is finished, as per my definition of "finished", anyways. Lots of problems with this one, especially with the decals silvering, and then disintegrating once I hit it with Alclad II Lacquer Flat Coat. I wonder if the lacquer flat coat ate away the decals? Anyways, below are the pictures. The only thing I still need to add is the antenna wire that runs from the canopy to the aerial on the top of the vertical stabilizer.
In this shot, you can see the silvering on the fuselage "3", and on the swastika on the vertical stabilizer. I used Future Floor Wax (or Pledge FloorCare Multi-Surface Finish, as it's called now), and I think it has acrylic in it, but I'm not too sure about that. If it doesn't, that would explain the severe silvering that occurred with the decals. I know alot has been talked about on the forums about Johnson & Johnson's newest packaging of this product. Makes it hard to know what you're getting nowadays.
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Frontal shot. If you'll notice, I mistakingly left the two cannon barrels out of the cowling. They both have to be attached from the inside, and by the time that I discovered my error, it was too late to fix it. If anyone that has built this kit in the past can give me some pointers on how to attach the cannon barrels without destroying the plane, I'm open to any suggestions. You can also see some silvering on the cross on the right wing, too.
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She doesn't look too bad from this angle. Depending upon how the light is shining on her, the silvering may or may not be noticeable.
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From this angle, you can definitely see the silvering on the decal just below the cockpit, on the wing crosses, and on the swastika, plus the various stencils. This will definitely be a 6-foot model.......
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Bottom view that shows the two crosses coming apart/disintegrating. Not sure why this happened. After applying decals last night, I waited about three hours for them to dry, then shot a couple of coats of Alclad II Lacquer Flat Coat to seal up everything, hoping that this would take care of the silvering as well (it didn't). I examined it all, and didn't notice anything odd with the decals, so I figured I'd let her sit overnight, and finish her up today. When I looked at her again around noon today, I noticed that the decals on the bottom had started to come apart, and I couldn't find the missing pieces of the decals at all, as though they had just "disintegrated". Anybody have this happen before? And it's only the crosses on the wing bottoms that did this - all the others are ok, other than the aforementioned silvering decals. And, if you'll look even closer, you'll see that I masked the flaps incorrectly (masked them for the wrong sides), and accordingly, the white stripes don't line up - AT ALL!!! I discovered this as I was gluing them in-place this afternoon.
You know what? I'm glad this one is finished. The paint job came out very well, but all the other little problems, including the self-inflicted ones, made it a slight pain to build. Hopefully, my next one will be a lot easer and relaxing.
Folks, let me know whatcha think. Thanks for giving her a look.