B17Pilot
I know what you mean about those stencils on the Academy kit. I was dreading doing all of those, then a look at pictures of Glacier Girl and 3/4 of those stencils weren't even there. What a relief!!
To be honest, against the OD/Gray finish, only about 3/4 of those stencils even show up . Many look as if there's something there, but barely. Even the Oriole decal is very fine, I may go over with a sharp yellow prismacolor pencil to get it to look more like the reference pic I found of Capt. Shubin's bird. As his aircraft didn't sport the Aeroproducts logo on the props, just the stenciling. I'm concerned how well the yellow kit stencils for the props are going to show up against black. May need to go over those with a yellow pencil too.
I do like how the stencil decals are grouped on the sheet , fuselage, top wing , lower wing , booms. Goes a long way toward keeping track of where your at in the process. Another trick I use is to cross off the decal number on the instruction sheet as they're applied.
Speaking of stencils ,they're done and after a coat of Future to seal the decals up , gave Oriole a healthy dot filtering. I use MM enamels and a brush dampened with turpentine. I actually went a little heavy with the dots of paint. It's a method I'm still becoming more experienced with . You want just the barest of tint , not really even a hint of color, very subtle . Gives the finish a bit of age. Go easy ,and use care not to wear through the paint . Had a couple small spots where the Future was a bit thinner and started to wear through .
Caught it in time ,so all it needed was a couple dabs of touch up before the final wash of black and brown from my kids watercolor paints. They work great . A drop or two of dish soap in the water , paint on , let dry . Then wipe down with a damp paper towel in the direction of gravity and airflow.
A couple pics after the clear flat.
I like Testors Dullcoat , but found Krylon Matte finish at Michaels , Can also be found at Walmart and I imagine at Lowes and HOme Depot too.
Cost is roughly the same as Dullcoat , just 3 times the size.
It also warns about multiple coats giving a frosted appearance . Which can be taken advantage to enhance a sun bleached look to the top surfaces.
I've started on the wheels and landing gear, but concerned how the vinyl tire will affect the styrene of the wheels. I did have a mark to fill on the nose where one of the tires layed against the part in the box.
My solution is to seal the wheels with a coat of Future before painting them as additional protection. Would be a real drag to have this beautiful model sitting on the shelf only to see the wheels melt over time.
I've also test fitted the tire on the wheels and found it better to remove the ridge like flange on the wheels.Now the tire fit snug but slid onto the wheel with very little effort.
Howard