Christmas holidays at last. I hope everyone is keeping safe and well. It took me a few days to rest up after the 14 hour work days in December, but I'm pleased to be able to get back into things now.
I've been putting off the tail skid for ages as its one of those fiddly bits that will be barely seen on the finished models but needs to be fairly correct too. The result is not too bad. I do like the way the square peg representing the bungee chord plugs securely into a .8mm hole in the fuselage without needing glue. I got rather lucky there...!
The tail got resprayed with the new XF-28 green, which was knocked back just a tad with a couple of drops of XF-71 as I was worried it looked a bit radioactive at this scale. I think (hope) it will pass.
After hardening up overnight I masked the D.III up front and back prior to its base coat of black. I'm still suspicious of the resin when it comes to paint adhesion, so I used pieces of a polythene freezer bag for most of the surface then backed it up with tamiya tape along the edges.
I used a mix of Mr Surfacer Black 1500 and several drops of 46 Clear, plus a 50/50 amount of Mr Retarder Mild and Levelling thinner. Very nervous, but managed to get a nice smooth finish on the fuselages. All the time spent fussing over the masters has so far paid off.
Base coated the wings too. I think I'll go over them a bit with some fine sanding as there are a couple of dust specks which I can see, but all in all its looking pretty good. Edging closer to the scary silver...