Time for a long overdue update.
My shipment of CDL decals from Aviattic arrived a bit less than two weeks ago, and I have put them to use. As I mentioned a few posts back, I had a nagging feeling that my wings' transparency / shading effect had come out heavier than I wanted, but I was on the fence about redoing them. Well, the color of the replacement decals was sufficiently different than my sheet from almost 2 years earlier that it basically made my decision for me. After a quick post asking for advice on decal removal in the Hints & Tips forums, off they came. I went over all the surfaces (other than the stained center section) with a very dilute coat of Tamiya Flat White (needed the matte surface for the colored pencils to have workable surface) until the contrast between the ribs and the open areas was diminished sufficiently.
After adding minor stains and seams with watercolor pencils, I sprayed only a single coat of Alclad Aqua Gloss to prepare for the decals; there were now enough layers on the wings that some of the details were starting to get soft. Once again, the decals went on with minimal struggle, although I did have a bit more trouble with silvering than I had with the first iteration... a fact I attribute to the single vs multiple gloss coats of the prior decal job.
Here are the results photographed to allow something of a before and after comparison with the mid-progress picture I posted before:
It is hard to tell since the lighting and exposure are different in the two versions, but the structural effect is now less pronounced and I am happier with it. (There is a shadow across the lower section of the wing that accentuates the recent photo's contrast). The linen color is also different as I noted (the older version was warmer as can be seen below), but I am happy with that as well.
I sealed the decals with another coat of Alclad, and devised a plan to paint the PC10 border surrounding the edges. Concerned about the possibility of masking tape lifting the decals, I wanted to minimize the area of sticky surfaces in contact with the wings. My solution was the following:
Using the vector art I created to cut the Aviattic decals, I internally offset the outer borders by a small amount (1.4 mm or approximately 1.75 scale inches) for the border, plus 2 additional millimeters for the tape edges. I printed a tape guide corresponding to the width of Tamiya tape I used for the edges to allow for a consistent 2mm overhang, and cut the masks out of copy paper on the Silhouette. Finally, I cut the curved tape sections as seen above, and used the roll of 6mm Tamiya tape for the straight sections. Final result: paper masks with a 2mm border of tape that covered all but a 1.4mm border around all of the outer edges of the CDL surfaces. I also cut a few 1.4mm wide strips that I temporarily placed along the wings' edges to guide mask placement.
Once the borders were painted, I masked and painted the roundels in the same manner described in the earlier post. Again, I attempted to remove as much of the tape surfaces as possible, replacing much of the outer areas of the masks with paper. These roundels were less challenging to paint that the others due to the lack of the thin white border around their circumference. If the upper wing's mask was replaced with a .25 mm error it would be more obvious since it is a large percentage of that white border; on the lower wings, the same placement error is much harder to detect in the wider blue ring. This is a long winded way to say that the masking went smoothly.
Following the roundels, I (mostly) masked and painted the various bits of non-linen hardware on the wing surfaces. I forgot to paint the small bracket on the upper wing's center section, and need to repaint a couple of fittings as the masks I cut were a touch too small leaving a tiny white border around the black hardware. Here are the overall results:
The whitish looking section where the compass mounts in the upper wing is glare from the gloss surface, as is the apparent light band in the closeup of the wing tip. Aside from the hardware repaints, there are a couple of touchups needed (should be my profile's footer... would save me typing), and a few spots where the decal's edge needs a bit of clear to hold it down better (one of them is visible above). Obviously, nothing above the decals has yet had any weathering to speak of, and I need to give everything the appropriate clear coats to finish things off.
I did some work on other bits while waiting on the decals, but nothing worth showing at this point, so we are basically caught up. I have still not decided if I am building this aircraft with the engine panels in place or removed. As nice a little model as the Falcon is, I generally prefer the Bristol's lines with the panels in place. Now that the wings and fuselage are nearly finished I am running out of time to procrastinate on the decision: time to either detail the engine, or mount it and move on. Well, I guess I still need to apply the stencil decals to the various linen surfaces... whew.
Thanks to all who took the time to read through this. Comments, questions, advice welcome as always.
Chris
