Thank you for further kind comments - very much appreciated.
Some news...
First - Melius Manu is indeed working on the promised conversion set! I have just got the decals for my civilian version!!! Needless to say, they are the top quality, both technically and historically.
Another good news is that the work on engine assembly is done. The last missing bits were: air tubing around the timing gear, carburettors control gear, magneto control levers. I still have to add some dirt and wash to emphasize the detail.
Worse news relate to the wooden fuselage.
First, I tried the kit decals. Though they look quite fine in the sheet, when I applied the first piece to the model I was disappointed. It somehow turned to blurred, greyish miserable wood imitation. Besides, there was no good way to press them into the fine recessed nail surface imitations... And I still had a problem with replacing the fragments where cuts were made in them by WNW to accommodate surface detail which I removed as per my version of Albatros fuselage. All too many reasons to change the view.
So I decided, I would paint the wood. And here it turned out that I ran out of my Pactra clear orange paint for final covering. I bought the new one but it seems that Pactra completely changed the formula for their paints. I have already noticed that their recently bought paints do not have as good opacity as earlier. But what they did to the clear orange is a nightmare. The colour is much more red. But it is also not permanent!!! One day after airbrushing I still had no problem with wiping it off the surface with a wet finger!!!
So I had to choose a new paint. I opted for my second preference - Vallejo. Here no problem with airbrushing and durability was encountered but the colour is much more to the cold yellow hue. I tried to mix is with the Pactra reddish, sealed it with the clear coat and the result could be acceptable. But then I also tried Gunze H and for the moment this one seems to be the best option. I will still have to check if it can be later covered with Pactra grey-green at the covers on the fuselage. I once had a problem with Pactra paint cracking some time after it was applied over that Gunze H colour. Tomorrow...
Here is the test field to testify my attempts
In the meantime the fuselage itself has the base colour for wood applied, awaiting the application of wood grain.
More to come soon.
