Before priming I did have to add a couple of p.e. and resin parts to the main assembly, one of which is a radio antenna loop, and the other some sort of trumpet beneath the cockpit opening, both of which have already been knocked off several times!

For the primer, instead of the Vallejo product I usually use, I thought I’d experiment, and after consulting with my fellow Florian’s, I had a bash with Mr Surfacer, made up of a mix of 40% Mr Surfacer 1200 and 60% Mr Hobby self-levelling thinners.  Must admit I’m quite pleased with the results.

    

Before I progressed any further with the painting I thought it best to do a dry fit of the upper wing.  I didn’t want any unforeseen problems when all the components were painted and weathered.

Just as well I did, because there’s a big problem.

    

The struts on one side don’t reach the upper wing.  I was afraid of this.  I checked and re-checked everything, and began to wonder if the problem was the fuselage V-struts. 


 

On the front one there is some sort of mount for a turbine of some sort, that looks as if it should, maybe, actually touch the top of the decking.  But I know I fitted those struts onto the, admittedly very faint, marks on the body, and further checking of other builds on-line showed the same space underneath that mount.  So I was left with only one option, and so I nibbled a little bit off the tops of the V-struts. 


 

Another dry fit showed everything is more better in alignment, and hopefully the centre wing join won’t look too far wrong.

Since the engine nacelles and floats were made of aluminium on the real thing, and to facilitate some sort of chipping effect, I first sprayed those parts with Vallejo aluminium, and, when fully dry, covered them with a couple of coats of Klear.

    

Pre-shading next.  I thought at first to use the usual black for the pre-shading, but since the top colour was going to be almost white, I worried that perhaps the effect would be too stark a contrast.  So instead I opted for a pale grey, in this case RLM 02.

      

Top coat is Mr Hobby H21 off white, as suggested by the kit’s own colour call-out itself.  Mixed originally about 50/50 with self-levelling thinners, I laid down a coat on the underside first.

      

But the coverage wasn’t what I wanted, looking thin and a bit zebra-stripy, so I mixed another batch, this time 30% thinner to 70% paint, and this gave much better results.

  

I think my call for a pale grey pre-shading worked out more or less spot on.

        

What did baffle me for a while was just how shiny the paint stayed, appearing to still be wet even an hour later.  Then I discovered that H21 is actually a gloss paint!  I had no idea!

  

I’m going to leave the topcoat for several days at least to fully cure before attempting to use the masks Mr Hillman kindly supplied for me.  The only other thing I did was some chipping on the nacelles and floats, gently rubbing with a damp cotton bud and scraping with a cocktail stick down to the Klear, to reveal the aluminium paint underneath.  Unfortunately, the surface colour is so pale it doesn’t really stand out all that much.  Oh well.

  

Next will be the red cross and unit markings.

I have to start this update by saying that I am uncertain if I will finish my entry in the Flory Models ‘Rescue Me’ SIG before the close date.  The health of my 91-year-old father is deteriorating by the day, and though I hope and pray he may yet rally, I feel in my heart that we may be approaching the parting time.  Naturally it is hard to think about modelling with this on my mind, and if/when he does leave, well all thought of kits will be brushed aside while I deal with things.

That said, here’s the story so far.  The props have been assembled, a strange two-tier affair, strongly reminiscent of the Heinkel’s opposite number, the Supermarine Walrus.  The kit gave no positive location pins, so it was all down to the mark.1 eyeball to ensure they were fitted squarely and centrally.

  

Now to the markings, and the mask set supplied by Mr Hillman.  Now there are a couple of things about masks.  One, they have glue on them.  This means that, when used by anyone named Nigel, they will stick to anything else, including him, rather than where they are supposed to go!  Two, unlike decals, you can’t slide them around.  Once they do stick, they tend to stay put, so you have to get it right first time, or peel them off, again, and again, to re-position them.

  

Still, using the ribbing as a guide I managed to get the first one down.  I then worked my way along the wing, carefully measuring, so as to be as sure as possible they were even.

Next came filling in the blanks with Tamiya masking tape.

  

The fuselage came next.  I had to remake the smaller, fuselage red crosses out of masking tape, as there wasn’t really enough room between each marking on the mask sheet to leave a safe amount of land between the marking and the cut line.  I was worried it might tear when laying it down.  Didn’t take very long, as it was a simple cross, after all.

I then temporarily masked all the lettering, leaving me to spray in the red crosses.  This I did with Vallejo RLM red, with a little IJN brown mixed in, to take down the intensity of the red.

But, disaster.

Something went horribly wrong.  It might be that Mr Hobby and Vallejo paints don’t like each other, or perhaps that the Mr Hobby base colour is a gloss, and the Vallejo couldn’t grip to it.  Either way, the paint crazed like, well, crazy.

  

Needless to say I was pretty despondent at this point.  I left things for a day or so before trying to take the red off with neat IPA, planning to repaint it, but directly onto some white primer.  I did my best to sweep the IPA from the mask to the plastic, and tried not to soak it too much, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t work out too well.

  

After I had removed all the original red as best I could I repainted the red, then left it a day to dry before masking it off and doing the black lettering in Tamiya Nato black, but not before doing a test on one letter, to see if I had the same crazing.  I didn’t, so I guess Tamiya and Mr Hobby get along just fine.

  

Then came the unmasking. 

Even worse than I had feared.  The IPA had run all under the masking, and basically buggered everything up. 


     

This is in no way the fault of the masking, as the black sections, the ones I didn’t touch with the IPA, performed perfectly.  No, this was all the fault of the paint reaction, and my attempt to fix it with IPA.

So, that’s it, for now.  My thoughts are taking me towards seeing if I can find someone to make me up a set of decals.  They’re pretty basic, after all, being no more than two straight colours, but before then I’ll have to sand back the blighted areas and repaint the Mr Hobby off-white again, and that’s only if the mood takes me, when I’m not worried about dad.