It's nice to be the
first kid on your block to have a new toy, but in this case, not so much.
I got this kit as soon as it came out. Unfortunately it was part of that first
run that had the infamous sink marks on the fuselage. Everywhere there was
internal detail on the fuselage, there was a corresponding sink mark on the
outside, and it was especially bad on the nicely-done fabric portion
of the fuselage. But it didn't stop there; there were numerous sink
marks on the wings, the engine, the exhausts, the propeller, the gear doors, and
even 2 sink marks on the arrestor hooks. Disappointing because it's not
what you expect from an Accurate Miniatures kit. Rather than ask AM for new
parts, I just dealt with it. So, other than filling and sanding sink
marks, very carefully on the fuselage I might add, the only issues in
construction were a lot of trimming of the interior to get the fuselage
halves to wrap around it; some bottom-front wing to fuselage fit
problems underneath; and a windscreen that was too narrow. Accuracy-wise,
the only fix I made was to fill in 3 of the 4 wing gun ports, leaving 1 open on
the starboard side. I then filled in the shell ejection hole on the port
side and scribed one on the starboard side, which the kit didn't have. As
nice as the fabric representation on the fuselage is, the wings and control
surfaces are that bad. They look like someone nailed wooden slats onto 1x4s
and then nailed them to the aircraft. But I decided it was too much to
deal with and left it as is.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The real challenge with
this kit was the finish. Being based in a remote, tropical area, the
paint would have faded and worn quickly, but the fabric-covered area
would have faded at a different rate than the metal covered areas.
So, I first pre-shaded the panel lines, then sprayed the base colors
(35189/36440) full strength on the metal-covered areas followed by lighter
shades within panels followed by an even lighter shade streaked randomly,
with more streaking on the upper surfaces. The fabric-covered areas
were handled the same way, but I started with a lightened shade of the
base colors.
After decals, I
applied a black/brown oil wash, did paint chipping with a silver pencil, then
streaked a highly thinned mix of sand colored paint. The final step was
the antenna wires, which initially were done with EZ-Line. I thought it
looked too heavy and since these pictures were taken, I've replaced them with
nylon thread.
Chip Jean
Click on
images below to see larger images
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