I actually spent longer thinking about how to paint the rudder than I did actually painting the rudder. I’m sure that there is a lesson for us all in there somewhere…
11th February 2025
Blimey, these updates are getting earlier and earlier! At this rate, I might have to rename them “A Modelmaker’s Breakfast” to better reflect the time I’m having to write each one! All jokes aside, I’m doing this now as I have another football match to attend this evening (the third Coventry City game in six days…) so didn’t want you to miss out on today’s nonsense.
The last few hours have been once again dedicated to the Airfix Anson as well as, excitingly, the Magic Factory A-4 that I have now finished painting! But first, I’ll begin with the Anson, its final cleanup and those ridiculously large, glazed panels…
The Anson is recognisable thanks to its glazed cabin and the huge windscreen. All of these parts are well-moulded by Airfix, but do, I think, need a degree of care and forward planning if they are to be fixed in place without gluey fingerprints and then painted to reflect both their interior green internal frames, and aluminium exterior structures. This being so, today has been something of a headscratching exercise. I spent way too much time thinking about the best way of incorporating the glazed panels into my build. Hours passed by as I pondered how to line them up properly and then paint each area without fear of contaminating their inner surfaces with either dust (bearing in mind the model has been covered in it for the last two days) or paint, this time bearing in mind my future use of an airbrush, silver paint and what is likely to be their combined ability to find the smallest undiscovered gap, through which my external finish will find its way inside the model. Not happened to you? It’s happened to me, endlessly…
So far I’ve glued the windscreen in place and I’m leaving that to dry. Here, there is a need to blend its lower edges with the nose and then its upper rear edge with the aircraft’s roof, an all-too demanding task given that the rear frame and the inner plinth on which it sits, are around .5mm across. Steady hands, held breath and several light passes with a brushful of Tamiya Extra thin seemed to do the trick, whilst the lower edge of the windscreen was left to cuddle the fuselage and nose with the aid of some hastily wrapped masking tape. It’s all drying out now, so we’ll see if my initial forays into the world of see-through plastic and forward planning, pay dividends in the morning. Should they not, I’m not sure what I’ll do, so fingers crossed, eh?
With the Anson drying out, I had some time to deal with the final tweaks around the Skyhawk, touch in some on the decals with paint and then apply an overcoat of VMS XXL Satin. I’d planned to leave the finish in gloss, but couldn’t get past the thought that the model looked a little too garish as was, so blasted it with Satin to both tone down the surface patina and blend in the decals, something it did with aplomb. A quick once-over with a worn bit of Scotchbrite, left the finish looking tickety-boo so I was able to turn to some of the smaller details, most noteworthy, the rudder with its black and yellow decoration.
This was another of those steps that I had thrown in the when to do file because I couldn’t decide how best to deal with the separation betwixt yellow and black. As usual with such things, I was rather driven by my need to use an airbrush to paint everything, but in this case I decided to use the airbrush to only paint somethings and then handpaint the rest.
This involved a basecoat of flat white, followed by a overspray with flat yellow mixed with a tiny drop of red so that the colour matched the warm tone of yellow seen on the decals (it looks like it doesn’t in the image, but I assure you the colour match is more than close enough). That was then left to dry, before masking the yellow for the leading edge panel to be airbrushed black. The insets between the ribbing could then be handpainted with Vallejo Black, thinned with water and applied with a No.1 Kolinsky Sable paintbrush. Though I figured this would be fiddly, which it was to a degree, life was made easier thanks to the raised surface detail and acrylic paint’s ability to be pushed and pulled along those edges to create sharp lines, with ease. Several layers of black and I had a finished rudder. I actually spent longer thinking about how to paint the rudder than I did actually painting the rudder. I’m sure that there is a lesson for us all in there somewhere…
So that’s been my day. I’m now off to sit once more in the cold hoping that Cov with get a result against QPR. See you again, tomorrow.
TODAY’S MUSIC CHOICES – OR LACK OF THEM!
Before I sign off, there has been no music today, so I hope to back in that particular saddle, tomorrow morning!
SPENCER POLLARD'S KIT BOX 
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