Page 68 - Model Airplane International - Issue 175 (February 2020)

KIT BUILD

28

27

“one of those things” I removed the elevator
section, something I planned to do as I wanted
to reposition it anyway, and located the left
and right sections of the tail separately. This
left a gap in the connecting bar between the
29 two sections of the elevator that would later
be illed with a section of rod, but it also meant
that the completed elevator unit was now a
millimetre short at each edge of the end of
the tail. This would normally be unnoticeable
but later, after painting the Schlasta 27b tail
stripes, it becomes a little exaggerated as the
stripes line up with the rib tapes, now slightly
misaligned - Photos, 20, 21 & 21a.

Painting The Spattered Lozenge
With all of the interior components completed,
the two fuselage halves were glued together
and seam lines sanded smooth. The precision
of the parts is as ever remarkable, given the
number of individual elements that have to
come together, but it is worth noting that any
build up of paint can affect the mating of parts,
such is the level of it. With this unit complete
I began my irst attempts at the handpainted
lozenge section of the wing. After some
experiments with Citadel and Vallejo paints,
I thought that by handpainting in a similar
30 way then over spraying the mottle I would
get a decent result, so after marking out the
lozenges with pencil I painted them using paint
thinned with Mr. Color 250 Thinner - Photos
26 & 27.
I had already consulted the tutorial on
the Wingnut Wings website linked to details
about the model, and Zdenko Bugan’s results
using an airbrush throughout are superb. It
is recommended that in order to achieve a
suitable mottle, an overspray with a mixture
of Tamiya Deck Tan XF-55 and Yellow Green
XF-4 mixed at a ratio of 4:1 with the pressure
of the airbrush turned very low would give you
an appropriate spatter inish. The results were
okay, but looking at photos of the aircraft it
would appear that the lozenge underneath was
sprayed on, and the inish that I’d achieved
didn’t quite look right. I therefore decided
to follow the tutorial completely by spraying
on the lozenges, and guess what, it worked
perfectly! The Tamiya colours recommended

66 MODEL AIRPLANE INTERNATIONAL - February 2020