Good news - bad news- good news - bad news. That’s how it’s going. Got the none on my SR-71 on Sunday night, looked good no huge gaps to chase. Then as I was falling asleep, I realize I didn’t do a balance check to see if it would be a tail sitter before I closed up the fuselage. Finally on Monday night I did a balance check, good news the nose is so long it acted like it would sit on all 3 gear just fine. Then I thought I should add a bit of ballast just to be sure. Just on a whim, I twisted the nose piece. It popped off on one piece, the glue hadn’t actually bonded the two sections together. So I added some ballast. Now I gotta make sure it actually glues on this time. It might be a couple of more day till I’m in the paint shop. 
Back to progress. Monogram wisely made the top to bottom seam o the bottom of the model. Not so wisely they left a kinda large gap.
I didn’t want to fill that with putty and sand away all of the raised panel lines. I used artist’s modeling paste, I can use water to wash away the excess and just leave leave the filled gap behind.
Still had to use Mr. Surfacer 500 for some small gaps and scratches on the tail surfaces.
Similar problems on the canopies as well.
Also showing the opening where I could have added ballast before I closed it up.
Some cleanup on the nose section, adding the engines and doing some masking and I’ll be ready to visit the paint shop.
Looks great so far, Mark! 
I tried stealing Model Airplane Maker’s SR-71 Engine painting method for my 1/72 SR-71.
Didn’t exactly work on the smaller scale plane, and it doesn’t have near the detail of it’s bigger brother.
I think the burner rings worked out pretty well, but the orange and pink can’s really didn’t work. The inside of the exhaust petals is Vallejo’s acrylic steel. Sadly it almost all gets lost on the assembly. But I tried.
@SGTJKJ @petbat thanks guys, but it all looked too good 
and demons struck.
Karas was resting in covered, but well ventilated box together with PZL37 after both were sprayed wirh Tamiya X-35 semigloss. I opened box to start some finishing touches and I froze in terror 
as I saw this:
I don’t know exactly what happened here, where this whitish coating came from, what kind of devilry of chemical reactions conjured here. I’m certain it’s not a white paint of any sort - I haven’t sprayed any white or bright colours recently. Interesting that it’s only on right top wing of plane.
I have 3000 grit sanding foam from tamiya , I will try to gently remove and see what happens as I really don’t want to repaint it…
Willing to bet some how the semi gloss reacted with air, temp, other paint, etc. and dried to that appearance. I have had that happen to a kit many, many years ago and it was some reaction from the gloss coat i used.
Ouch. It is strange it is one area. if it was more uniform I would say it may be humidity. I presume it would be a tad chilly at home? Sometimes if the paint is cold it does not mix as well, or spray as well. If you rest the paint jar in some hot water for a while, to warm it, you may find it thins better and flows better.
Is it gritty to the touch? If so, maybe it was sprayed from a little too far away. I have heard of guys that had a similar issue and a coat of gloss over the top fixed it.
Hi Radek,
I’ve seen this before! I believe it’s the dry effect of a slightly higher viscosity of the matte clear, in combination of not getting all the decal setting solution wiped off. Before sanding, take a bit of clear coat (not matte or flat) and in a place that you won’t notice put a spot of the clear on the discolored area. See if it evens out, you may be surprised.
Like you, the first time I saw this I sanded away, and had a bit of discoloration left, I moved on and gave it a clear coat and any “fogging” disappeared. Something to try before investing in a lot of work.
The chemist in me thinks this may have something to do with temperature and humidity during the drying process. When I was in the US, I noticed this during times of higher humidity and high/low temperature fluctuations. Here in Malaysia, I see this quite often as the humidity is quite high (>85%) daily, and the temp ranges from 25 - 32C daily. I’ve also observed this more often with acrylics. Tamiya clear mixed with any flattening base does it regularly, hence my move to GSI lacquer clear. I’m also a big fan of “Pledge” which does it almost every time, a clear coat removes this is in one pass. To get the matte finish, I go with very light coats with the airbrush a little further back. Long winded, but you may wish to try this first. Hope it helps, as the I really like the weathering you’ve done!
Hi Everyone,
While I’ve been busy modeling away, I’ve not been so busy on updates! Last one I did on the P-51A got me through the fuselage. As we quickly approach the end of this campaign let the update begin!
One of the few disappointments in this kit is the lack of detail for the landing lights. This was easily remedied by sanding flat some sprue and boxing the area, painting it black, drilling an appropriate sized dimple and hitting it with some chrome silver (Tamiya X-11 I think).
Another area of disappointment was the canopy/fuselage mating area. These gaps were filled using thin layers of white glue and shaped, again nothing to earth shattering.
Satisfied, I got the wings on, and aligned them. Fit was fairly good.
AM did a good job at making the Allison engine mustang easier for us modelers (the same can’t be said about their B/C kit). Allison powered P-51A’s have a different hydraulic system compared to the Merlin powered Mustangs. In the case of the Allison the flaps, and wheel well covers are closed while sitting on the tarmac, where on the Merlin powered Mustang’s, the hydraulic system drains back to the reservoir and one sees the wheel well doors open and the flaps move to the full open position after 20 - 60 minutes of shut down. Needless to say, I removed the hinges from the wheel well doors and plunked them in place, fit required a touch of filling using some Vellejo plastic filler.
During the interlude prior to painting, I took the opportunity to get the little bits ready. While there’s not much, the landing gear (fits great so far), and drilling out the guns and the exhausts.
Opening up the exhausts was a little time consuming, but a simple task, one just needs to take their time and using a sharp #11 blade and a viced needle seems to do the trick! Sadly, following a bench cleaning these have moved to an undisclosed area. A search and rescue operation has been underway, though hopes are less than optimistic. Fortunately, I have a P-39 that has a spare set of exhausts that will work. More on that later.
Following a check of the build and alignment it was time to begin the painting process. Here’s the bird that I’ve got the markings for, and it’s pretty dirty given it’s time in Tunisa, also it appears that the hood has been replaced most likely due to some blown head gaskets or some other damage.
I wanted this to be a simple build yet I was interested in trying to push myself by giving the salt method another go. So, first I went black, added the wing stripes, and then went with a silver base around the areas that I wanted to look really worn.
I then looked at many fellow modeler’s use of the salt technique. Using some small and medium ground salt I went about putting down a layer, that would then be followed with a coat of zinc chromate primer, then more salt, and the upper coat of olive drab.
The salt was then removed, and results were overwhelming! Clearly, I’m not getting this salt thing, and will most likely continue with the hairspray method for this type of weathering.
Deciding to go a little back, and deal with the weathering in a post painting fashion, I opted to give the area a smoothing sanding and hit the top with some olive drab. Well, the chipping indeed works as it looks chipped, and then it looked like painted over chips that were totally out of scale.
I then decided to go ahead and strip the paint from the salted areas. For this I use a product that while new to me, is worth a plug!
Using Q-tips (ear buds) and a quiet hour, I removed the paint back down to the plastic.
I then proceeded to black base it, and redo the olive drab. I then opted to clear coat things and get ready for touch ups, markings and some post weathering.
So, this is where I’m at. Hoping to wrap this one up within the week, we’ll see. Till then, stay safe and have fun!
Thanks @john41492 @petbat @corsutton . Seems like it could be a mixt of all possible causes you provided. Temp in my mancave is usually ~20C, but when I was spraying semigloss varnish I had windows open for ventilation, I had to ventilate excesively as I was using lacquer thinner from Modellers world - almost as agressively smelly as Mr Leveling thinner, external temp was ~8-10C and at the same time heaters kicked in as inhouse temp dropped. So that could have messed up the humidity/temp balance. In addition I think matt elements of semigloss might’ve separated between layers (I remember noticing that leftovers of mixture in plastic cup I used or mixing seemed to be kind of separated and I had to shake them before refill…
I sanded it already with high grit paper and maybe I will spray additional layer of gloss/semi-gloss to balance overall look as colours on one wing now look much brighter and desaturated than on rest of model.
Ok, seems like I recovered from my unattended chemistry lessons 
.
I sanded down the matte effect delicately, almost without pressure. Only minor damage to decals, but nothing serious, looks more worn 
. After sanding and cleaning white residue I put additional coats of semigloss, but this time thinned with X20A . I’ll give it now 24hrs to cure and up to finishing touches.
This is how it looks now:
Nice save. Good to see the lovely work was not damaged.
Nice recovery, Radek. Looks good 
Starting to feel like a real modeler now. Tried to cover the SR-71 in Mr Surfacer Black 1500, but I decided the sludge in the bottom of the jar wasn’t going to work as a primer. 
It was late so I went with Alclad Gloss black primer. No horrible, just not nearly as good as I wanted.
Awfully shiny and a bit pebbly, So I hit it with a couple of coats of Mr. Leveling thinner to see if it would even out. Not really.
Then I moved to pre-shading. Parts of that worked well, some parts not so well.
I need to do some catchups on the rudders and spikes and this might be ready for a base coat, and a batch of weathering.
Easing forward. Got a basecoat down in the SR-71.
Tried to follow Model Airplane Maker’s video, I think it mostly worked. I mixed up a 10ml of a NATO Black and Hull Red mixture and thinned it to around 20% paint and shot at a low pressure. Dang thing sucked up the whole 10ml and could use a little a little more in some places.
Guys, I need some more advice . There’s one thing that drives me crazy as it happens virtually every time I mask canopy - it’s some clogging left after removing masks and it’s always from interior side, so there’s no way to fix it ( as canopy is usually already glued 
Here’s what I’m talking about:
I presume it happens due to vapors of chemistry I use, like paints, thinners etc, but for some reason, whatever I do I’m always ledt eith these ugly marks. You can imagine, it’s a little frustrating.
Can you privide some tips how you deal with clear parts?
Cheers,
Radek
I do like those planes with the big bulbous noses!
Mike
Love the paint job Mark. It really has changed what could be a huge monotone slab of black into something beautiful.
Radek. I don’t build many aircraft myself, but I do know a lot of modellers dip their canopies in Future Floor Polish to prevent this fog. Google “stop fogging in model aircraft canopies” and you will see a lot of discussions around this.
I am assuming you could get a similar product where you are.
Have you tried a little cotton wool twisted around some wire eased in the rear MG position to try and clean what is there now?
Hi Peter,
This is one thing I’m considering for my future aircraft builds:
- dip it in any kind of varnish (e.g. Future/Pledge, or something like Gauzy Agent Glass Coat .
- leave all clear parts I can separate until final assembly, alternatively glue them with light PVA or bluetack to dissasemble after painting.
It might not work - first of all there’s plenty of stuff on the way, but also if this is vapour residue it could give no results other than further damage to interior (from other side, it’s already not vissible due to fogging, so… ).
On the final run with my build. I just realised I need to paint the head light bezels before I fit them - I thought AFV Club just gave you the lens to go inside.
Figure is almost done too. Hopefully I’ll wrap it up in the next couple of days.