Thanks for explaining how you melt down plastic to use for filling in seams. This is something I will try out because I have found that when you re scribe seams on putty, they have a nasty tendency to flake and chip, which ruins the results exactly as you described.

I have used CA glue, various brands of putty, and spray able primers for filling in the past, but this melted plastic thing sounds great.

Thanks for your comments, guys! So, after all that filling and sanding I could finally proceed to my favourite part of a build - painting! First, the vertical stabilizer was given a primer coat of Gunze Light Grey FS36622 - this helps with the coverage of Gunze's Gloss Yellow afterwards, and is not as annoying to airbrush as a "real" white would be.

After masking the yellow portions, all the upper surfaces were primed with Tamiya Flat Black. My thought process here was to get the whole camo scheme done before masking it off and painting the High Speed Silver underside. As I intend to use AK Xtreme Metals for that, I rather not have to mask the metal surfaces, so they will be done last.

I started by mottling the grey areas with Tamiya XF-54 Dark Sea Grey, roughly following the camo pattern. In the next step, a highly thinned layer of the same color was airbrushed, and there is your instant weathering! I deliberately did not follow any panel lines (i.e. pre-shading), as I find this type of weathering rather unrealistic and cartoonish.

Masking off the grey portions took ages. Well, days, but it felt like an eternity. As far as I know, the camouflage scheme on the real thing was applied using pre-cut masks with minimal tolerances, so I had to achieve hard edges while sticking to the pattern. I tried Tamiya's flexible masking tape, but found I did not like it, because it a) still does not bend as much as needed and b) the vinyl material tends to either lift or stick too well. So I used ordinary yellow masking tape, cut in 1mm strips and filled in with larger pieces. When this was finally done, I shot another quick layer of Flat Black to get rid of the grey overspray from the previous step.

For the green I used Tamiya XF-65 Field Grey. Yep, really. It is suprisingly close to the RAF color - sorry, colour, and with some weathering no one will notice the difference 😀

And of course one part had to come unglued...

9 attached images. Click to enlarge.

I'm with Paul on this tutorial. These methods you have shown us will definitely help considerably in the very near future with my Spitfire builds... Thank you !

Your Meteor is definitely taking shape. It already looks better than mine do when completed... I recently ran into a similar problem with parts coming off at the most unfortunate time. I had two landing gear doors snap off my current He-111 build. So if this is any consolation, it happens from time to time... to all of us sooner or later.

Hopefully yours will be an easy fix.

After five months of doing nothing (life got in the way, blah blah...) I realized I better get moving. To be honest, the main reason for not doing any work on the Meteor for so long was that I could not be bothered with the whole masking thing for the lower surfaces - after the masking job for the camouflage I felt Tamiya tape and me needed a little distance from each other...
Anyway, with a hard deadline looming I had to push on. I first installed the landing gear, as this would spare me from dealing with glue marks on a metal finish later on. I had filed back the axle stubs previously, so the wheels would slide into the assembled gear.

Masking and spraying the underside was actually a quick job, so quick in fact I forgot to take pictures - but it is basically just Tamiya X-1 Gloss Black as a base, followed by AK Xtreme Metal Aluminium.

The decals were no fun at all. Someone already mentioned the issues with the initial release of this kit, and its decals are no exception. They are thick, take ages to seperate from the carrier sheet, are inflexible, and hardly respond to any setting solution. I had to work really slow and deliberate, attacking each decal with setting solution, a sharp blade, and even some Tamiya X-20A Thinner - basically these buggers were not so much applied as they were beaten into submission.

The decals for the black trim on the fin are a monument to human stupidity. With this beaing a tricky surface at the best of times, the decals' quality makes it impossible to achieve an acceptable result. I decided to use some of the decals and paint the rest by hand.

After I had sealed the decals (50/50 mix of Tamiya Gloss and Flat Clear), I applied some pin washes using Ammo by Mig "Dark Wash", and a lighter brown wash for the yellow fin. I wanted to keep it fairly clean, as I am pretty sure these aircraft were well taken care of.

Now she is ready for the final reveal on Dec. 16th, so there you go. Thanks for following this WIP - and thanks again to Paul for making the Group Build happen!

Cheers,
Boris

As someone mentioned a while back "Boris is proving daily that you want the “F.8 Korea” boxing. Molded in the UK with solid quality control. Better plastic, better molding, better kit." 😉