I know I said two weeks tops, but we've been having good weather here in Wisconsin! I had to use a weekend to go flitting around in my X1/9. Tonight I bent up some replacement rear brake lines for my Midget, so hopefully it will be drivable this weekend! Who knew the mice in the garage could snap the lines clean in half!

Anyway, on to the Goony Bird! I got the color coat on late last weekend, used some Testors high gloss clear and added the decals. These, I must add, were impeccable! The slid free from the backing sheet almost immediately after hitting the water. They were remarkably thin and conformed to some heavy duty parts like the front access door. I cheated and slid the insignia under the hinges for the cargo door. I will touch the up with some insignia blue, but they won't be very noticeable as the doors will be opened. They do give you a white base to double up on the layers over the stripes, but they still show through. Strategically masking the black stripes the width of one stripe in white would be a better solution! I think Monograms reputation for overly thick decals may now be a thing of the past. (The ones in my F-101B were also very nice!) If anyone is wondering about the invasion stripe decals, they would probably be totally usable!

I decided to snap a few photos while the paint still looked nice! The starboard cowling shows some of the chipping effect. Doing it this way really works nice and looks totally natural! (What's more important, IT'S EASY! Just one extra layer of paint!) I'm not going to go overboard with it though. Just heavily traveled areas (wing walks) and around leading edges and access panels, doors and hatches.

Jack, doing the stripes this way worked just fine. (I did get a little bleeding at the base of the fin where the tape pulled away. I'll have to do a little more touch up.)

Don't worry about the props, they're off of my B-17. I just needed to see it with some air chompers on it!

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.