Looks good, Carl @clipper
Good idea to prime first.

Excellent job so far and I love your approach to the props, my friend @clipper!

Excellent progress, my friend @clipper!

Looking really good, Carl (@clipper). I think the pilot will look cool with this model.

I was going to continue with painting today after yesterday when I sprayed Alclad over the model. This will be for underneath the regular camo paint and used in chipping which will be a first time for me.

I got the Alclad done yesterday and today started to spray the chipping fluid onto the model. However, it looked odd to me, beading up on the surface somewhat. I decided to wait and see what happens after it dries, figuring I could wipe it off if necessary. In the meantime, I decide to work some on the diorama base.

Like my previous Hudson build, I am using foam blocks to make the base from and will cover the sides with painted balsa sheet. But this time around, I had to consider how well the foam would support the model on a single pole. I decided to embed a block of wood into the foam. This will be covered over later when I do the groundwork.

I still needed to figure out how I wanted to mount the plane on the board (the attitude of the a/c). The embedded wooden block will provide more surface area and be sturdier. I also wanted to cut down the size of the base. So this layout work was done first.

As I have mentioned before, this is going to represent an aircraft about to do a wheels up landing with the starboard side prop blades just beginning to strike the ground. I was originally going to use a clear acrylic rod, but the smallest I had was 1/4" in diameter which I felt was too big for the fuselage opening in the Lightning. I've elected to use 1/8" brass rod instead. This will be painted a muted color to make it less noticeable. Since the plane is going to be close to the base anyway, I felt this would not be an issue.

The brass rod was measured over long to start and I gradually reduced the length until it was where I wanted it to be. It was then epoxied into the bottom of the fuselage. This has an added advantage of giving me a way to support the model when I get it painted without having to rest the model on its painted surfaces on a model building jig. The model is supported in the desired attitude while the epoxy cures. Later, I will glue it to the base.

By the way, after the chipping fluid dried, it appears to be okay, so I will continue painting that over the remainder of the model.

Great progress, my friend @clipper! Looking forward to the painting/chipping results!

After having received the paints I have chosen for the RAAF camouflage colors, I started back with painting. I first painted the bottom surfaces using SMS Premium RAAF Sky Blue. This paint sprays beautifully and dries quickly. It appears to be fairly tough.

I had heard that when doing chipping (which I am doing for the first time on this model), that it is advisable to do the chipping within a few hours of spraying lacquer based paints as they become increasingly difficult to chip after they are fully cured. So I tried the chipping on the bottom and had fair results. Using water and a short stippling brush, I tried to do the chipping.

However, either because I had waited too long or because I had not put down enough chipping fluid, or perhaps because lacquer paint is less permeable to water, I had difficulties getting the paint to start chipping. I found the only way I could get the process started was by lightly poking areas with a needle and then returning to the process with more water and the stippling brush.

I neglected to take a picture of this before I masked the bottom, so I will have to show this later, however after chipping the bottom, I masked it off for the topside colors using a combination of blu tack worms and masking tape. These topside colors will start getting applied today.

I did have one experience I have seen others mention about chipping fluid and masking. Namely, lifting of paint when pulling tape up. I had to reposition a piece of the masking tape and it lifted a bit of the Sky Blue paint in the areas I had done chipping. So it would seem, that once the chipping layer is activated, the bond between the paint layers is permanently reduced in strength. In this case, I will have to go back and touch up the sky blue when I remove the masking.

Pity about the paint lift, my friend @clipper. Really interesting how chipping fluid interfered. Top camo looks superb!
Looking forward to your next steps!