Colin, @coling
I like where you are going with the silver base to use for chipping the paint afterwards. These latest pictures look very good. The surface looks very smooth and perfect. Well done !

Looking very nice Colin. I wish this site would let you pick up where you left off like other sites. I've used Vallejo Metallics for a while now and you are correct about them being fragile until they set up. I leave them sit for a minimum of 24 hours and have had no more lift or scratch than Tamiya; most of the time none at all. To save on paint work no matter which acrylic I use. I picked up some sponge triangles from the drug store beauty section to set the model on, also handy for masking wheel wells and cockpits.

As for unwanted pet hair and dust, I have a very large clear plastic tub and place it over the model while it dries, clear so you know something is under there. With 1:32 of course you'll need something quite a bit bigger. This one is 22½" x 15¼" x 11" from IKEA for under $10

Good luck Colin (@coling)! the WOW-factor is high already, and I will be on hot stand-by to check the results!

Thank you, gentlemen for your comments - replied to in order below.

George, thanks for the tips. I will certainly pick up those sponge triangles. Thus far I had only checked out the beauty products section of the drug store for fine nail filing boards (for canopies) and tweezers. Right now I am using scraps of sponge from the lining of an airbrush box for masking etc. I also appreciate the tip about the storage box for dust protection. BTW, lately I have been running a hepa filter air cleaner in my work area prior to and after airbrushing. It really seems to have cut down on the dust and hair.

Thanks, Spiros for the chipping feedback. As you can see below some salt bits are already flaking off, which is looking good at this stage. So far no major worries. I am in no hurry to remove it all until the hinos and stripes are done.

Thank you , Erik for wishing me luck (as requested). I have no doubt luck is a factor with so many things at play in the finishing process.

Thanks for your careful observations and comments, Louis. I am feeling quite pleased with the look of the paintwork at this stage. One thing about painting on the markings is that you don't have to wait for decaling to see how the color balance will turn out.

Here are a few pics of the work on the wing hinos and touch ups in the fuselage. Before anything else, I had to lower the demarcation line of the fuselage camo. The green area needed to be lowered before I could do the fuselage roundel (a mistake in my original masking). The pics show the masking on one side and the respray on both sides, I exposed the repaint area up to a panel line to take advantage of any color shift as natural panel color variation.

It worked out well in the end. Other pics show the way I fixed the hinos on the wings. I joined together strips of wide masking tape to cut the circular mask. The centre disc was used to position the surrounding mask precisely. After fitting the final mask, I peeled away the centre part. I learned from my Betty mask errors and used only Tamiya tape positioned at right angles in two layers to hold the mask together. To avoid overspray, paper masks were added to cover the wings completely (with further Tamiya tape angled at the corners). I sprayed in very fine coats of Tamiya Flat Red to avoid flooding the mask and causing it to lift. I managed to avoid any bleed through and also achieved some nice tonal variation in the red, so I am happy.

As mentioned above, you can see bits of salt flaking off after being disturbed by the mask. This is fine but I won't disturb the rest until major painting is done and just prior to gloss coating. Hope you like the progress. More updates soon.

Thanks, Spiros. Here is some more work for today.

I decided to spray on the yellow slashes that Kanno had painted on his plane. As kit-supplied decals these are too neat to look field-applied. My understanding is that ground crew did these markings fairly crudely (has anyone read Genda's Blade to confirm? I don't have the book). Pics seem to bear this out but are not high def enough to be clear.

My masking job was meant to give them a rougher look overall. I made the edges slightly less than perfectly straight but kept the width consistent. I spent a lot of time and care to make them look symmetrical as they draped over the fuselage. It was also a bit of a headache to make sure they met up with and crossed over the hinomarus on the fuselage (as temporarily marked by masks). In the end, I am not sure whether or not to straighten the edges of one strip on the port side. It may look a bit too rough. Sigh. The starboard side looks fine to me except for some bleed-through to touch up. Anyway, I am in no hurry to remask and respray. The current paint needs time to cure before putting any masking tape on top of it. I may also grow happy with the appearance of the stripes in the meantime. After all, it is what I intended when I masked them in the first place. What do you think?

Once again, your attention to the detail makes this work stand out. I think I agree with you in the single place that might need straigthening on the yellow line. One thing in particular is the re-painted hinos - they look very realistic to my untrained eye (Japanese WWII admittedly are not one area I know a lot about). Keep it coming Colin (@coling)

Thank you Spiros, Erik and Louis for your comments and encouragement. Thanks Louis for the insight on the hino numbers. I agree with your work on the Corsair but I am less sure about Kanno's markings. They were done in either temporary water-based paint or chalk and wore off with time. Most sources (profiles and decals) show them in white. I will definitely keep your keen observations in mind and I really appreciate you taking the time to explain and illustrate everything so carefully. As for my question to all about the painted on markings, I value your varied perspectives on the stripes but being a bit of a perfectionist I did finally clean them up quite a bit. This turned out to be more challenging than I thought, but ultimately worked out with effort (see below). So, I have spent the last 10 days or so continuing with the painted-on fuselage hinomarus and doing clean up and adjustment of the fuselage stripes. I will avoid a long narrative about how much masking, spraying, re-masking and re-spraying I had to do. The number of pics will show all the stages required in painting for almost ten days straight, tiny amounts each day and allowing each color to dry before masking again.

The hinos and stripes looked pretty good but still required clean up for overspray and leakage. At this stage, I began to remove the salt for the chipping at the wing root and around the gun access panels. I am quite happy with the effect but I will add more with a silver pencil in the last stages of painting. I hope you like the chipping so far.

As for ongoing paintwork, I suffered a very frustrating leakage mishap at one point when extending and fixing the overlap of the yellow stripes on the hinos.

This required applying red, white and green colors all over again in careful stages. Arggh. In the end, it looks clean. I may do a bit more green on the starbord side to fix the width of the white surround slightly. It is a bit maddening to stare at such things to check that everything is centered. In fact, hinos on real late war Japanese aircraft lacked perfect symmetry at times and looked very rough around the edges (probably from field repairs but even some rushed factory applications). Nonetheless, I can't leave these things alone and will "fix" things slightly tomorrow. Anyway the last shot shows the port side and two more views with markings largely finished. The model now awaits a gloss coat before the oil wash stage. I hope it looks good to you. I am taking a bit of a rest with some satisfaction now. Comments welcome.

This is such a LOT of microdetailing work, Colin @coling!
I admire your courage and persistence, the final result really paid off!
Looks really great!
Looking forward to your progress!