Off to a nice start!

Thanks. Tennessee ANG , really clean and polished.

The missile with a man in it... very cool ! I'll tag along for the ride too. I like what you have done with it so far. I have never built a 104, but I have the old Hawk kit in the stash that was re boxed by Testors many, many moons ago.

Yes indeed, I'm going to follow this one as well. Looking great so far.

Paint time! I sprayed the nose cone and a panel on the fin with Modelmaster ADC Gray and masked it off. I then masked the canopy and sprayed the exposed frames with Humbrol 140 dark gull gray. Now we’re ready for metallic paint. To be honest, I’m always skeptical and afraid of new metallics. This is my first time using AK extreme metals. I just sprayed the airframe with their black base and it went on well. It’s a translucent black that needs to be built up with progressively heavier passes. After a 1/2 hour of spraying, I have a slippery surface to take AK’s Polished Aluminum later this afternoon. All of the photos I’ve found of these Tennessee ANG birds show a highly polished fuselage.

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Do you have a secret stash of Floquil? Mine has been gone for several years and was always my go-to for metals. Looks good.

Metal paneling today with the AK extreme metals. It went well today. I used dark aluminum and gun metal at the rear of the fuselage. It sprayed nicely over the Floquil. It also took masking well today. I went back and looked at some of yesterday’s test panels and found they had dried hard. The trick with this AK is to let it dry longer if the coat was heavier.

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.