Amazing idea, my friend @clipper! Looking forward to see the final result!

Yes George (@gblair), I added the two broken tracks as my first test and then managed to knock one off just a little while later while working on the wingtip nav lights. So I am going to leave the tracks off until after painting and unmasking and then I will deal with touching them up.

I am slowly working my way to painting. This part of model building can be a slog at times. There are all these little tasks that need to be completed prior to painting. In this case, masking windows, making navigation lights, fixing the elevators and ailerons, repairing the flap tracks, and of course the usual suspects - landing gear, propellers, cowlings and engines. It gets more tiresome because some of this stuff requires waiting for glue to dry before you can move on to the next step.

For example, the wingtip navigation lights. On the Hudson, these are small protrusions off of the wingtips, which this kit doesn't provide. In order to duplicate that, I had to make small cuts in the wingtips and glue tiny pieces to simulate those protrusions. Since they are tiny, the glue holding them on needs to be good and dry before doing any final shaping or they will be knocked off by that shaping process.

And the ailerons were not installed good enough, so I removed them for reinstallation. But that requires adding some shims to the controls which will also take time to dry before they can be reshaped.

I also started on masking the many windows. I was thinking of creating masks on my vinyl cutter but figured it would be too much trouble (trial and error to get the fit correct) for little reward, so I went with masking fluid instead. The main canopy will get Tamiya tape so I can leave the frames open for painting. Of course, this means I had to wait for the masking fluid to dry! 🙂

Waiting to do the flap tracks was a good call because I knocked off the other repaired one during masking.

I have a small amount of repair work to do on one of the cowlings. This damage occurred when I was struggling to get the cowlings removed from the mold a few weeks ago. I am going to paint the insides of the cowlings first and install the engines before doing this repair as it stiffens up the cowlings considerably and will make it more likely that the repair will work. The repair consists of patching a small piece missing from the very thin trailing edge of the cowlings.

One other thing I still want to do before painting is improve the separation lines for the rudders.

So as I said, lots of little tasks. I hope to start painting by the weekend.

Indeed, many small jobs prior to painting, my friend @clipper. Overall looks are superb, looking forward to your finishing those small jobs and moving to painting!

John (@johnb), Spiros (@fiveten), George (@gblair), yes, it's the small tasks that make the build. BUt it is the painting that adds the zing.

I've decided to use my cheap $9.00 Academy/Minicraft Ventura kit as a test paint mule stand in for the Hudson build. I will be using it to experiment on the white weathered paint scheme which I am unsure about how to do at the moment. I am going to try different primer under coats as well as black basing on a portion. I have kind of moved away from black basing, but for this usage, it might be a good choice. Just in case, I will also try gray and white basing with appropriate darker (or lighter) colors.

I have to admit, it always feels weird slapping one of these together quickly for this purpose. Once the glue dries, I can remove the tape..

One more step in the process of getting the Hudson painted. I also got the Hudson's ailerons fixed up and re-installed

A wise decision to use the Venture as a paint mule, Carl @clipper
It would be a pity to use the wrong approach on the Hudson.

Here's an update. I've been somewhat delayed this week by other things in my life, and model building has been one of those weeks when I make a small step forward and then have to wait for glue to dry before continuing . But I have gotten some things done.

First up, I primed the test mule black, gray, and white and then using a variety of colors, did some marbling on each primer section. I wanted to see how white would look over the different primers and marbling.

You'll probably notice that the marbling looks pretty bad. I was having a lot of trouble with my airbrush that day and I also couldn't seem to get my thinning ratios correct. But on the paint mule, this marbling is good enough for my test.

Then to continue with the airbrushing debacle, I sprayed Vallejo Insignia White over all of this marbling. I wanted to thin it out so I could sneak up on the coverage. But I ended up using far too much retarder and the paint took three days to get to the point where I could handle the model. Coverage was fine, and again, for the purposes of the test, good enough. I believe the dark sea grey marbling over the grey primer gives the best results but I will make the final decision when I get to actually painting (more on that in a moment).

After the difficulties with the Vallejo paint and airbrushing, I spent a day re-learning and practicing to make sure I get that right before committing to the Hudson. But before I can paint, I realized I had a bunch of small tasks to complete. Before I can paint the cowlings (and engine nacelles), I needed to add the intakes on the cowling and the lower nacelle. I added a small section of mesh screen to them as well. And the exhausts on the nacelles needed to be opened up at the aft end. I also made a preliminary attempt at reshaping the prop blades from the Ventura kit, but looking at them again, I realized I need to do another session before they look correct. So that still needs to be done.

The cabin door is going to be open on this build and looking at photos, it appears that there are recesses in the fuselage for the hinges which are attached to the cabin door. So using a sharp X-acto blade I carefully removed a small amount of material for the recesses. The hinges were made from brass and CA glued to the door. I had to do several bends on them to get them to set correct. And I added a brass strip in the door opening to simulate the door landing. Fun stuff.

Finally, you might notice that some of the liquid mask is coming loose from the cabin windows, so I am going to have to fix all of those before I paint. Such is the life of a model builder! 🙂

Thanks George (@gblair). This has been a fun build. Reshaping those props so far wasn't difficult, but I think the second reshaping (closer to the hub) is going to be a bit more difficult to get right. I have a good front on photo of the prop, so that will help. I also have some resin props (too long, but the same shape) that I can use as a pattern. I should be able to start painting soon, possibly by Wednesday, although the first step will be primer and of course there may be work needed after that.