Thanks, John, Spiros and Erik.

I've been working away at the Buffalo with more stuff coming up to challenge my modeling skills.

Getting this to the painting stage meant attaching and masking the clear parts. Since they are so large and finally restrict access to the cockpit, I decided to scratch-build and install the gunsight beforehand. The Squadron book identifies it as a Mk lll but pics and drawings show it is more a Mk ll, identical to the sight in the Hurricane (pictured).

I figured out the shape as basically easiest to create from a tiny hollowed-out cylinder, cut and sanded to shape. The cylinder came from a silly toy F4U model I got as a "gift" with a Tiger model French armored car (another build in progress). It was the back end of the "prop" hub. Other parts of the gunsight were cut or punched from from clear styrene or white styrene sheet. The rather beautiful pointed oval shape of the reflector glass was reshaped with a file from a more square oval carved with a pin using a template. I feel like a jeweler doing this work with tiny parts but it is kind of fun. I assembled, painted and mounted it before attaching the windscreen but forgot to take a pic of the thing by itself. You can see how it was pretty well centered at this stage.

Anyway, the next part was a stage I dread, attaching all clear parts and fairing them into the fuselage without marring them. I used liquid glue because I needed to weld them on and fill some gaps with stretched sprue. I proceeded super carefully and finally got a good join sanded clean for the windscreen.

The rear greenhouse part was a heck of a challenge. It needed to flex wider at the base to fit flush with the fuselage and low enough not to leave a step at the back. Again, I used stretched sprue, this time inside the join to spread the thin flexible part. I used more sprue and Mr. Surfacer outside to close the join and sand it smooth as it is not on a panel line! Meanwhile, I decided to do all the masking to protect clear part panels from sanding and to get that done for painting as well.

The masking was done by pressing the tape into the panel area, marking the major lines with pencil, then removing it to cut it before final placement.

I NEVER cut it in situ because I don't want to slip and cut the clear part anywhere incorrectly. I hope this is worth showing, even though many modelers know how to do this. I also want to show some other masking details to illustrate how much planning and care is sometimes needed to mask for painting in a build like this. I had the seat and turnover pylon installed, so I had to figure out how to mask around these for painting and ensure no spray would leak inside the cockpit. Putting the canopy on for the whole process was not sufficient protection and its fit would also prevent me from painting the fuselage properly because of the way it overhangs.

The pics show the masking stages and final result and also show how eventually I also faired in the green house canopy piece and scribed the proper line from the fuselage through the clear part.

I had to make a box with paper and masking tape around the exposed seat, which I also sealed with white glue in places to stop paint leakage. Hopefully the whole thing will resist shrinking and buckling when paint is applied.

BTW, I also had to mask the exposed radial engine after assembly of the cowl. This was tricky, but I hope the paper and tape mask works in the end.

All along, I have been rescribing panel lines lost to sanding all over the fuselage, cleaning up glue spots and cleaning out sanding dust. more masking challenges await on the underside wheel bay area before painting but I am getting better at this so maybe I can do some major painting next week (?!?).

The last thing to mention is a thing I created to mask the prop hub. It is in two colors, dark earth and sky (not black and sky as the instructions specify). This is pretty obvious in period pics.

To overcome the trickiness of masking a straight line on a curved hub, I created the cylinder shaped mask shown. The paper cylinder is wrapped around a marker for the right diameter and symmetry. I lined the inside of the cylinder with double sided scotch tape to which masking tape is stuck to seal the cylinder against paint leakage. I haven't tried this before but I think it will work.

So, that's it for now. I hope the pics aren't as tedious as the work sometimes was. I have tried to show successful techniques as much as possible to help others in problem solving with short run kits. Nothing so remarkable I guess but a very worthwhile process for me.

Comments welcome.

Colin, that was a very instructive post!

I NEVER cut it in situ because I don’t want to slip and cut the clear part anywhere incorrectly. I hope this is worth showing, even though many modelers know how to do this.

That is one thing I shall be using too. I have always cut in situ, sometimes regretting it. I now have a thick pane of glass to cut on, so hopefully that will help improve things at my end.

Thank you for sharing all this @coling!

Yeah that area of the canopy is the bitchiest thing about this kit, no doubt. Lots of fitting and sanding involved. That rounded area of the last panel has to be smoothly faired in to look good and takes lots of fiddily sanding, without marring the clear area. I you want the canopy hood displayed open, if yours is like mine more trickery is needed. It needs to be pushed down/spread out to sit right, without cracking it. I had already added canopy hood slide rails to the fuselage. If you look at pics there was a rivet or something along the rail line on the canopy hood. I drilled tiny (0.75?) holes there and inserted little sprue pins. These protrude into the hood and can be used to hold the hood in proper position.

There were a few challenges to this kit for sure, but overall it makes up into a nice Buffalo impression.

Link to a pic:

https://imodeler.com/uploads/2013/03/100_0761.jpg?12537

Very nice!

Thank you very much for your responses, Spiros, Erik, John, Bill, John, Marcus and George. I am very happy to have shared something useful about masking techniques for you, It has been awhile since I did my own masks, having preferred the pre-cut ones, whenever available. Oddly enough, though, I had to do a lot of my own work on my 1/48th AM TBF Avenger because the Eduard pre-cut masks I used were so inaccurate! So, even those are not always a solution. Cutting them on glass is a good approach, Erik. I use a kind of granite cutting board thing I found in my basement left over by builders.

A huge thanks, Bill for the tip on the sliding canopy. I had thought to leave it until after painting, given that it seemed flexible enough to fit. On closer examination (following your warning), I realized it would have been a major a pain to fit at that stage and likely to mess up my finish to get it to stay straight. I considered your "pin" solution, which sounded neat. Nonetheless, I decided to do a rail approach to allow a sliding friction fit. I didn't want to scribe out a slot to insert a rail for fear of loosening the glued-down greenhouse. I decided to create a raised rail from clear stretch sprue glued to the rear "glass". This would lock down the a rail attached to the sliding portion at the desired angle. I had an extra sliding canopy in the kit to experiment with and work out the fit issues. I stretched my clear sprue from a rectangular label plate left over form my Shiden Kai clear parts tree.

This is a bit of a general tip, for what it's worth, to get a rectangular cross section in a stretched sprue piece by starting with a rectangular master. If I had used a round piece, it would have been round, with less "bite" in doing its intended job. Here is how the square rails attached to the rear greenhouse. So, long story short, it all worked. I committed to the final delicate gluing job on the sliding part and the proper canopy now clicks in snugly at the right angle. I may be able to do without glue after the paintwork is done but there is room for that if needed.
BTW, Bill, I have often reviewed pics of your Buffalo build on iModeler to help me at every stage. It has been a huge help to follow your techniques/solutions to getting the best result from the kit. Having your explanation of how you problem-solved is a bonus.
On the masking of the seat and prop hub, again, happy to know this is worth knowing. The prop hub thing is actually a variation on something I picked up from another modeler on how to mask the yellow nose band stripes on bombs and missiles. He recommended using lengths of fine rubber hose of slightly different diameters to squeeze over the ends of bombs and mask the yellow bands they sometimes have near the nose. I haven't tried it out yet, but I bought the hose for the purpose. Here is a pic to show how yellow bands that could be masked off appear on US Bombs - I did these with decals, I think. Here is another pic of how a masking hose piece would fit, using the nose of a drop tank (I don't have any bombs handy). Pretty neat solution, given how we usually struggle with tiny decals for these things. I wish I could give credit to the guy who suggested this "shrink tube" technique, I don't remember who it was.

Thanks a lot for this tip, Colin.
Now I finally have a purpose for the remaining collection of "shrink tubes" which I still have at home.
Great progress on that 'little' Buffalo.

Thanks, Spiros, John and Erik.

I have a small update. I figure it is worthwhile since I got over a major hump and finally got to some early painting. The key thing holding me up was how to mask the odd gap of the fuselage wheel bays and expose the wing landing gear bays for painting. I ended up stuffing the former with foam scraps, while also masking the exposed metal bits on the curved inner edge of the bay with kabuki tape. Finally, I inserted paper discs under the edge of the opening to blank everything off.

It worked very well, especially with the way the foam pushed against the paper and insured a snug fit. The foam plus a bit of masking tape for extra insurance will also neatly allow the wing bays to be painted the fuselage color without overspray.

Masking of the tiny windows on the belly went surprisingly quickly with my current technique.

At the last minute, I realized I had to sand off the two landing light son the upper wing (deleted for RAF a/c). I also had to do a bit of surgery on the hole for the spine landing light. This was too large and also not properly centered. I decided to fill it completely and drill it out after painting, if necessary. I am not sure yet whether the RAF Buffalos had this light - it's not in the kit instructions.
So, finally, painting was Tamiya Flat Aluminum for the canopy framing and Floquil Sky for the prop hub and fuselage stripe. I really like the Floquil Sky for color accuracy and smoothness. I had originally done both with Tamiya Sky but ended up sanding this off during further prep work. The change is much for the better.

Just one small thing by way of tips. I share this one because of some deep frustration previously with opening Gunze paint jars. Right now I am testing out the RAF colors I will use on the Buffalo, so I needed to open up some stubborn jars.

I find that Gunze paint hardens like glue and I can't twist off caps left too long, even after soaking the jar under hot water and using vice grips. Anyway, I recently figured out that the best thing is to gently (!) pry away a bit at the very flexible side of the plastic cap with a screwdriver or other metal blade before trying to unscrew it. This unsticks the gluey seal of paint in the threads of the jar. It works every time and saves me wrecking the paint label with hot water or distorting the cap by wrenching it off.

That's it for now. I hope this is of some interest. Happy modeling.

That was some important lastminute changes Colin. And with the paint now out of the jar, I shall be looking forward to further posts on the progress here.