Very good progress, George @gblair
Take your time and all will end up perfect.
Your printed camera is a valuable addition to this build.

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). I sometimes get in a rush, and bad stuff always happens. I really want to move on to something else, so I have to keep reminding myself to slow down.

Hi Carl (@clipper): Brittleness seems to be a characteristic of clear plastic no matter who makes it, with some being more brittle than others. I have seen some clear fuselages. I remember a Piper Cub with a clear fuselage, along with a De Havilland Beaver, and even a 1/32 Dauntless. Remember the Monogram clear stuff? They had the clear 1/32 Mustang, as well as a clear 1/48 B-17. One of the problems I remember was that the clear plastic was so hard that it was hard to get stuff to stick to it. I wonder if modern glues would work now? It does seem like a waste to have a clear fuselage just so you can get decent-looking cabin windows. The easy solution is not to build planes with cabin windows. :o)

I got #3 painted today. It is the MPM kit and is painted in light slate gray. It was part of a secret reconnaissance unit that used a variety of experimental camouflages on their planes. I mixed the light slate gray using three colors of Tamiya paint. While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I did some touch-up painting on the first two planes. After that, I returned to #3 to do the detail painting. By this time, I had cleaned my airbrush about 14 times, so I decided to mask the de-icing strips on the wings and tail, and then hand paint them using Vallejo paint thinned slightly with water. It actually worked. Yeah. The cameras on each side of the fuselage had a white and black rectangle painted around it, so I painted these airbrushed these with Tamiya paint. It has been really humid here for the last few days, but tomorrow should be perfect for spraying the clear gloss on all three planes. Then it will be time to see if I can piece the markings together from my spare decals. Yeah!

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Great paintwork, George @gblair
Very nice handpainting on the de-icing strips, how were you able to get that painted so uniform, without having the brush stripes.
All of them look very good in the line up picture.

I love the picture of the three lined up. This is really cool. Excellent work, George (@gblair). When you start adding the markings, these are really going to pop.

BTW, I know what you mean about wanting to move on. I feel the same way about my Hudson build. But we just need to stay the course. The results are worth it.

Super results so far, my friend @gblair! Excellent brush painting!

The plan for today was to get gloss sprayed on the trio. I usually just use the clear gloss on the areas that will have decals, but I wanted to try covering the entire plane as a protective layer for later weathering. I usually use Tamiya Clear Gloss, but I wanted to try AK Gauzy Shine Enhancer. I have read good things about Gauzy, and it is supposed to be ready to airbrush right from the bottle. It looked a little think in the bottle, so I decided to thin it a little. I wasn't really sure if it was water-based or oil-based, but I took a chance and thinned it with a couple of drops of Vallejo Acrylic Thinner. I mixed and sprayed perfectly. It is supposed to be self-leveling, and it really was. It looked a little pebbly when I first sprayed it on, but after a few minutes it was perfectly smooth. I really like this stuff and plan to keep using it. I always let each clear coat dry at least 24 hours, so the planes are now sitting till tomorrow.

Lost in the Hudson build was my plan to build a Minicraft Ventura to go with the Hudson. I have been slowly building the Ventura in my free time from the Hudsons and working on my train layout. Today I got the major component assembled and I plan to fill and sand the wings and fuselage before I bring them together. I think I can finish the Ventura at the same time as the Hudsons.

Cheers everyone.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.