X. REPAIRS AND OTHER DETAILS
As already mentioned, determining colors based on old black and white photographs is very unreliable, particularly when it comes to repairs on the bottom part of the wings. One simply has to trust the authors’ judgement since, as they claim, they also studied color film excerpts of the plane.
Before carrying out other repairs, I also recreated the chipped paint on both wings where they meet the fuselage. I used the no. 15 surgical scalpel, sandpaper (1200) and a soft eraser. The no. 15 scalpel is small enough to give you good control when removing the upper layers of paint (a toothpick proved unuseful for removing MRP paints).
Reference photographs for some of the repairs can be seen in previous chapters, so I won't post the same photographs again. Undercarriage doors show signs of repair with blotches of red RLM23 and blue RLM76. The right wing has a paint job partly covering the B1b cross. The authors mention the color RLM76, whereas I as the author of the color profile used RLM75. On the left wing, along the front edge, there is a major paintjob in a lighter color, where I used RLM76.
On both wings, some panel lines are painted with red or green-grey (according to the authors); I used red RLM23.
The panel plates before and around the tail unit were painted with a brush using RLM66 or RLM70. I used RLM70. On the right side, the front panel line from the fuselage extension is painted in a darker color; I used RLM75.
Before I continued with the repairs, I put on all of the remaining decals. An important characteristic of the plane is that, on the left side of the fuselage, the number 12 is further away from the cross – before the radio bay access hatch. On the right side, the number 12 is closer to the cross. The decals for the blue number 12 and the horizontal line are from the Kagero publication Top Drawings. Because the black cross must be placed on the fuselage very accurately, following the vertical panel lines, it turns out that the decal for the horizontal line is about one mm too short. I made a new decal using one in the scale of 1:32 from the same set.
On the left side of the fuselage, the red paint is applied in the middle of the cross. The red is also applied where the fuselage extension and the tail unit meet and around both lift tubes. On this plane, the lift tubes are rather larger than usual, and the red paint on the left side runs up to the horizontal blue line, whereas on the right side, it is slightly higher. I will have to make these tubes a little bigger on the model. There is also a red paintjob on the right side of the windshield.
There is a major paintjob in the color RLM76 on the vertical stabilizer. There is a red cross right under the serial number on both sides. I used a decal from the Revell model SU-27 in the scale of 1:72.
On the left side of the motor cowling, the white coolant mark E9 was painted by hand. For this mark, I cut a mask out of adhesive tape and painted it with an airbrush. The mark is slightly too big.
This is how the model looks so far.
Next comes weathering.
