Revell Junkers Ju 88A4 - Part VII

And it's finished. My final verdict about this kit is overall very positive, although as already mentioned, I have a couple of serious reservations regarding some aspects of its design. The nose assembly is overly complicated and made unnecessarily tricky by use of transparent parts that end up being over-painted to 80 percent. Clear parts functioning as joints that are subjected to tension pressure (due to the complexity of nose assembly) is another thing that I'm not very happy about. And finally, that tricky belly copula sub-assembly will probably succeed in driving an angel into righteous fury.

OK, that was the last of my 'whines' regarding this kit, I promise. Yes, it's challenging and no, it's not for complete beginners. It taxed my limited skills to the limit, perhaps beyond them. But that's how you learn and develop. I know, a horrible cliche, bite me... ;.-) In this case, it's 100 percent true, I've learned quite a lot while working with this kit.

Two 'last time I did this' that I need to make a comment about, both of them related with clear parts.

First of all, this is the last time I've used liquid masking fluid for canopies. To each his own and I know of folks who use it like a magic wand, but I never liked the stuff to begin with. In this project it turned out to be yet again a major PITA, horribly difficult to clean up, especially in the corners of masked areas.

Second, a warning - based on my experience in this project, "Glaze 'n' Glue" from Deluxe Materials, intended for gluing of clear parts, is not able to handle even slightest tension on the joints. When dry, the glue turns into clear rubber-like material that stretches if the joint is 'pulled apart'. This was a very unpleasant surprise to me and caused me significant problems while working with nose assembly. Now you've been warned.

Finally, a couple of words about the weathering of this kit. Once the basic paint job was done, I sprayed the kit with Vallejo Acrylic gloss as preparation for the decals. Once decals were in place, another coat sealed them in. Next, Flory's dark brown was applied everywhere. It was then wiped off and I proceeded with final stages of the weathering, consisting of applying random streaks of black and dark brown pigment all over the fuselage and wing surfaces. These subtle color shifts broke up the monotony of greens in a very pleasing and dare I say, realistic manner. Finally, I applied 'default' soot streaks around the exhausts. I must admit that I am not very confident when working with this particular detail and the end result is far from convincing.

The finished kit turned out like this.

Revell Junkers Ju 88A4 - Part VI

One of these less pleasant moments... You are almost done, ready to put on the transparent bits and they don't fit although they did before. Well... actually, I'm pretty sure they didn't really fit at any time. As you perhaps recall, the nose of this kit is split in multiple 'quadruples' that need to be aligned very precisely. As it turns out, it was a task beyond my skills and now this failure came back to haunt me.

Right... so the question was - try to fix the problem on a model that was painted and in an area with multiple transparent parts, prone to scratches and blemishes or leave it and hope nobody would notice? And here we arrive to a very interesting lesson in psychology - nobody, except me and I know that these gaps would nag at me every time I'd look at that kit. Question answered; people are really funny... :)

So, how to perform this 'sensitive operation'? Well, first of all, mask off all areas not involved! Second, be very patient and work with diluted acrylic putty. I'll go through materials I'm using in this project at other time, but let me tell you - Perfect Plastic Putty from Deluxe Materials is really useful! Last, file and polish, very carefully.

Before and after pictures are below. I'm almost there!