Old Dog

Thanks ! Am enjoying watching your progress on this, keep up the good work !

Just curious, does the interior lip of the cowling on the real McCoy extend back that far ? It looks like it would be hard for cooling air to reach the upper part of the cylinders if so.

I have not had any of them come loose yet and some are several years old dating back to when the self adhesive sets were first released. That said I usually put a drop of Future into the instrument openings to provide a lens and this often times seeps between the layers so that may be supplementing Eduard's adhesive. I also have found that flat coating the upper layer helps reducing the grainy appearance. While I like not needed to paint them, of late I've become dissatisfied with the one dimensional appearance of the Eduard sets for 1/32 and have been using supplied decals or Airscale's over the instruments or using the Yuhu panels instead. I still use Eduard's for the smaller scale stuff.

They will probably preshade it before painting

Wow! Nice !

Fantastic !

Lovely, in my younger days I would be all of this but now I just see a lot of work going into places it won't be seen. Just give me the stuff that shows and I would be happy !

Nice, interesting with the artificial light it almost looks like a model !

Evening looking at photographs I can never achieve the variety of mottle shapes that you have achieved, I think it looks excellent just as it is !

I agree they tend to be way over done but there are panel lines visible in spite of the very dark colors.

The one time I've used Alclad's dull aluminum was as an undercoat for chipping purposes. I sprayed it over gray Mr. Surfacer and was surprised to see how hard it was to see where I had sprayed. Of all the Alclad paints I think their dull aluminum has the least amount of metal sheen to it. I have not tried it over any other primers so can speak to how that affects the final look.

The key is to clear the nozzle before recapping otherwise capillary action will cause it to creep back up to the top and sometimes into the cap gluing it on, Mark's tip above usually works, I also give the bottle a sharp rap on the table top to force the glue back down into the bottle before recapping.

I have belonged to a train related chat room for a good many years and while it can be a source of instant information off times it is not. The chat room tends to be inhabited by regulars (me included) and over time the regulars become good friends and when talk about relevant subjects wains, talk often turns to other subjects such as pets, food, cars, illnesses, what ever. While an honest effort is made to answer questions from non regulars is always made, someone with the needed answer may not be available. The other issue is time. The room I belong to is mostly inhabited by folks in the eastern US with a few from the mid west and west and the most active time for chatting is between 7:00 and 9:00 PM eastern time. Folks from other parts of the globe showing up at other times may find the room sparsely populated or totally vacant and who wants to get up in the middle of the night to get the answer to a question that can just as easily be answered in a forum. While I enjoy chatting with friends others are often put off by the chat that sometimes is meaningless if you don't know the background of those chatting. There can also be issues of moderation. Just my 2¢ worth on chat rooms.

Wow, impressive workmanship, paint and weathering !

I have never used the hairspray method but if it's not brand dependent and you want to airbrush it there are non aerosol pump sprayers available. Suave brand for one has them, no decanting necessary.