Doing great. What are you using for the 75?
A custom mix. I had a bottle of Gunze Sangyo RLM 75 that was running low. I don't have access the new Gunze Sangyo paints so I simply made a mix of Tamiya paints in that bottle that matched the Gunze RLM 75.
Thanks for the comments guys... always appreciated. I had a few hours on Sunday afternoon to do more paintwork on Black 1. Got lots of the camo done!
Before starting on the spraying, I attended to a small detail. The tail of Black 1 was painted yellow by Dortenmann to give the boys from his squadron a bright flag to follow. I assume that the Werk Number and swastika were masked off prior to the yellow and so I prepared masks to be applied to the tail before I spray the yellow. This will preserve the factory camo as a background for the Werk Number and swastika.
Ok... on to the camo painting. The horizontal tail stabs were masked off to prevent overspray. I like to use Post-Its as much as possible since they are much less stickier than tape and less likely to pull up the somewhat delicate thinned RLM 76.
After the RLM 82 Light Green was sprayed onto the horizontal tail parts, I sprayed the RLM 82 on the port wing root, which had been hairsprayed, as well as the upper fuselage.
After the Light Green was finished, the RLM 83 Dark Green went on, starting with the tail again.
My intention was to leave some traces of the RLM 75 along the borders of the 82/83 but it just didn't look right to me. So I ended up covering all of the underlying RLM 75.
Some of the lighter "irregularities" that you see are airbrush runs that dried flatter than the surrounding coats and will be eliminated with a clear coat. This happens occasionally when spraying highly thinned paint mixtures.
A look at the bottom with the masks removed. It looks like working on top of the soft t-shirt has helped keep scratches off the bottom.
The majority of the RLM82/83 camo has been applied. The mottling has not yet been applied. Mottling is a very tricky deal for me. Paint mixtures need to be just right to avoid sputtering (too thick) or running (too thin). So I'm keeping it as a separate step.
I can now do the wing root chipping. There have been multiple coats of paint and lots of elapsed time on that starboard wing root so I'm curious if I'll be able get the hairspray layer to react with water.
The rear fuselage has lots of paint work to be done. After I do some mottling on the spine and vertical tail, I'll give it a layer of hairspray so that I can show some wear on the yellow tail. The masks for the Werk Number and swastika will go on prior to the yellow but before or after the hairspray, I don't know. The black and white fuselage bands also need to be added.