Thanks again everyone.
Harrison, the weathering on the tanks was dead simple. First, as explained above, the dents were added using a round file. Admittedly, these were a bit of an afterthought, added after the initial coat of RLM 76 was applied. I just filed these and touched them up again with the airbrush. After the RLM 76 coat, I created numerous scratches by simply scraping away some of the RLM 76 in a random patten using my hobby knife. Then, a coat of Future was applied, followed by decals. I scratched a bit more to remove some of the decal lettering, then dry-brushed some earth brown to get the mud stains. Finally, a thin wash of black filled the seam lines and I used the same to create stains around the filler cap using a small brush. A final coat of Testors Dullcoat was then applied to seal everything and take off the gloss.
I should add that I intend to repaint the support frames in black to match the eventual underside of the model.
Here are a few shots showing the basic insignia decals that I applied yesterday. The crosses are from the Revell sheet that came with the kit and the swastika is a two-piece affair (white backround and black overlay) from Eaglecals. I had initial concerns with the Revell decals, having applied the crosses on the underside of the wings first. The decals are quite tough and have a flat finish and initially did not appear to react to my two applications of Solvaset but then they eventually behaved and sat down with a bit of light pressing (I'd never do this with "normal" decals but the toughness of these allowed for the manipulation). The flatness should disappear with another Future application followed by a dullcoat.
Note the tricky placement of the under-wing cross to miss the landing light (masked) and to stay off the radiator. To miss the drop tank winch, I had to cut a notch in the decal as well. You can see the RLM 76 background in this area to which the decal was applied. The entire underside will be painted black up to the crosses where tiny amounts of the backgound 76 may remain invisible. This will be done to simulate a field application so some random overspray into the cross will be normal here.
I had intended to use the kit-supplied small "9K" codes to replicate my KG51 machine and went so far as to apply one. These are 4mm tall and, once I saw one in place, I was unhappy with it as it appears much too large. Photos of actual aircraft with the 9K codes reveal these to be very tiny in actuality, so it will be a matter of making these, as well as the full sized red M, in Photoshop as my project today.
I had an interesting e-mail exchange dealing with the landing and nav lights that I'll share in a later post. Cheers for now, and thanks for your continued interest.