Thanks Geo. It was just a trial for this next series of steps. I read in lots of places that P-38s were shipped with doped tape over the seams and that this left very distinctive patterns on the seams., especially where the overlapped dope prevented the Olive Drab from fading. Lots of pics of this pattern can be found on the net and it got me thinking, of course after I did all of the following, that I thought that the P-38s of the 1st FG were flown over to England via Greenland/Iceland and so, did they have this tape pattern? In any event, before I had this epiphany, I went ahead and replicated it.
The first step was to paint the upper faded OD colour and for this I used Tamiya XF-49 Khaki lightened with a bit of XF-57 Buff. I sprayed this concoction all over the upper surfaces and then used XF-49 straight to create the soft demarcations with the Neutral Grey on the sides of the fuselage , booms, and nacelles and filled that colour in up to the upper surfaces and blended it. I then cut strips of tape and applied them to the seams.
The next step was to apply a very thin line of thinned XF-62 Olive Drab along the tape lines and at random patches and streaks along the uppers. I also applied it to the fairings around the cockpit as this area appears to have seen fresh paint in my reference pics. I then mixed up a batch of thinned, straight Buff and did the random patch and streak thing again. The pic below was taken when that was done and before the tape was removed.
This is what the model looked like with the tape removed
Then it was on to chipping the uppers. The hairpsray worked well as, with a little bit of water and a stiff brush and toothpick, I was able to easily remove the upper colours down to the Alclad Aluminum. Most of the Chromate Yellow also came off but some did stay. This was just after starting:
And after more of the same. I think I'll stop at this point and do some more on the bottom and some small areas on the booms.
This was a fun session and I'm liking how it's turning out so far. After a bit more chipping, I'll apply a gloss coat and add the decals. We'll then get some washes and a further salt weathering to really make this bird look weary. Thanks again for looking in.