Haven't done an update for a while but have been plodding on slowly during the excitement of Christmas. I've now reached the point of saying it's done. I've put a few experiments into this build, the initial one being an all over aluminium base so that i could have a go at chipping. I've also done most of the paintwork in either an acrylic lacquer or acrylic paint in a effort to move away from enamel paints. I also had a go at doing under paint panel lines as well as using an over wash. As a result the build looks quite worn and scruffy and maybe a little over chipped in places. I also had a couple of issues with the Tamiya decals, they seem to be rather thick and it took a lot of decal fluid to get them to sink into the contours and the end result was still not good. I also found that at a certain point, possibly because of too much Micro Sol, the decals started to melt away. Anyway, a couple of pics before posting the finished machine.
My sincere thanks to all you kind gents for all your encouragement, hints and help during this build. You are a great bunch of guys.
With Rob. The last two Tamiya kits I build had bullet proof decals as well; even Walthers Solvaset wouldn't budge them. In the end I used a cloth soak into extremely hot water and pressed them firmly but gently into the panel lines