Painting
I had chosen the Kansas Tornado II as my preferred scheme and I got the superlative decals from Roy Sutherland’s Barracuda Models. They truly are sublime and I just love the scheme. It’s a beautiful natural metal finish with invasion stripes on the underside of the fuselage and wings and a blue cowling ring and canopy. The blue was/is controversial but more on this soon (see thread link above too). The Kansas Tornado II artwork on the fuselage side is fantastic and I just love this scheme.
My first task was to undercoat the entire model and component parts with ALCLAD gloss black. For me it’s the only choice and I have never once had any problem with it. Whilst it is touch dry in only 30 minutes I have always left it at least 24 hours to harden. That way any remaining moisture will have gone which if it hasn’t may cause blooming on the silver when it comes to the final finish.
Once dry though I gave the model its first coat of ALCLAD White Aluminium, then using ALCLAD Magnesium as a very faint overspray over the whole model. This tones-back the aluminium slightly and gives the model a very natural looking finish; Leave to dry thoroughly for 24 hours after which I give the entire model a coat of ALCLAD Aqua Gloss. It’s a great product and is acrylic which will be really essential later. More importantly it ensures that whatever enamel wash you chose to use after doesn’t peel away the ALCLAD. As importantly… it protects the ALCLAD against lifting when masking which on this beast was essential.
