I just love the bare metal look, so I chose this little Mustang to try my hand at Bare Metal Foil. Except for the masking tape seat belts, and bay door actuators, it is an out of box build. Foiling the various subassemblies was fun. The foil applies very easily to the larger surfaces, and presses into the finest detail. Keep a lot of toothpicks handy, but round the ends a bit so you don’t cut through the THIN foil. I had a few wrinkles, but the foil removed easily to re-do. 

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The trickiest part of foiling is going around and over corners like the wingtips. It’s hard to get the foil to lie down flat where it bunches up as you fold it onto the opposite side. I minimized this by picking away as much of the extra foil on the undersides, and burnishing it with a smooth metal tool handle. I just couldn’t get the tail fin tip, though. There’s no underside to hide the wrinkles, so I painted the tip as well as the moving surface with Testors Silver enamel. After the foiling was complete, I rubbed it out with 0000 steel wool, going in different directions on a few panels. I like my birds a tad dirty, like they just returned from battle, but I tried not to get to carried away. I use spit and powdered furniture stains to do my distressing. It’s easy to undo.

The prop and spinner are airbrushed, except for the red tip, which I did by dipping the spinner in a puddle of paint. The checkerboard decal went on so-so, but a little sanding and some touchup paint fixed it up. The decals were a pleasure to apply, I just wish I had trimmed more of the clear background around some where it shows up against the aluminum. According to the pilot, Capt Charles Weaver, the nose art colors are not quite accurate, but I didn’t want to mess up this great feature with overpainting. I think she looks great!!

Nick

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