Last time I finished with the standard 1944 B-17F olive-and-gray paint job using my all-time favorite, Stits PolyTone Aircraft Coating and added the custom “Pink Lady” markings made for this project by Callie Graphics (http://callie-graphics.com/ ). I gave these vinyl markings a couple more days to dry and then added a single coat of Stits PolyTone Clear with enough Stits Flattener added to produce an eggshell finish and start to weather that finish further by buffing the entire surface of the aircraft with medium grade (green) Scotch-Brite abrasive pads. That entire process left the B-17 in the condition you see it now, ready for some final surface detail.
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B-17-24-1 That process began like this….after a LOT more of that decision making about which details to include and which to leave off. What about panel lines? There are undisguised sheet metal joints just about everywhere on a B-17…you can’t miss them…or can you? Scale (size) is the deciding factor here. This model at 1/16 scale is small enough that if you were to stand far enough back from a full scale airplane to get the same impression of size much of that detail would disappear. By that logic, since this model is not going to be judged “up close” I’m going to leave most of the lines off along with pretty much all the rivet detail. Among the lines that I am going to represent are the major panel joints on the top surface of the wing. As with a lot of other things there are lots of ways to do this. I have chosen one of the least complicated by using shallow indentations in the surface finish made using a medium hardness pencil and an appropriate straightedge or curve drawing guides. The scale references, as usual, are what you go by and it’s up to you to decide how far to go.