SPA Modeler

Keep at it Lyle. The best thing I can offer you besides types and brands of tape or paint is patience, particularly with paint cure out time. I used to have MM come up on me but between priming the bare plastic with "rattle can" Tamiya primer and letting the MM paint fully cure out I haven't had any issues since. I will reemphasize though,patience is the absolute best tool one can have for this hobby brutha man.

yeah, yeah...patience. Ran out a long time ago. This thing is about to hit the round file. Deep breath. Whew, that was close. More paint came up this morning when touching up the underside. used Tamiya tape this time. the plane was primed with the rattle can Tamiya gray. More touch ups coming. Patience Barhopper.

Yeah, I will put it down to the combination of the blue tape and MM Acryl. No matter how long you let that stuff dry and cure, in my experience it has adhesion problems at times. And I do hate to say it, but not everybody's paints are matched to the same standards. One company's RLM 70 & 71 will not be identical to another company's. That may account for part of your low contrast. Although the two colors are not overly different and contrasting to begin with. I used Aeromaster colors on my stalled He-111 and they have more contrast than those two.
Hang in there buddy, it'll get better!

Thanks, Stik. Yeah, it will be finished one way or the other. Eager to move on to something else, or learn my cutting machine and some photoshop.

I am so snake bit when I get to about 80-90 percent finished. I am pretty much going to have to strip the "lighter" coler and redo it. A few drops of IPA got on the wing and the paint came off with wiping it up. Looks like a trip to the LHS is in order! Not all bad.

Gotta love those silver linings... All that aside, I think that we learn more as modelers from the tough builds, than from the easy ones. If we don't hit speed bumps, we don't learn how to overcome unexpected obstacles.

This thing is not going quietly! Gave up on the paint and stripped it this morning. Windex is amazing for this. I did manage to break the starboard elevator off...sigh.

Horizontal stabilizer is reattached! Time to sling some paint. Women and children inside, please.

Can't wait to see pics on this beauty Lyle!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Mustang. I should have some pictures in the next day or two.