Sopwith Dolphin - more ideas on bodged paint job on wings

After some thought and a bit of experimentation, I've decided that the wing surfaces will after all need a bit more work. Not only are the ribs a bit too prominent and jagged, but there are an annoying number of little bits stuck to the painted surfaces, even though I had brushed all the surfaces with a soft brush before doing the final coat. Perhaps I charged them with static in the process, thus attracting the small bits. I'll have to be careful about that in future. In addition to those problems, I've decided that the colour I've used for Clear Doped Linen is far too rich and I need to tone it down a bit.

But the thing is, there's nothing to fear. What hadn't really sunk in before now in previous building projects is that a bodged painted finish is not the end of the story, and if you have made mistakes you can find ways of correcting them. So in this case I've decided that the wings need rubbing down and repainting, but I'm pretty confident this won't remove the rib detail. The important point is that with a fine enough grade of wet and dry, you're in no danger of doing much damage.

I've tried out the technique with a bit of scrap that I used as a test piece for the painted ribs technique, and ended up with a very nice smooth finish. As I expected, I went through to the brown rib colour; but only along the ridges at the side of each rib. I was going to illustrate this finding with a photo, but I can't seem to upload pictures at the moment. In any case, it looks to me as though if I overspray with a toned down CDL colour, I might end up with some convincing tonal variation and shading, if I'm lucky.

As for the CDL itself; I consulted some online sources, and one or two sources recommended Humbrol 74 (Linen). This is exactly the colour I used as the basis for my own mixture, with quite a bit of white added. But I still think it's too rich and custardy. Other sources, though, suggest an off-white colour. I think I'll concoct a mixture consisting of white + 74 + a small amount of 121 (Stone). Then I'll use it quite thin and see how that turns out.

More soon.

This is what I was talking about