Revell FW-200 1/72 circa 1965 Refinished

This old bird was built in the late 60's. I've always like the look of the Condor, and didn't want to part with this model during a recent purge, so I decided it deserved a trip to the Spa for some R&R. A combination of age and inexpert gluing made it fairly easy to break down almost completely without any damage. Everything was cleaned with water and a "Magic Eraser" to remove decades of dust. Golly, those garish colors; but hey, I was following the instructions, so.....

The fit of the fuselage halves was ...not good at all, so a lot of filing ensued. Snipped off a few locator pins, cleaned up the edges. Repainted the cockpit and crew in period correct colors (RLM 66 Gray from Gunze Sangyo for late war interiors). I had to wet sand and polish the dorsal turret to get the old paint off. The fuselage went back together and the nose left a lot to be desired, so it was Squadron Putty time. Twice. The canopy got plastic-polished, but I could not get all of the old hand-paint off. (Forgive me). I trimmed ti to improve its fit, and used the essential ModelMaster clear window cement to hold it in place and fill gaps (If you're not using this stuff, you should be.)

Missing in action were the forward radio mast and the aft loop antenna, so a dive in the parts box, here, some stretched sprue there, and Bob's Your Uncle....

Really shows off those almost Steampunk Revell Rivets. Since recessed panel lines are still decades into the future, we'll overlook it.

Once we had her reassembled, it was time to head to the paint booth. First up, some RLM 65, this time provided by ModelMaster. Quite a bit more subdued than the prior color, and it covered well.

I use a combination of 3m Painters blue tape (fuselage) and scotch tape (canopies) to mask. Now technically, the upper surfaces should have been in RLM 72 and 73 as this was a "marine" aircraft; having neither, I used the standard RLM 70 / RLM 71 upper surface camo colors. Hey, it's not a contest plane.. Anywho... Upper surface base color was ModelMaster RLM 70; 24 hours to cure, more masking, them ModelMaster RLM 71.

Yeah, could have spent some time puttying and sanding that top fuselage seam. Que Sera....

But overall, a nice clean new finish, closer to correct, and better suited to holding decals on, which was a big reason for the redo. I haven't mentioned, they essentially all failed and curled off. Bad finish followed by decades of bad storage. Not this time. For all the large insignia, I pre-sprayed the area gloss clear for better adhesion. Once applied, they were coated with solva-set, and tamped down over the rivets while wet with the end of a Q tip repeatedly, to conform them to the blizzard of rivets. The net result was satisfactory. Note - more delicate decals might not have withstood this treatment. I was using a set of decals for the Revell 2006 new model Condor, so they were ONLY 14 years old :-) and went on without issue.

And yes, the Symbol of Ultimate Evil had to be sourced separately. You can't sell in Europe if you include...the symbol. Getcha a FaceBook timeout these days, too.

The decals sheet included many, many tiny decals, so of course I had to use them. The long perforated yellow lines were particularly fun to get on, straight, in one piece.

After two evening's intermittent work, all had been applied. Some exterior detail paining here and there.

Now she sits, awaiting that final dullcote to seal it all together.. To be continued....