Finishing

This is one of those kits whose inspired simplicity makes it a joy to paint.  Red body.  Black nose cone.  You're pretty much down to picking paint shades.  I went the Fill & Finish route on this and was pleased with the results that two rounds of filling and sanding made before priming.  Primer was Valspar white, body was Valspar Cherry Red gloss, and nose cone was Valspar gloss black.  In other words, I didn't sweat the paint shades.  I built this kit in late 2001, right around the time that I discovered Bel Decal paper on Ebay.  I knew that my inkjet printer couldn't handle the crucial white sections behind the iron crosses and skulls, but I had stumbled upon something that I thought might offer a solution.  While following my wife around Wal-Mart one night, I found a pack of vinyl shelf paper with a self adhesive backing.  The paper was 8 1/2 x 11, and while it wouldn't allow the inkjet to print on it, it would allow me to custom cut a white backing for every individual decal.  I printed off the decal in black on the Bel paper, then printed off the decal on a separate piece of plain paper.  I lined up the paper with the shelf paper, taped the edges together to keep the papers together, then cut each decal just inside the actual design.  I then peeled off the backing paper (the toughest part of the project,) and placed the white blank in the appropriate spot on the painted rocket body.  The decals were then applied over the white blanks, and depending on the accuracy of my cuts, one would have been tough pressed to tell that they were not a regular set of Der Red Max decals.  Some details were too small to go through the whole shelf paper process, which gave away my secret to the occasional sharp eye, but on the whole the results were great.  Over the years the decals have shrunk somewhat due to age, but ten plus years down the line the overall result still holds together.