Tomahawk SLCM Air Intake

The air-intake is made from a light cardboard. I considered re-making this out of a thin balsa wood, but figured it was unlikely to get damaged during flight because of it's location.  As it happened, I pressed a little too gingerly on the rocket while applying decals, and bent it a bit. It returned to shape, but not before it cracked the white gloss finish on it. The cracks are not very noticable on the photo. If you build this model, I suggest soaking the folds of the cardboard with CA glue to harden them. Mine started to split while handling the rocket while sanding the finish.

The color difference in the blue Testor's paint and the decal's blue shade doesn't look too bad in this photo, but in person you will be able to see the shade difference easily. Take a close look behind the air-intake where the square panel decal is. Behind that there was a gap in the blue decal which I covered with the blue from a second set of Quest decals. Even in this photo, you can see the obvious shade difference between the two blues of the decal sheets from Quest. The purple-ish square is from a set of Quest decals I didn't use.  If you build this kit, I wish you the best of luck getting the paint and decal shades to match, but don't count on it.