On the outside I used all the bits provided by the conversion set, though sometimes in different places to those suggested by the instruction sheet, the positions chosen based on several years worth of pictures taken at air shows and web trawling.  The trickiest bit was the nose addition, blending the resin to the plastic took many happy hours.  Additional items were fabricated from sheet plastic, 72nd scale sparrow missiles, plastic tube and rod, brass wire and solder etc.  The usual.  I also opened up a number of the “meshed” panels and replaced them with “real” Tripart mesh having boxed in the area behind and added some piping from solder and wire.  The rivet “detail” was rubbed down a little though not too far as if you’ve ever seen one of these up close the rivets are quite noticeable!  (In retrospect I should have taken it a bit further as the decals had a bit of trouble conforming to the surface as I left it.)  All the sticky out bits were attached before painting as I thought that trying to glue them afterwards would result in messy joins (it normally does with me) though this did make handling the thing a bit fraught.  The hoist came from a Hasegawa Sea King kit, as I’m making a RAF bird out of that I’ve got a white metal Flightpath replacement.  Handy, that, looks to be just the right one.

The bits that needed masking were masked (I hate masking canopies most of all) and the area round where the the engines were going to go was sprayed with Xtracolor Gunship Grey, as were the undersides of the engines themselves (the thought being the spray wouldn’t get in round the engines properly if I painted it after fitting them).  When it had dried the engines were attached and the whole thing sprayed with the same Xtracolor paint, the area aft of the engines being given an additional coat of the same slightly darkened with a bit of black to simulate exhaust staining.  The decals were applied, avoiding the old, yellowed, thick (generally unpleasant) kit decals wherever possible, the serial being hacked together from an A-10 sheet (only two numbers needing changing, how lucky is that?) and other marking coming from wherever I could find them.  As I said, I have pictures of several of these a/c and found some more on the web.  All of them have their markings in different places and different styles and so in the end my kit is a bit of a hybrid, markings wise.  I’m not proud of that.  My retentive nature coming to the fore I guess.  The worst aspect of this is the national insignia.  I have clear pictures of three different a/c star and bars.  They are ALL different styles.  I went through my decal sheets repeatedly and found at least five different styles.  All different to the ones actually on the a/c.  So I went with my favourite.  I shouldn’t be telling you this but I need to get it off my chest.  No-one else cares, but I know you will :-)  First time I’ve really felt the need for something like an Alps.  Though with everything being black I guess I could have got away with clear decal sheet and a laser printer.  Next time.