After I got the cockpit all painted and put together, I then started assembling the kit in major subassemblies. The first one was the wings. It was here where I discovered the pitfalls of AMT kits. The plastic is VERY soft! So much so that the putty around the engine nacelles ate into the plastic instead of filling the seams. I had to apply the putty in very thin layers to prevent that from happening again. This would not be such a problem if the fit of the kit was better, but just about every seam needs at least some filler.
Once I got past that hurdle, construction proceeded at a decent pace. The gondola under the nose is thoughtfully provided in clear so you can mask off the windows instead of inserting a whole bunch of small ones. Unfortunately, this is one place where the fit is unbelievably horrible, and those lovely windows are rapidly erased in the process of trying to get a good fit and maintain the proper front and side views. Once I got that taken care of, the wings were attached and the plane was ready for paint.
Since my hunt for decent Hungarian decals big enough for a Ju88 turned up nothing, I decided to paint the markings on. This is not as difficult as it first looks, as the markings consist of a white cross on a black square. The first step was to paint white everywhere there were markings. This included the vertical and horizontal tails, as they had a white stripe sandwiched between the red and green. Next I cut equal length strips of tape to make up the cross. Once those were covered, a squirt of black, then a square of tape lined up over the crosses. I then finished the plane as normal, with a 70/71/76 standard German camouflage. After that was all done, I masked off the thin lines of the fake nose canopy, then painted the nose a light blue-gray. Removing all of the tape gave me a nicely painted Ju88C-6 with no need for decals. All that was left was some subtle weathering, putting on all the various bits and pieces such as undercarriage and antennae, and it's finished.
Overall, this kit is an excellent representation of the Ju88C-6 in 1/72. The only downfalls are the soft plastic and the poor fit in some areas. Even with those problems, it was a quick kit to build, and really looks good with those red, white, and green stripes!
Next Month: Who Knows?
AMT Ju88C-4/C-6 in 1/72
Hungarian Air Force
George Punka
Squadron/Signal Publications
Hungarian Eagles
Gyula Sárhidai, György Punka, Viktor Kozlik
Hikoki Publications
