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Westland Wyvern S.4 – The mythical beast

Painting

First, I gave the model a coat of Vallejo's grey spray primer. (See in-progress pic 08). Since the paint scheme of my choice was the one with the Suez invasion stripes, I painted them first. (The Mono-Chrome-issued kit has the stripes as decals) These stripes were a little harder to do than black and white Normandy stripes because the yellow and black stripes were not the same width. No measurements are given in the instructions and the pictures in the painting guide are not in 1:72 either, so I had to do some calculations. Here's how to do it. First measure the width of the vertical fuselage band on both the picture and the model itself. (it's easy because the fuselage band goes between two vertical panel lines, you can't go wrong with it. Use only the top-view picture for making the measurements, as the side-view pics are not the same size). Now, divide the model's band's width with the picture's band's width. Then just multiply the required picture measurements with this number to get the right measurements for the model.

I first painted the band areas yellow, then masked and painted the black. I also painted the edges of the rear canopy's frame white, and masked over them when dry. For the main colors, I used acrylic paints from the Xtracrylix range. This was my first encounter with them and it went surprisingly smoothly. The only real problem I had was deciding how to paint the engine cowling. The kit's instructions show it painted Dark Sea Grey, but the box top painting has it Sky. I tried searching the Internet for reference. No luck with that. I found several pics of kits with same markings as mine, and all seemed to have the cowling painted differently! I decided to go with Sky. As usual, I started with the lightest color, in this case sky. A couple of coats were required to get an even coverage. Then I masked and painted the Dark Sea Grey areas. (See in-progress pic 09) Those fragile antennas on the wings would be best applied after the model is completed, as I broke off a few while handling the model.

Decaling

The Xtracrylix paints dry glossy, so no gloss coat before adding the decals is required. (I coated the Suez stripes with Johnson floor wax, as the paints I used on them were flat) The decals went on easily and settled down with a little Micro-Sol. A coat of Johnson floor wax sealed the decals.

Finishing off

For the final coat, I brushed the model with a mixture of floor wax and Tamiya flat agent (a mixing ratio of 1 part flat to 5 parts wax gives a satin coat). After the coat was dry, I removed the canopy masks and attached the exhausts and the round clear windows to the rear fuselage. I had dry fitted these earlier on, but by now the openings were coated with paint, so I had to trim the openings and the edges of the windows a little to get them fit right. I made antennas from stretched sprue to replace the parts I broke off earlier. The wingtip lights were then glued on and painted with transparent red and green. Because the Vallejo paints I used on them dry flat, I gave them two coats of floor wax. After a few touch-ups, I attached the propeller assembly with superglue. There, my Wyvern was finished and ready for the shelf.