Hi everybody - It's been awhile. After a couple years preoccupied with some health problems, I've decided to get back in the game a little bit.
I was rummaging thru my stash and came across an old Revell kit of a Northrop F-89 Scorpion. The publication date on the plans is 1960. The interesting thing about this kit is that the canopy and frame are separate. The clear part of the canopy is inlet and the frame is on one of the trees like "ordinary" parts. NO MASKING!!!
I've only seen this once before, several decades ago on a F4U Corsair kit.
I've often wondered why more kits aren't made this way. Are their many kits like this out there?

One of the things which happened to canopies like that is that the clear parts would shrink while cooling at a different rate than the coloured plastic, and you'd end up with a canopy which wouldn't fit its frame. You also tend to get gaps which are almost impossible to fill, and I won't mention ham-fisted modellers accidentally forcing the canopy through the frame and breaking it...

All in all, the model companies discovered that most modellers prefer to mask and paint canopy frames.