1:48 Heinkel He 70

An express with an elliptical wing

The Heinkel He 70 came about at the beginning of the 1930s as the German answer to fast American transport aircraft. The Günther brothers gave it a perfectly rounded elliptical wing, retractable landing gear and a smooth wooden monocoque fuselage without a single raised rivet. The result exceeded expectations: in 1933 the machine collected a series of speed records and in level flight it outran even the production fighters of the day. Deutsche Luft Hansa put it on express routes with four passengers and mail, and the military versions then flew as reconnaissance and light bomber machines. Several examples fought in Spain and Hungary acquired more. The shaping of the fuselage and the wing later carried over into a whole generation of German designs.

When paint creeps under the edge

The most common disappointment when masking glazing is a thin colored shadow that appears under the edge of the template only after it has been taken off. It forms where the edge of the film did not seat fully and the spraying was too wet. The cure is simple and works every time: once the templates are on, first spray a thin coat of the shade that lies under the mask, or of clear varnish. That runs into any gap and seals it from within, so the covering color has no way through. Before spraying it also pays to go over the edge with the rounded end of a toothpick.

• Two canopy templates, separately for the view from outside and from inside
• One template for the national insignia
• Pre-cut film, so no knife and no freehand masking are needed