1:48 Ju-88A4 (Finland)

A bomber with a glazed nose in Finnish service

The Junkers Ju 88 A-4 was a versatile machine that managed level bombing as well as dive attacks. Finland received twenty-four of these aircraft in 1943 and put them into the final phase of the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus. The nose above all is characteristic: instead of ordinary glazing it carries a fully glazed cover made up of a large number of irregular panes, to which the glazing of the cockpit above it is added. Masking such an area by hand means hours of cutting tape and near certainty that at least one corner will not come off.

The richest part of the set

The box carries two glazing masks, that is for the outer and the inner face, and no fewer than four masks for the national insignia. The four pieces match the fact that a multi-engine machine carries markings on both sides of the fuselage and on the wings. Against the three-part sets for single-seat fighters that is a markedly fuller scope, and it matches the size of the subject.

The order of the layers on large glazing

With a glazed nose it does not pay to improvise. The interior is finished first and the clear part fitted, because once the masks are applied it can no longer be handled comfortably. Then comes the inner set of masks and onto it the interior shade, sprayed through the frames. Once that has dried, the outer set is applied, a base coat in the color of the undersurface is laid down and only over it the camouflage. This sequence guarantees that the frames will be dark from inside and in the color of the machine from outside, exactly as it should be on the real aircraft.