Aircraft: Many of the aircraft had glaring gaps and misaligned wings and tail planes (watch for droop, or anhedral on one tailplane and dihedral on the other!).

One beautifully weathered a/c was spoilt by having a visible seam showing down the centre of the cowling. Remember, weathering will sometimes accentuate faults such as this!

AFVs: if you add stowage, think about how it is attached – very rarely would anything be left just sitting on the rear decking. The same holds for added camo nets, extra armour (spare track links etc.), these were usually secured by wire or straps. Internal radio gear and external lights should have wiring added. If you are adding figures, clothing has a MATT finish (unless leather or lycra!) – too many were spoilt by having a semi-gloss finish.

Cars and motorcycles: Some nice paint jobs spoilt by evident ‘Orange Peel’ and dust in the finish – I know gloss paint is one of the best dust attractors in the world, but it sticks out like the proverbial ‘Dogs…’. If you are entering a model in competition, and it’s not on a base, make sure everything is secure – it’s not too good when a wheel falls off when the judge examines it! Make sure all wheels touch the ground – some of the entries would have been fun to drive if they had been a real car!!

Painted interiors are also a must – unless in a slammer (kerbside?) class – bare black plastic doesn’t cut the mustard. One further point to look at is disk brakes – have a look next time you have a wheel off your car – most are cast iron and rust covered. The only shiny part is a ring where the pads actually touch on the disc. This doesn’t apply to most road motorcycles as the discs are usually of a stainless steel alloy but there is usually some discolouration where the pads touch. Race bike discs are either cast iron or carbon.

On a final note, I would like to thank Craig, Keith and Kevin for their assistance with the judging.

Non-Skid Surfaces
Many aircraft and flight decks have "non-skid" applied to certain areas to prevent slipping. Most common on older aircraft are the black areas at wing roots. Most of the time we are content to paint these areas flat black or glue on some fine sandpaper strips. There is a much better way! I mask the area to be covered with scotch tape and paper. If the area is to be painted black, wait until the final finish is applied. If it is going to be the same as the fuselage color (modern aircraft) do this after priming but before final painting.

I use 3M adhesive spray, available in any hobby or craft store and spray a VERY LIGHT coat on the area to be covered. While it is still wet or tacky, sprinkle the area with talcum powder. Blow off the excess. Apply a second VERY LIGHT coat of adhesive and talcum powder. IMMEDIATELY remove the tape. If you wait too long, the adhesive will tear leaving a rough edge. It is best to go over the margin with a sharp #11 blade to make sure you have a clean edge. When it is dry (24 hours) paint it the intended color.

Sprucing Up Cockpits
This is a topic that could cover volumes but I will hit a few high points. The first step as always is to have good reference material. Books, magazines, archive photos and the web are great places to find resources. A great place to start is the instrument panel. If you are modeling in 1/48 and larger, Waldron and Reheat make excellent after market instruments. I prefer the Waldron ones as they are matched to their punch set. You can also get matched drill bits to drill SHALLOW holes into which you will seat the instruments. Switches, landing gear and bomb drop levers, fuel and flap selectors are also easy to add using wire and punched discs.

All aircraft from the 30's on had seatbelts and, depending on the aircraft, shoulder straps. There are numerous makers of seat and shoulder harness buckle PE. Waldron, Reheat, Eduard and others produce very good products. I prefer not to use PE belts as they are hard to bend and do not look realistic. For the belts themselves I use thermal fax paper. Thermal receipt paper is great, only about 0.003" thick but tough. Cut it with a fresh #11 blade and a steel straight edge.

Side consoles, especially in more modern aircraft, are great places to add detail. Throttle, prop and mixture levers, radio and other console buttons, switches, O2 hoses and masks, book and chart boxes are but a few examples.

Gusights and HUDs are also a great source of extra detailing. They are very visible on most aircraft and a little attention here goes a long way. Discard kit gunsight glass. It is way to thick in most cases. I use Evergreen 0.005" cleat sheet cut with a small pair of very sharp scissors. Glue in place with white glue or watch crystal glue. Optics are also a great way to add detail. Go to the section on optics for more detail.

Modern day ejection seats are a great place to do some detail work. Connecting rods, O2 and "g-suit" hoses, life raft and seat pan release handles, ejection handles can all be made from wire, styrene or solder (my personal favorite).

One nearly universally overlooked area is Remove Before Flight flags. On the ground ALL ejection seats are disarmed and pinned. Attached to the pins are RBF flags. These flags are a great way to add realism to any cockpit. Canopy and stores jettison and other "keepa you stinkin' hands off" areas are also pinned and flagged. Go to the section on Remove Before Flight flags to see how I do them.

Wingtip Navigation Lights
For the longest time I used to take the easy way out with red and green wingtip nav lights and paint them silver followed with Gunze clear red and blue. The problem is that they never look like the real thing, especially in cases where the light is faired to match the contour of the wing tip. Again, there is a better way! First and foremost, NEVER EVER throw away your clear sprue. I must have about 50' of it by now.

For faired wing tip nav lights I start by using the Dremel and a cutting wheel to carefully cut away the area. I cut and fit a piece of the clear sprue into the opening, making sure to leave plenty of excess. With the Dremel and cutting wheel I roughly shape the clear piece to the surrounding contours. I next take a file and file the clear part to its final shape.

Using Testor's hobby sanding films I sand the piece until it matches the final contours perfectly and is as smooth as I can get it. I then polish it back to its original smoothness with the Dremel, polishing wheel and polishing compound.

Cover the clear piece with something like Ambroid EZ mask until after final finishing is complete. Now use the clear colors. You will be amazed at the difference it makes over just painting the area silver and covering with clear colors.

Remove Before Flight Flags
RBF flags are one of the most overlooked items that I see in competitions. On the ground, modern day aircraft will have pins inserted into landing gear, bomb racks, guns, various armament, tail hooks and ejection seats. Each of these pins will have a flag on the end of them to prevent them from being missed and not removed before flight.

Verlinden makes a sheet of flags for 1/48 and 1/32 scale. They are very good but like all Verlinden products, are expensive. I scanned the sheet using 1200 dpi to ensure high quality and printed it on coated HP paper using a photo quality HP printer.

For special types of flags (ejection seats) and larger scales I had to make them myself using MS PowerPoint. I made a text box with a red background and added white lettering in an Arial font. A little trial and error is necessary to get the size just right. Use normal or economy settings otherwise the red will bleed into the white and make the letters unreadable.

Concrete Tarmacs And Runways
The old saying that "nothing beats the real thing" is very applicable here. I tried to years to duplicate realistic concrete but plaster and other media never gave a realistic look. Finally I tried the real thing and have never looked back.

The first step is to use a fine orange juice strainer or mesh screen to screen out all but the finest particles. If the particles are too large, the scale effect will be lost. Also, if you are using a wood base, screw it into a piece of 3/4" plywood (from behind of course) with dry wall screws to prevent warpage.

Your base is going to get a little wet! You will leave it attached to this piece of plywood until the wood and concrete are completely dry and cured.

If you plan to stain and polyurethane your base, mask off the area to be covered with concrete. It will not adhere to a smooth surface. I roughen up the wood with coarse sandpaper (60 grit) and coat it with a liberal amount of carpenters glue. Using the OJ strainer again, I lightly sprinkle the sifted concrete onto the base using just enough to completely cover. Don't worry if the glue does not wet all the concrete.

I then spray fresh water onto the concrete in a fine mist using a household cleaner spray bottle. Wet the concrete thoroughly, there should be a little standing water! Sprinkle another coat of concrete on top until it is thoroughly covered. Immediately remove the masking tape so you have a clean line.

Set the base aside in a low humidity environment for 48 hours. I apply black acrylic paint through a syringe and hypodermic needle to simulate the tar strips. I do not use a straight edge like some recommend, preferring to free hand it along a penciled line. It is too easy to smear it if you use a ruler.

For 1/48 and larger I use a had drill and drill bits to drill out the pad eyeholes. I use solder to make the tie down rings, gluing them in place (after the yellow is painted) with CA.

Touching Up And Polishing Canopies
All of us, at one time or another, have scratched or crazed clear parts, especially canopies. Do not panic! Although it may be a little time consuming to fix, it is not difficult. I use a battery powered Dremel 7.2V and one of their cloth polishing wheels. I would strongly discourage using the 230VAC version as it turns too fast and can burn (or worse) the plastic.

If the scratch is deep, you will need to use sandpaper to smooth it out. It is scary the first time you use it because you will swear you have ruined the piece. I use Testor's hobby films and start with medium (NOT coarse) and work my way down to ultra fine. I finish it off with 0000 steel wool.

There are several canopy polishing compounds available but I prefer to use Turtle Wax's clear coat polish for cars. It is less abrasive and a single container will last about 100 years. I get the polishing wheel very wet, turn on the Dremel and cover the wheel with polish. Work the polish into the plastic in a circular pattern with VERY LIGHT pressure. Keep the wheel wet, it provides lubrication that will prevent you from burning the plastic. Use a soft cloth or Q-tip to gently remove the polish powder after it dries.

If you are just looking for a way to shine up a canopy use a wetted Q-tip covered with the polish and do it manually. I shy away from ever using Future™ on canopies (unless I tint them with the Detailer). Notice how floor wax yellows with age? So will your canopies and stripping a floor is a lot easier than a canopy!!!

Home-Made Decals
I have included this because I am tired of hearing people say that you can't make home made decals using an ink-jet type printer. I do it all the time, both in black and white and in color. There are several brands of both clear and white decal film available. I have used several and have found them all to be excellent.

In order to use an ink jet printer to print decals, you must first prep the surface so it will take the ink without beading. I use Model Master clear flat lacquer and an airbrush. Use high pressure and keep the tip far enough away from the film so that the lacquer is drying as it is hitting the surface, the goal is to have a rough surface for the ink to grab.

I use a variety of programs to make decals but use PowerPoint the most. I scan graphics and import them in as well. For stenciling, I use an Arial font and a font size of 2 to 8 depending on the scale and application. For best results is best to have a printer capable of producing photo quality. Other printers will do but the quality will not be as good. I always print on "best" quality. be careful handling the sheet until the ink dries or it will smudge. If you mess up, go over it quickly with a damp rag.

The inks are water-soluble and will come off as soon as they hit water so you must now make them permanent. I spray Model Master Glosscote or clear gloss lacquer over them, two coats is usually sufficient. I let them dry overnight and apply them the next day as I would any other commercially made decal.

Optics
All aircraft from WWII onward had some type of optical gunsight. Others carried cameras. Modern day aircraft have sophisticated HUD's (Head Up Displays). All modern aircraft have landing and taxi lights as well as clear or colored anti- collision lights. All of these are easy to make and look much better than the "paint it silver" technique.

As I had mentioned in the wing tip nav lights NEVER throw away clear sprue!!! To make gunsight or camera optics, I place a small piece of sprue into the adjustable chuck on my AC Dremel and turn it into a lathe. I use a file to reduce the sprue to the right diameter and then use the file to round off the end.

I then use the sanding films to get it smooth and ready for polishing. I usually cut off the "lens" prior to polishing. I use an X-acto saw blade in a #11 handle. This part is tedious, take your time so you do not have to repeat the above process! Been there, done that.

Be careful, research has shown they can travel for miles if you pop them! I take the cut end and rub it against the films to smooth out the saw blade marks and get it ready for polishing. I stick the piece of plastic on a piece of masking tape and polish with the battery powered Dremel and clear coat polish. Turn it over and polish the flat end. Depending on the effect you want, you may or may not want to paint the flat part silver, I usually don't

Modern day optics have optical coatings to reduce reflection and glare. To simulate this I use dilute green or purple (you have to mix red and blue) "The Detailer" and paint in on with a brush. This is best accomplished while it is still stuck on the masking tape. Let it dry for a good hour at least. I glue it in place with Testor's clear plastic cement.

Note: This was from a US based site, so some products mentioned may not be readily available here.