When I built this kit for the first time in '75, all I had was a tube of glue; no paints, and no tools. At the time, I didn't know decals don't adhere very well to plastic covered with greasy kid fingerprints, dirt, and glue smudges. In fact, I completely gave up on the TWA decals, and asked my Dad to paint "U.S. Navy" on the fuselage with my Mom's ceramic paints. 35 years later though, things are different. In keeping with the spirit of revisiting my childhood model airplanes, I built this Constellation with a minimum of tools and paint. All I used were the recommended items in the "tips and building" section of a 1975 Revell kit catalog: knife, scissors, tape, surfacing putty, 500 grit sandpaper, a couple of jewelers files, tube glue, liquid glue, Micro Set, and three paint brushes. The instructions called for white, silver, light gray, and black colors to be used. I had to take the liberty however of using an additional product. In order to ensure the original beautiful TWA decals adhered to the surface, I used Micro Sol for that "painted-on look." In rebuilding these old kits, the Microscale system is crucial if one wants to use the original decals. Fortunately, I did not have to use Micro Liquid Decal Film, even though a couple of the decals broke apart during application.
For a beginners model, this is a very easy one to build. However, if one wishes to paint it, that's another story. A fair amount of masking is required to get the silver and light gray panel effect on the wings to look right, along with the black de-icer boots. And there's the white upper and silver lower surface on the fuselage. I spray painted most of these surfaces and brush-painted the black boots on the tail pieces.
I enjoyed building this kit again; it brought back a lot of memories, mostly of the days when I would rush through building a model so I could immediately play with it outside.
