Continuing the engine

I did not describe the assembly of the gearbox as it is completely straightforward. I made however early mistakes, as I wanted to make parting lines (those on the cylinder block) disappear and found out later that they were useful for painting! The whole part was primed again before being painted. As usual, the primer was a great help for highlighting surface defects and correct them.

The whole assembly was painted flat aluminium, except the cam covers (they will be dealt with at a later stage) and the strap and pulley side. The later was evenly painted with semi-gloss black. Seeing how the engine will be attached to the body, the details will never be visible, so I just made sure to have an even colour and no missed spot. Two layers of paint were sufficient enough to give the engine a nice metallic aspect, but a third would have been required if I wanted to leave it as is. My goal is to weather the engine through a black ink wash and a flat aluminium highlight over it.

The wash is a tricky thing if no attention is paid to it. By its principles, you drop a liquid paint into crevices to highlight the tiny shapes. Consequently it follows the basic rule of fluids: it flows from the higher spots to the lower spots. That means you need to be careful when you leave the engine to dry: the washed portions must be perfectly horizontal otherwise the ink will accumulate in the lower recesses. That also means that you cannot apply the wash on every side at the same time. So patience is your friend for this operation. The flat aluminium brush I did after that took away most of the wash to leave only what was in the deepest recesses.

The cam covers are painted flat black, except for the tips where flat aluminium was used. As with the dashboard, successive layers were applied perpendicularly from one another to ensure a good paint covering and to minimise brush patterns.