Paul Romans

As far as assembly goes, well, it's a 40+-year-old kit.   The fit is not too bad, but seams will need to be filled and sanding will be required if it's going to be presentable.   I boxed in the radiators and main wheel wells in both booms with sheet plastic, just so you wouldn't see daylight in every direction.   The night-fighter option is created by cutting away the rear of the upper fuselage, and grafting on the provided 2nd cockpit.   Monogram even provided indicators on the inside of the part to show you where to cut.   Grafting the new cockpit in required lots of dry-fitting and some filling, depending on how close your cuts were.   Once in place, the rest of the kit goes together without much trouble.

There are lots of things you could do to improve accuracy, but if you were really that worried you'd be building a newer kit anyway.   The front cockpit actually has respectable detail, and builds up nicely, but the rear will need attention.   I added a seat from the spares box, some generic belts and a few control box bits.   The canopy is closed anyway, so I didn't go overboard.   Fitting all the guns into the front weapons bay was troublesome; nothing wanted to fit right.   The hinge for the gun cover is very weak and I rebuilt it, and then tried to cram enough weight into the remaining nose space to hold the nose wheel down.   Not easy.   I even added weight to the hollow radome.   I wonder how many of these were ever built to "professional" standards back in the '60's?   I still have the original instructions from way back when with photos of the built up kit (heavily re-touched) and it takes a lot to get this clunker looking decent.

PAINT:   Easy - Gloss black!   I sprayed it all and when done I said "Yech".   Too toy-like.   The gloss finish was toned down with a little clear flat, and I sprayed flat black on the anti-glare panel on the nose.   The control surfaces were given a mist coat of dark gray just to bring them out a little.   Floquil Platinum Mist was sprayed on the turbo-charger panels and I simulated exhaust stains with pastels.   Since the kit had raised rivets and panel lines, I went over these with a worn fine-grit sanding stick.   This wore away some of the black and exposed the silver plastic underneath, simulating wear on the finish.   Be careful as this is easy to overdo, and I did most of this around the cockpits.   It's hard to make a monotone finish look interesting, and I've always had to over-do it to get the look I wanted.   Call it artistic license I guess.

DECALS:   Who-Hoo!   This should be simple, right?   HA!   Night-Lightnings had standard star-and-bar insignia, with all-red numbering.   The kit decals went on poorly, with little adhesion.   Progressive applications of Micro-Set and Micro-Solve did nothing.   Time for (queue dramatic music) Solvaset!   The @#% decals curdled up like last year's yogurt.   Well, now what?   Take them off and... what the?   A small percentage of the decals stuck like glue, while the rest brushed off on my finger.   I couldn't chip them off with a knife!   I had to sand the tail fins (luckily the only part I'd applied the red decals to) down to bare plastic and repaint.   I had no suitable red numbers in the spares box, so I resorted to buying another kit at the next swap meet I went to.   Oh well, I'd build that one as a Pathfinder or something.   Applying these decals, I found they had no white background, and you could barely see them against the black!   I was becoming irritated.

So... I bought a THIRD kit.   This one was pretty old, and the decals were yellowed and unusable.   A fellow club member supplied an extra sheet he had (thanks to Ed Findysz!) And I'd traded for a fourth kit at our Christmas party, so by the time I had gone thru 5 decal sheets and sanded the tailfins down twice and painted them 3 times, it looked... not bad.   No problem!!   What did I say earlier about Monogram wanting you to build all versions?   Sheesh!

Let's finish this up.   Armament was added, the landing gear was installed, and final details were glued on.   Antenna wire was made from thin nylon thread.   I added ignition wires to the rockets, just to give them a little detail.   I painted all the gear bays o.d. green, then found out later that they should have been aluminum.   Let it go.   That's it.

CONCLUSION:   I'm happy with the look of the plane, but the decals were a nightmare.   The build was not easy, but considering the age of the kit, it could have been much worse.   I finally have the Night Lightning I wanted all these years, and I've got three more kits to build!   Happy-happy!   Once I pick up some good after-market decals, that is...