A minor update to prove I am still going with this project - major painting and decalling is now completed. I worked on toning down the "wood" with further oversprays to make the fuselage look heavily varnished:
Everything is still OOB except for the lozenge decals - I did not really like the kit lozenge decal colours (they were quite pink) so I used some Pegasus naval lozenge instead - not sure if it is more accurate but I think it looks nicer. This stuff is very easy to use but is very thin and had a tendancy to curl up on itself but reacted well to microsol and was very firmly stuck to the model when dry. As the rib tapes on the real W4 were made from the same fabric and painstakingly matched to the wing hex patern, I tried to replicate the rib tapes through use of shading (masking over decals was particularly scary for me but due to the firm sticking power of the Pegasus decals, there were thankfully no problems at all
).
Feedback always welcome!
BC