Dewoitine D520
First kit in decades

As mentioned (at length) on my wall I am an old modeller returning after many, many years. I decided to start with some pre-owned kits off eBay including a couple from the era when I was first making kits. Also I didn’t want to just go back to the Spitfires, 109s, Mustangs etc.

In the end this was the one I chose, the 1974/75 D520 from Heller. A lot has gone wrong - most of it because of me; eyesight and manual skill are a lot worse than before in particular. The kit fit together pretty well for its age but I made some mistakes. The worst thing though was that I bought some new decals (Print Scale) as I assumed the Heller ones would be fragile (I could see they were faded). Unfortunately I had huge problems with the Print Scale, mostly splitting. There is only one of those on the kit: left wing upper roundel. So in the end (rather than ordering a third set!) I used the originals. They are faded of course but went on OK and didn’t break. Only thing is after a while they were falling off but I solved that with a lovely Tamiya varnish.

I wasn’t going to put a photo up because it’s a bit embarrassing considering the high quality of so much of the content here. But in the end I have included one, partly as a record for myself and partly to show not all of us are brilliant!

Negatives: realising my own limitations, decals
Positives: discovering more about this excellent Scale Mates community, learning all the new resources and member tips available, mixing my colours just the way I wanted them, and varnishing a model for the first time. I never used to varnish in the past. Oh, and just getting it finished!