1 - Prepping the S-Types

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I began by prepping the ships for priming. As the photo indicates, the fins needed some attention - most were bent, and needed some shaping (with a file, and careful bending) so that all of the ships looked identical. There were also seams at the rear of the ships which needed filing down. (At the very rear of the ships, the seam enters the "engine nozzles" - this was a difficult area to file, so I left the seams alone here.)

I also used a pin vise to drill a hole in the bottoms, so that the ships would sit on the flight stands. There was a "register hole" next to one of the ventral turrets, small enough to not be noticed if left as was, but marking the right spot to drill. On the first ship, the hole I drilled started to get off so that the aft of the ship rode lower than the bow - I thought that looked cool, so I did all of them that way.

Then I washed the ships to remove any residue, let them dry, and primed them with a coat of flat white spray enamel. I left the metal pieces off for now, being concerned that they would be too fragile.