I don’t recall what the actual model was, but I do know it was an aircraft with a radial engine. It might have been Monogram’s P-47D, but that was 50 years ago. Who knows for sure? 🤔

What I do remember for certain was it had a rudimentary engine in it. And I thought it would be cool to paint. I was at the age that trying out a few “advanced” modeling techniques was starting to enter my workflow. I’d just learned to drybrush with Testors Silver (the one that never, ever really dries) and thus everything I built was covered in glorious shiny, sticky silver paint. And fingerprints, of course.

For that particular model, I thought it would be cool to paint the whole engine black, and then give it a subtle drybrush of silver. Unfortunately, for a pre-teen modeler in the late 70s, “subtle drybrush” meant I could have used it like a signal mirror that would have been seen by an airliner flying high overhead.

I must have been growing as a modeler, because despite the joy I had in the process, when it was finished I was horrified. It looked awful. I knew this just by my own visual assessment of the result. Of course, my friends’ laughter as they guffawed at my plight only confirmed it.

Setting it in the box, we went off to do what kids in the 70s did… ride bikes with no helmets, go to the 7-11 five miles away and beg a Slurpee we could share. It usually worked simply because the pimply faced kid behind the counter just wanted us to stop begging and leave. We most likely left there, swam in a drainage pond, lit some firecrackers, and headed home when that old lady down the street yelled at us.

I returned to my hobby room in the carport, and stared at it my shiny radial engine. Some hints of the black broke through, but mostly it was just bright fingerprinted silver. I thought perhaps I could clean some of the silver off and rescue the little engine that so far could not. So I grabbed a brush, dipped it in my dirty jar of enamel thinner (NOT odorless… because 1979), and touched the brush to the engine and see what happened.

My eyes went wide as I witnessed magic at work. The dirty thinner ran around the recesses of the detail, instantly imparting shadow. At the time, I don’t know that the phrase “imparting shadow” was even in my lexicon. (“Lexicon” was probably not in my… errr… lexicon.) But it did look cool.

And then a wonderful thing happened. My brain functioned, briefly. I put some black paint on my palette (Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter lid), and added some thinner. I touched my brush to the engine again… the magic was even better the second time. It looked good. Not, “well it had been awful but now it’s less awful.” But actually good.

Little did I know that I had single handedly discovered enamel washes.

Please, allow me the fantasy, if only briefly.

I started experimenting with variations on engines and other parts. I found that a lighter gray was much better for drybrushing than silver. And I could make washes from any color. I even invented the speckling technique when I dropped my brush and it flicked all over my model. So you’re all welcome.

The Falke Engine

The engine in the Falke is really a nice little kit-within-a-kit. It’s not so part heavy that it will drive you crazy. And if you saw Episode 2 of this series, you’ll know how to add the engine in later, which means you can detail it to your heart’s content.

I know 10-year-old Jon would have really thought this was dy-no-mite and super cool. He’d have stood wide eyed and said “you can DO that?”

Yes, little buddy, you can. One day.

Here’s a video about an old man, an engine, and some silver paint. And a kid somewhere deep down inside me who is quite happy with it all.