Building the Quest MLAS (part 6)

The MLAS comes with a ton of decals. I put them on in four sessions. While waiting for them to set I also prepped the chutes. Normally I just toss the plastic chutes that come with kits into my stash drawer, preferring to use Nylon chutes (generally Top Flights) on snap swivels which I swap from rocket to rocket. In this case, though, the kit is designed for three chutes — two for the nose, one for the body — and I’ll plan on flying it that way using the provided chutes. I added snap swivels though.Once the decals were on I applied Pledge as a clear coat.

The nose shoulder was tight in the body tube, so I sanded it down, first covering the bottom part of the nose with blue tape to protect it. Some protection. When I pulled it off, some of the clear coat, some of the decals, and some of the paint pulled off. Arrrrggh! I touched up the damage on the hatch decal with some grey paint, and on the black areas with black Sharpie. There’s some scuffing on the white paint, too, which I decided to just ignore. The MLAS logo decal’s damage I’ll just live with too. Now it’s even more true that this is a model to admire from a distance.