Film canopies

Those of you using improved, very thin shells of Squadron or Falcon or even transparent pieces you are making yourself of this material will have to watch a very dangerous phenomenon:
As at quality of gelatin and ensure its transparency over time. In our case, we build in 1994 a model of the Focke Wulf Fw189A in 1/48 vacuform kit from German Karo As (the company closed in the early nineties). Transparent pieces the company gave them a hard thermopresaristi transparent jelly (maybe a little worse than that put the collars of the shirt), in a similar way we give and vacuform pieces of the remaining kit in white plastic. The completed model was placed in a corner of the window where the afternoon after the sun's rays fell sideways onto it. Sometime after several years of observation that the transparent parts of the model (and it's pretty!) Acquired a ... tinted feel. When then looking after an equally long period of time had become completely tinted and even in Green-brown tint that harmonizes with the dark green / white camouflage!
In such a model it is tantamount to disaster. What was done? Initially we thought that the quality of the gelatin was sensitive to the rays of light and time is altered slowly but steadily. But things are not quite as it turned out later ...
When we decided to give solution to the problem of searching for a replacement set of transparent, we learned that the company Karo As was closed and eventually found on ebay the same kit at an attractive price of $ 37 including postal from USA. To kit like again anyway for sentimental reasons since we had lost what was left of the box of our original construction. But that disappointment when we found on arrival that windshields of this kit were becoming tinted. The alteration was not so intense, almost imperceptible, and then realized that was not to blame the sunlight but the quality of the visor. Thus even if we put the new visor will soon have the same problem.
The solution given by the kit Fw189 of MPM released in the late 90s - early 2000 and was Injection, therefore contained a normal hood from polystyrene. The kit gained anyway to have it in stock and after a polite letter to our MPM came post set transparent. Luckily the hood fit right in fuselage of Karo As. The shock was to carefully remove the faulty hood. With the pressure of the fingers and gently so as to easily peel off because the material could not be glued firmly to the shaft even with cyanoacrylate we put. After removing all tinted transparent tracks, cleaned carefully with the cutter associations and stuck the new transparent after we cut the slot pilot to be stuck open. This time the solder was a thin layer of epoxy 5 minutes and then putty normally course destroying the perimeter of transparent camouflage. Then after disappearance associations with wet ntoukocharto 800 degrees, masked with Tamiya yellow tape and we painted the skeleton of the hood airbrush and very fine beam correcting parallels scratched camouflage around it. We found exactly the colors that we used initially, and soon we had a totally renewed Fw189 with transparent and not tinted veil ... (In the pictures showing the cowl kit before and after mutating into tinted ...)
A little later the Great Wall Hobby released the excellent own Fw189 in 1/48 and added and this in stock! Probably will also acquire camouflage eastern front or Africa, since certainly preceded the presentation / criticism.
Remarkably, the same time period, the same problem faced in a retrofit of a Fw190 Fujimi in 1/48, from a two-seater car instructor. The gelatin used (except the windscreen not replaced) and it was tinted and later replace it with another. A while ago we looked in the window phenomenon strike again! The strange thing is that the spares box that we keep pieces transparent visor future use has not been tinted a single! Fortunately the case of Fw190 is easier to repair and need not spoil the camouflage model or putty ...