Hi Christian, Yes, it is. I started reading it a few days ago... brings the model alive too.
I am re-doing the gun barrels right now. I painted them, masked them and painted the upper colour yesterday, but when I went to fit them I realised that the masking wasnt too even, some edges were a little blurred where I hadnt pressed the tape edge down firmly enough... but the biggest problem was the paint didnt stick too well on the brass. I hadnt prepared the surface finish and just airbrushed the white enamel on first, then masked and sprayed the upper colour. That caused a problem on one or two barrels with paint not adhering...so I scraped it all off with a scalpel blade, gave it a gentle scrub with some 800 grade and then washed them, first in white spirit and then in soapy water, rinsed them in clean water, dried them thoroughly and then gave them a blast of acrylic metal primer. Once I did that I sprayed the white (underside colour) and now I am re-maskimg them. This time the paint has stuck really well and I have let it cure thoroughly before masking as well. Masking tape needs a lot longer for the underlying paint to dry than merely painting over the top... I should have remembered that!
Anyway, I am masking using Tamiya tape. The biggest problem is the geometry in getting the taper in the masks right. The gun barrels are about a third to a quarter white on the underside and then the upper colour is mainly B5 (blue grey) with one barrel, on the left hand rear turret in AP507C light grey. To get the masks the right taper means cutting a length of tape the diameter of the rear of the barrel and the diameter of the end of the barrel and the same barrel length long... (Pi is around 3.14 of the diameter, making the diameter just less than a third of the circumference, which is, coincidently, what I want, if my brain is functioning correctly. It seems to be, because it looks about right!
) and then fit it totally square so the underside lines are parralel. The problem is, at this scale, even being a tiny bit out means the demarcation line isnt perfectly level, if you follow, and, because they are so small and so sharp, it is easy to see the error. I can get one side perfect easily enough, so what I am doing is getting any slight error on the inside of each barrel, rather than the outside, so it will be less obvious to anyone looking. Maybe two parallel strips of .4mm tape would be easier... It certainly would be useful to get some of this masking tape though. Have you a link Christian?
Anyway, here is what I am doing... and the barrels next to a standard pencil for some sense of scale. You can see my masking tape cut by scalpel to give me the tapers I need and a masked barrel and a plain barrel. The barrel has been painted white, the underside colour, and I am just about to spray the B5 again... hopefully, this time the lines between the two colours will be sharp and the paint wont come off!!!
Driving me mad.... but its working... and most importantly, I have learnt how to paint enamels onto brass.... Preparation is all!!! I should know that by now... but it doesnt stop me from being lazy or impatient! So... I am just about to finish the barrels for a second time in two days...
EDIT: Here they are. Far from perfect when magnified this much... especially on some of the edges where I havent sprayed evenly, but you cant see any uneveness when looking at them normally, so I am going to leave them as they are. The bottom one, the 507C coloured one, looks pretty good to me. The paint seemed a bit cloggy with the B5, I need to order some more I think. But anyway, these are acceptable as far as I am concerned and look perfectly OK to the naked eye in 700 scale...
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Thank you Snr Gopher, nice compliment 
