That is interesting. I recently built the 1/48 version, also from Trumpeter, and no weight was needed at all.
I hear ya... which is why my being a complete newb with aircraft construction brings me to this question:
I was going to react with a WOW/LOL emoji if there was one! I guess it's just one of things!
Take the basic, large parts of the aircraft (fuselage, wings, tail, anything else that's fairly substantial) and put them together temporarily, with tape for example. Then put your fingertips where the main gear will go and see if the model tips forward or back. If it goes nose-up, or only just nose-down, you'll probably need to add weight. Take some Blu-Tack or similar and stick it to the front of the plane, roughly where you would put weight inside, until it's comfortably leaning forward. Then just weigh the Blu-Tack and add the same amount of lead shot or something in the nose.
I noticed what you're using for weights. You must not have a squirrel problem if you can afford so many pellets to act as nose weights.
Very nice. Love the checkerboard pattern.
An airbrush is a must to use Alclad. An airbrush gives you full control of pressure and paint flow you can't get from a rattle can.
You can duplicate this burnt effect using different Alclad metallic shades with an airbrush. I did a similar effect to my Monogram F100 a while back.
The degree of discoloration varied greatly regardless how "clean" the aircraft was. Just meaning you should feel free to do as much or as little of the blue/brown staining and be correct.
