Without a doubt, an extraordinary amount of time and effort went into these models and the builders have every right to be proud of their work. The material itself however, looks like what it is and other than being the correct color, fails to convince me that I'm looking at anything other than adhesive backed aluminum foil. I have yet to see a sheet of aluminum on an aircraft or elsewhere that has an orange peel texture embossed into it (apparently the texture of the adhesive). I have also never seen bare aluminum on a real aircraft whether highly maintained and polished or severely worn and weather beaten to look like it was methodically scoured with #36 grit sandpaper.

I did however see some close up photos that were posted here in RCU somewhere of a control surface that was clad in litho plate aluminum and even though it had a coat of paint, I thought that I was looking at a real aluminum aircraft part. Absolutely incredible!!! The funny thing is that the part suffered a touch of hangar rash and the damage even looked full scale!!!