Myself and like
@Grifflyer I paint over everything as far as servos go. Mechanically it doesn't harm or hinder performance that I have noticed. I know painting guitars you would never paint over pick-ups or the such, not only does it look shoddy but degrades sound performance. Makes for a lazy looking finished product, but for planes I am not a big fan of having the servos visually stick out like it would be a high end pick-up on a guitar. I like it to blend in to the paint scheme, really the servos for a realistic look, (like I am sure you would do if you built the P-40) you would want it to be as scale as possible, hence hiding the servos as much as possible. Here is a pic of my late P-40 and you be the judge:
This is the look I was going for
View attachment 148001
This is how it turned out
View attachment 148002
Now if I would have masked off or installed the servo after, there would be 2 bright blue servos in the white of the tail, really breaking up the color and look of the plane. In the sky as it's flying past at 50mph it doesn't really matter, you won't be worrying about your servo color...
Especially when it looks like this after your maiden:
View attachment 148003
This was a loss of signal issue, if you build the P-40 there is no guarantee that yours will meet the same fate lol. Never a dull moment in this hobby
Welcome to the forums and if you want to document your build feel free to use this group build thread, link
here. Good luck and have fun