Don’t get too excited and jump the gun. The pe is about the last thing you do. If you add it too soon and there is still a lot of model handling to do it is going to get bent. I do all the other details before I start adding railings and radars and all that other really delicate stuff.
I couldn’t imagine doing pe without my airbrush, I tried hand painting with a brush on a few parts and the results were not very good. Here’s what I would do with a spray can:
All railings I would leave unpainted until they were cut and bent to shape, then once they have been tested to be sure they are ready to go on spray them very lightly, you don’t want to increase the thickness of the brass with too much paint, just enough to make sure they are completely covered. Probably do one very light coat, check them and probably hit them again where you still see brass color under your lights. I use the finepoint clamping tweezers to hold the peices while painting them, I have about a dozen sets of these for this purpose.
Portholes I paint while they are still on the fret. Then I glaze the openings from the backside with the clear testors window maker glue. once that’s dry I daub a little black paint on the backside. Cut them free of the fret as you use them and touch up the edges where you cut them free by hand.
For assemblies that need to be folded and glued together such as radars and catapults I like to prepaint these items so the superglue holds faster. I’ve had problems getting glue to bond to bare brass, others claim they have no problem. After gluing another coat of paint may be neccessary, and I’m of the opinion the least amount of paint is best, so try to glue without painting first.
Get a bottle of acetone, if you glue a radar dish or catapult incorrectly just place the peice in a dish of acetone for a few minutes the glue will disolve away and you can start again. Just remember that acetone is very flammable so no smoking around it, and it will melt your model so don’t try to debond a brass part that is already attached to your model.
Gold Medal Models sells a book for photo etch beginners, I don’t have it, I learned by trial and error and listening to guys on these boards but I hear good things about the book and Loren Is very knowledgeable about this stuff, you might want to pick up a copy. I think it only costs about twelve bucks.
Good luck with your kit, if you have more questions don’t be afraid to ask, hope what I told you helps.