Next update.
I feel like I have done a tonne of work for very little progress in the past week. There are not too many parts required for the next few stages of the build, but most of them are pretty small and have many intricate surfaces which must have the mold seams cleaned up. I reckon I spent 4 or 5 hours alone on cleaning up before I even got to use some glue or paint.
So now that the majority of the cockpit is assembled it was time to move onto the wing assembly. I have just realised I missed the seat belts which I will have to add before too much longer - Geo
fubar57
I will try to document what I do with these, I plan on testing your chamfering the edges idea and softening the belts with water and tiny bit of PVA type glue.
Unlike most kits I have built this kit sees you add the cockpit assembly to the lower wing, add the wing guns (only if you want to show them) and then join the wing upper and lower panels. Only then do you add the fuselage to the wings.
Of course I opted for displaying the wing guns. This is achieved by cutting the appropriate access panels out of the upper wing half and assembling the visible parts of the gun breeches, magazines and feed chutes.
As you can see, the instructions call for the whole shaded area to be removed, but on closer inspection it is evident that the access panels are separated by a wing strengthening truss section that runs diagonally. So being the "an*l retentive" type I determined that I would only remove the access panels, as you can see I've marked on the right wing (having already removed the left ones). After doing this my tiny pea brain questioned "how does the kit handle this narrow piece of wing surface if you remove the whole section?"
If you look closely at part #'s D9 & D10 you will note that the top rail has a raised section that is essentially the wing surface that separates the access panels. So having decided to leave them on the wing, the only course of action was to remove this raised section from the parts. Now that was tedious and time consuming, but I got there in the end.
One of the other tasks I undertook was to open up the shell ejection ports in the lower section of the wing. Only after doing this was I able to commence assembly of the gun breeches, feed magazines and associated wing structures. The second of the two photos above gives a reasonably close up of the left wing. You can see the two diagonal truss sections where I removed the upper panel raised section. In preparing this photo I realised I have neglected to paint the feed chutes in a brass colour where they are open to the top and the shell casings should be visible. Let's hope I don't forget to do this before I pop the wing upper panel in place.
Now the wings are basically assembled as far as the standard kit parts are concerned. I know I did say this would be basically OOB, but I can't help adding bits and pieces where I think there is a chance of making the finished model look just that little bit better.
In the LH photo (#23) if you look closely at the leading edge of the wing upper you will note that the four gun muzzle exits are just denoted by four dimples in the wing leading edge. I thought this looked pretty crappy, so I have ordered some brass tubing of an appropriate gauge so I can make the gun barrels and install them into the wing once I drill out the four dimples. To make sure the barrels have somewhere to fix at the back end I have drilled some 0.6mm holes that will accept some brass rod that will be inserted into the brass tube barrels (hoping that makes sense to everyone). That should ensure the barrels are anchored at the breech end and can be glued at the wing leading edge once cut to length and inserted. You're probably thinking "why don't you install the barrels before you join the wing halves?" I did look at doing it that way, but because the barrel outlets fix to the upper panel and the breech ends fix to the lower wing it just gets too hard. Once the wing halves are joined, I should be able to push the barrels into the wing through the leading edge and (with luck) poke the brass rod sections into the holes as prepared. It might work or it might just turn to sh*t. Time will tell.
So I think that just about brings this thread up to date. I've cut some of the pieces for the next few stages from the sprue trees and cleaned them up, but until I start painting and assembling them I wont bother with photos.
Thanks again for comments and advice.