Ok, lots to catch up on. The selected upper cowl was glued on and, although the fit was good, I found that it needed 3 passes of putty and surface primer to hide the joint. The first two pics below show the first attempt at smoothing the seams with a primer coat applied and you can still see the seams faintly just under the gun trough insert panel lines.
These areas were then sanded again, dabbed with a bit of putty, sanded again, brushed with primer, sanded again, then primed after the panel lines were restored. The reason this took several tries was that the depressions were so small that the putty and paint was almost completely sanded off at every turn. Anyway, I think the finish is now good enough, though I can still see faint signs of the seams if I look close. The chosen camo scheme should hide it completely though. Here are two pics of how it turned out.
Another area that I addressed was the central panel line along the belly and spine. The pic below shows the latter area finished.
Hasegawa's sloped bulkhead at the back of the cockpit was devoid of any detail and, after making sure the seam was addressed, I set about adding the hatch that should have been present. Card was used for the door, stretched sprue for the hinge, and masking tape for the hold-down strap.
The resin instrument panel was not the easiest to finish as the gauges were very deeply indented and had minimal raised detail. After painting in the dials using white over a black background, I filled in the gauges with many drops of Future, after which I discovered that such a method made the white Tamiya paint dissolve a bit, so I lost some detail. However, the panel is very small and the gauges not easily seen so I didn't fret over it. I alos added some scratch built levers to the left and right lower sections of the panel.
The oil cooler had the exit louvre opened up a touch and the forward opening got a stretched sprue stiffener.
As we speak, the cockpit has been inserted through the wing opening and the wings are now glued on and curing. I'll post more pics soon and thanks for looking in.