Well, it's nearly finished, with just some small items to do, and a little retouching, before moving on to the base.
The gun sight, windscreen and canopy have been painted and fitted, not without some minor problems. I was less than impressed by the very heavy sprue attachments on the nicely moulded, internally armoured windscreen. This took over half an hour to separate from the sprue and clean up, avoiding damage. I also spent some time making the Martin (as in Martin-Baker) canopy release, only to knock it off when I fitted the canopy! No problem, I can re-fit it later - I hope!
After struggling to successfully mask the screen and canopy, I ended up painting the frames free-hand, first painting the inside of each.
The main gear legs and tail wheel have been fitted, after filing the locating tabs on the gear legs to get a good fit, and the wheels will be added later, when the model is ready for its display base.
PIC 1. The main gear legs in place, and in need of re-touching around the oleos.
PIC 2. The windscreen and canopy in place. The screen has been sealed with PVA to blend it in to the fuselage, and will be re-painted when fully set.
PIC 3. The prop has had the yellow tips added, and the basic stencils hand-painted. The whole lot will be toned down and 'dirtied' later. No chipping, as this was the Rotol prop, with wooden 'Jablo' blades.
PIC 4. How the model looks to date.
The torn gun port patches will be added tomorrow, made from the tissue from a decal sheet, before moving on to all the small bits such as lamps, door, mirror, antenna mast etc.
Thanks once again for your continued interest and complimentary comments, and I'll post some more tomorrow.