OK, back in the saddle and feeling better. Thanks for all your good wishes.
The weather outside is frightful..... Snow and high winds started at 8:30am Mountain Time and still going now as of 5:30pm. Perfect day for cozying up to the workbench!
I did a fair amount of surface prep and masking as shown in the pics below. Photo 1 shows an overall shot. As stated before, the gun bay panels are glued in the closed position and some gap filling was needed. Canopies are masked and glued in place. The rear piece was put on with white carpenter's glue and the fit leaves a bit to be desired - more later.I didn't point out in earlier posts that the rudder was installed with a slight crank to starboard.
Photo 2 shows the underside. The landing gear doors are temporarily glued on with tiny drops of carpenter's glue for msking the wheel wells. This is so they can be easily removed later. The center doors could not be put on because of the hinge protrusions so I used masking tape, cut to fit. The same method was used for the nose gear. You can just see that the gun camera lens on the tip of the nose was filled in - this was faired over on the A-2.
Photo 3 is a close-up of the cockpit area. The front section is a clear piece that forms part of the fuselage and fits quite well. A bit of filler was needed but not much. The rear piece was a different story. It's narrower than the fuselage and I didn't want to risk breaking it to make it fit and I didn't want to use CA glue to hold it in place with tension in it. I've fogged the clear parts this way before and didn't want to go there again. So that left making the fuselage fit the clear part and I used my Dremel tool to shave material off the fuelage to make the pieces mate better.
At this point, I decided to spray a very thin coat of white over the whole model since the tip of the nose and tail are white anyway. This would better reveal more areas that needed surface work. Photo 4 shows the result and a little more putty already applied in some areas.
So now I have a question. Although I've modeled for many years, I've just started seriously using an airbrush over the last 3 years. I have a Paasche VL and a compressor with a water trap and 0-40psi regulator. My first two projects with this brush were done with Modelmaster oils and I liked the results but hated the smell and the mess of cleaning with thinners. So I've decided to switch to acrylics (Polly Scale) and have struggled so far. The coat above was done with the paint thinned 50/50 with distilled water at about 10psi. Although not a disaster, I felt the paint was too thin as several areas developed runs quite easily. When I did my Bf-110 prime coat (separate thread) a couple of months back, I thinned the paint only about 10 to 20% but the brush kept clogging. So it seems the happy place is somewhere between 20 and 50%. Any recommendations/experiences to share for airbrushing Polly Scale acrylics? The squiggles on the chosen scheme are beginning to look ominous!