Ive sealed up the fuselage , put in the PE turret rings, filled and sanded the seams that joined the two halves, and now am working on the engine mounts. The engines need to be fitted before the wings go in, and they are a bit tricky. They have four mount struts, that have to go in together, at a certain angle and position. There are no guides of marks on either the engine nacelles, or the fuselage to tell you where to put them. The struts themselves have little lugs that are supposed to fit into small pin holes, but these pin holes just arent there. That makes working out where to place the struts a bit problematic.
Ive started by carefully marking up where I think the anchor lugs of the lower support struts onto the fuselage. Ive drilled blind holes into the fusleage roof, just above the wing, and test fitted the struts into these holes. ive made the holes just a bit too big, which means that the struts flop around a bit and wont stay at the right angle whilst i attempt to measure and mark the lug holes in the engine nacelles, which will be located at the other end of trhe fourstruts. Its tricky. But I can "stiffen" the dry fitted struts so they stay where they need to, whilst I measure the drilling points on the engine nacelles, with some tape I think. I hope.
If the engine goes in wrong or crooked, it will have a disastrous effect, so Im going at this very carefully. The professional reviews that I have seen have all complained about this aspect of the model....its a very poorly thought out element of the build, and a critical one to get right. There is no hiding a dodgy engine fit.
After the engines struts and nacelle (without engine fitted) are attached to the fuselage, i plan to do the stringing for the engine ( not the wings). The stringing of the engine struts will be very awkward if the wings are in place.
Fitting the wings and the engine subassembly, and then the bracing that goes with this model are both the best parts of the build, but also the most difficult IMO. , .