So, colour schemes and weapons fit aside, I've continued with the main build, and got the cockpit fitted into the fuselage, and the fuselage halves joined. Pics 1 2 show the cockpit in place.
Pic 3 is a rather rough lower nose joint, due to slight warping, which will be filled and sanded back; fortunately, the rest of the fuselage was more or less OK, with just a little sanding and re-scribing required.
The engine nacelles have been assembled and fitted to the wings, and I was going to drill-out the wheel bay frame members, and add a little more detail. But, as this won't really be seen, I didn't bother! The wheel bays are shown in
Pic 4.
Pic 5 shows the wings ready to be mated to the fuselage.
The wings were fitted without too much problem, although the method of attachment leaves a bit to be desired. One wing includes the lower fuselage panel, which fits well, but the other wing relies on a fairly small area to be cemented, plus the lower wing to central panel joint.
There is a rather large gap as a result, if an even worse gap at the upper root joint is to be avoided. There was also a rather prominent gap at the lower leading edge of the starboard wing. Both of these will be filled with superglue, and probably varnish and talcum powder, then sanded back. The start of this process is shown in:-
Pics 6 and 7.
As the wings were setting, the model was placed on a flat surface, and the dihedral angle checked, by measuring the height of each wing tip, shown in
Pic 8.
The final pic shows progress to date, with the wings in place, and the tail and nose assemblies yet to be constructed and fitted. Once that is done, construction moves on to the under wing radiators, which will be fitted. Then it's the landing gear, and other additional parts which will be fitted after painting.
Hopefully, once those wing gaps are sanded, and any other small gaps attended to, it should be a fairly painless task to re-scribe any lost surface detail, then clean, polish and prime the airframe, ready for the first coat of RLM76.
I'll be using Vallejo paints for the first time, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Thanks again for your interest.
Terry.