Thanks very much chaps!
Last element of robopit to come together is the seat. It was painted Ironbreaker and then PE bits added including the rather complicated Italian harness affair. This assembly will receive further painting and weathering once installed and the harness buckle attached to the backing plate.
So with all the pit elements done it was time to turn my attention to the fuselage halves. First up, there are several features that are not present on a II Serie 202.
Here it is after surgery, sanding, and rescribing.
So here's where I ran into the first problem - can you see it?
Yeah, kind of obvious warping! The halves could possibly simply come together by gluing, but I didn't want to put pressure on the seams and risk cracking later on so decided to try and straighten them out. The first step was to soften the plastic in hot tap water and then immediately clamp the fuselage down on a flat surface - my cutting mat was handy.
I then made several passes over the plastic with my daughter's hairdryer set to hot. A bit like airbrushing, you need to keep moving and be careful not to dwell in any one place or you risk melting the plastic. I then shoved the whole mat in the fridge for 5 or 10 min to rapidly cool. Et voila!
Not perfect but I can now safely join the fuselage halves without putting pressure on the seams. Thanks for stopping by and next update I'll wrestle with getting robopit to fit into the fuselage...