Thanks all.
A little more progress, after what seemed to be a
long time, due to very delicate, fiddly parts, and my knackered hands.
The seat back has now been engraved, and the hand hold drilled out and shaped, and the seat has been assembled (fiddly work, as the locating pins / ridges on the four main parts are
very small). I've left major clean-up until this stage, as it'll be easier (for me) to clean-up with the seat as an assembled item, and this will be done once all the parts have set.
The flare rack is included in the kit, but as this was rarely seen after the early Mk.1, it has been omitted.
The seat frame consists of four very delicate parts, and one of the arms on the lower support broke off when removing the part from the sprue, but was fairly easily repaired. This will be attached to the main frame, as per instructions, once I've figured out how to fit the scratch-built back armour, which is underway at the moment.
I'm anticipating some more fiddling, as once again, the seat and frame, being more or less to scale, don't have much in the way of attachment points for the armour, which, of course, is not included in the kit parts.
Apologies for the poor quality of the pics - I'll use one of my 'proper' cameras next time !!
Pic 1. Seat back cushion engraved and hand hold drilled, awaiting clean-up.
Pics 2 & 3. The forward edge of the seat pan was rather thick, so this was thinned down, as were the edges of the seat sides.
Pic 4. The assembled seat, yet to be cleaned and 'tidied'.
Pic 5. The seat with the assembled parts of the frame. The part at bottom right is the one that was damaged removing it from the sprue. This fits onto the cross-bar of the main frame, with the horizontal channel supporting the rear edge of the seat base. Once the back armour has been sorted, these parts can (hopefully !) be assembled onto the seat and armour, and the final two parts added (not including the seat harness, which will be tackled after painting the seat and frame assembly).
Back tomorrow, with more on the seat - I hope - and then, with luck, I can move on to other cockpit areas, whilst awaiting the arrival of the detail parts.