This is the seam on the fan cowlings that needs to be dealt with...
....and it does fit pretty flush.
In hindsight I should have added some plastic card to the pylon and trimmed to fit. I'll do that with the starboard one. Speaking of which, I made the last FOD and am now waiting for it to dry. You can just make out the panel line that will guide me with the trim to size.
Working on the lil parts on the underneath. Not sure of the reasoning for having separate roof parts where the weapons will hang. I've seen far more complicated bays molded as one. The arrow points to a rectangular hole in the fuselage and corresponding holes in the sonobouy area. No other build mention it so I'll leave it.
Tail feathers added, photo manipulated to fit. Again cropped and Clone Tool used.
This is the original, cropped but before using the Clone Tool
For those unfamiliar with the Clone Tool, here's a quick tutorial. Click on the tool to the left. You need to find a colour area close to the area you want to cover. For the above photo I chose area (1). Click on the keyboard CTRL button and this creates the colour anchor (also 1). Move your cursor to the area you want to colour and left click. You can change the size of brush for large or tight spots (2). Note area (3) is slightly darker so I moved down there, clicked on the CTRL button to re-anchor and started re-clicking the left mouse button using a smaller brush
Closing up the final hatch. As mentioned earlier, some hatches a can be posed opened or closed and the closed options are less than stellar. The FLIR opening needed four strips added to get the hatch to fit flush. The crew entry hatch still needs a strip added. Also note the gap narrowed up on the cowl/pylon gap
This is the cover press fit into place to show the size of gap that I had. A wee bit of work on the right and then glue. I also thinned the opening behind the cover. Not sure what it is for
Thanks. Lil bits under the right wing. Esci/AMT/Italeri would have one glue on four underwing sonobouy reference antennae per wing. Almost every head on shot of the S-3B I could find only shows the two outer ones mounted, so be it.
The wingtip ECM pods (53B & 54B) will require clean-up. There are humps and bumps that need to be removed and humps and bumps that need to stay. The diagram shows that the tips of the pod are painted black "E" but the photo of the aircraft on the first page shows this isn't so. The painting guide also misses the fact that this aircraft had the stabilizer tips paints red