Thanks Wayne. Busy weekend so only about an hour was spent on the bench in total. On the underside, the cooler flaps have been installed as was the landing light in the wheel well. Smoothing of seams has begun. On the topside, the instrument coaming and gun sight were painted and installed in the clear canopy. Thanks God there was no fogging of the windscreen.
Thanks Hugh. Spritzing has begun after masking the clear bits with a combination of Montex masks and Tamiya tape. I've found the Montex masks to be too stiff to stick properly so extra Tamiya tape was added and caution exercised.
I agree about the nifty extended clear windscreen parts but one down side is that they make it harder to see fit issues. Case in point - the step seen on the stbd side which showed up only after paint was applied.
I filed down the step and drilled the crankcase vent hole.
Next was application of a smelly coat of Alclad II Aluminum on the NMF areas:
And that's how she sits right now. A busy three days ahead so no work likely on this one. However, I should be in the clear to finish this build by the deadline barring any catastrophes. Thanks again for looking and liking.
Thanks Geo. I start with a coarse cheapo file, making sure there are no ridges and then finish with a flat jeweller's file to polish out any scratches.
Oh, that's interesting. Airfix has it wrong then. They show the painted wing surfaces but the rest in bare metal. Why would the RAF have painted silver over the bare aluminum?
I don't know, but they did it on Spitfires and Meteors too, possibly for protection against the elements.
Below is the paint spec for the Mustang IV, hope it helps.