Thanks once again. Before spraying the gloss coat, I wanted to get the model standing on its undercarriage and here I was once again reminded of the kit's shortcomings.
The shot below shows the undercarriage legs along with one of the painted and now-scratched-up wheels. The two pins on the struts at right are too short to insert into the holes in the wheel hubs so I decided that I needed to make my own axles using brass tube. The struts on the left have had the pins cut back for this purpose and the hole in the wheel hub has been enlarged to receive the tube. I have already flattened the tires, something I always do now unless the kit provides them that way.
Here are the brass tubes in the process of being cut. The larger tube fits into the wheel hub and the smaller one will be drilled through the legs.
Legs drilled and wheel ready to be installed. More paint scratching to come.
Of course it was difficult to align the drilled holes exactly so when I tried to install the wheel and axle, part of the pin broke away:
After plenty of struggles and some strategically placed CA glue, the wheels and struts are now together.
At this point I set all this aside to cure overnight as installing the undercarriage should prove to be another adventure.
In other news, the wheel wells were masked and retouched in cockpit grey-green and the oil coolers were shot with metallic grey.
If you look closely at the wheel well in the above pic, there is a slightly recessed ledge with one of the two locating blocks for the u/c struts just visible. Classic Airframes would have us simply butt-glue the ends of the struts to this ledge between the locating blocks - no slots or holes to add strength. Ummmmmm....no. More fun to come.