Work from yesterday and today included making the fuselage seams disappear and getting the wings on.
First an overview of how things looked about an hour ago after adding the wings. See anything wrong?
Close-ups of the wing joints reveal an excellent fit.
Here's the fuselage seam, now smoothed out:
It wasn't until I got to the stage of adding the one-piece elevator that I panicked after realizing that I had prepared and glued in the wrong horizontal stabs, one of the downsides of getting so many optional parts that are not to be used (see first photo). I incorrectly glued in the ones meant for the later mark Spitfires with the larger horn balances so I ripped out the stabs (fortunately the glue was still curing), quickly glued the proper ones together, and inserted them into the slots. I was glad that the still-soft glue hadn't made a mess of the joints and so the proper ones went in fine along with the elevator. I did, however, have a mishap with the glue and accidently got a droplet on the vertical stab so you can see a smudge of surface primer there that will now need to fully cure and get sanded smooth.
And here's where a fit issue did creep in. The large Vokes filter assembly did not fit well and would have needed excessive force to get it to sit flat on the bottom as seen in this dry-fit:
The problem stems from the fact that the thing is made up of three pieces where 2 full halves would have been better. As it is, the angle that rear section makes with the front part is too flat and so the filter won't fit into the slot cleanly. To remedy this, I cut open the glue joint to allow the thing to flex:
Then I glued and clamped it in place and filled the cuts and the remaining gap at the back.
It's still not perfect but a lot better than when I started. Some careful filing should get the profile flat against the underside of the wing.
Thanks again for following along.