Thanks, I am looking at some vacu form canopies, very confusing wading through their options. One can be used only for an open canopy, I'm looking at that one.
I glued the pieces back together and "formed" them to the dimensions of the corrected fuselage opening. I can try to polish out the break line in the offending piece and hide it with the sliding piece of the cockpit and do the cockpit with the canopy open. I do NOT want to open the door as it is nothing I am interested in doing, not to my likings or style of modeling, that's just me though. I also thought about getting a Falcon vac set and use the section for the small broken area then use the Tamiya sliding section and windscreen and do an open cockpit, maybe with the pilot as a pre take off mode?
The vac formed canopies do make for a more realistic looking model if you ant to go the open pit route. One good thing about the split in the rear piece is that it's over the horizontal bar that spans between the top of the two bulkheads on either end of the clear part. I don't think that part is represented in the old Tamiya kit so you could simulate it by simply painting a silver stripe on the inside of the clear part down the spine where the break is.
Does anyone have the dimensions for the Airfix farthest rear piece? I can get one that fit's Airfix kit in 1/48 but what size is it compared to Tamiya? I found a pilot, the Tamiya chunky Charlie wont fit but I have an Airfix pilot figure from my Mk XII build, anemic Albert, all I had to do to him was shave his shoulder and rearrange his left arm a bit.
I have a Falcon 1/48 vac canopy, 2 in the package, for an Airfix Spitfire Mk I and II coming this week. I puttied, sanded and painted the Airfix pilot figure then dull coted him. I painted it with acrylic which has a bad habit of chipping easily so I gave it a protective coat of varnish.