Back with a little bit to show. Selfishly, a lot of these pics are for me to see how good, or bad, the parts have mated and what more I need to do to tidy things up. My eyes work better when I see things close-up on screen.
First off, Tamiya's firewalls had to disappear to make the resin engine extensions fit properly so, rather than have a big, gaping hole behind the undercarriage, I made my own. There is a tricky detail where the pockets for the undercarriage struts fit and I decide to try to goop some putty in these areas and carve them out with a Dremel. Results are mediocre.
The holes obviously need to be addressed, but I decided to go ahead and shoot a revealing layer of primer to see what else needed to be done. I've just gone ahead and posted all my pics for my look-see as I find this to be the best way to magnify mistakes and needs for improvement. In general, no too bad , though repairs will be needed in a few of the rescribed areas. I also need to scribe a few more panel lines to complete the resin additions.
Ugly....:
Now that I have a mini-checklist, I'll go ahead and fix these areas and then start adding more detail. The resin cowls omitted the Dzus fastener plates as well as the tiny intercooler header tank vent so I'll have a go at adding these once the scribed lines are tidied up.
Looking ahead, I have to make sure I choose the correct wing tips provided as options in the kit (resin lights in place of rear-facing nav lights and non-spoked wheel hubs). Fortunately, Tamiya provide both styles so no issues there. For the canopy, I have the Tamiya-provided bulged side windows but not the navigator's astrodome, which I'll need to scratch up.
Thanks for your patience. Slow going but once the weather turns I should be able to get more time at the bench.