Thanks Hugh.
I had a break from masking the canopy, as I'm waiting to hear from Gp.Cpt Barr, as he mentioned aircrew figures. Need to know whether to paint them in tropical kit and fit them into the cockpit, or continue as planned, and fit the canopy, without the 'crew'.
Meanwhile, I pushed on, and got the fin, rudder and tail-planes fitted, along with the upper escape hatch, and the tail wheel housing, before working on the wings and finally fitting them also.
In an effort to reduce the unrealistic gap between the control surfaces and main and tail planes, all of the hinge slots were elongated, allowing a closer fit, with a much reduced gap.
Some warping in the main wings caused a slight misalignment of the engine nacelles on the port wing, but this was easily corrected by sanding. The wing root bomb cell doors have been fitted in the closed position, but have yet to be leveled.
The fit of the main wings was excellent, being very positive, and would hold without cement - possibly the best fit of any kit I've built in around 55 years of modelling, which is pretty good for a 51 year old kit !
Also, close inspection of the rivet detail shows that a very good 'flush rivet' effect has been achieved, at the time, years ahead of any other manufacturers surface detail.
PIC 1. Control surface gaps reduced.
PIC 2. Wing root bomb cell doors in place, not yet leveled.
PIC 3. The cockpit side windows have been masked using a heavy application of Humbrol Clear Fix. This will be removed after painting, and the windows glazed using either Kristal Kleer, or PVA. The other fuselage windows can be stuffed with tissue for painting.
PIC 4. How the model looks so far.
Next step, after fitting the canopy, and fitting and masking the leading edge landing lamp cover, is to spray the model with at least two coats of dark grey primer, before applying the 'Aluminium' finish.Then it'll be time to assemble and paint the engines, props and cowlings, before moving on to the landing gear.
Back soon ............