Hello Pedro,
To answer your question, yes the side mount MG's will have to stay in place. I would much rather have had the opportunity to install them later, as I have already bent the barrels twice ! They will get repainted once the final paint has been sprayed on... and will probably end up getting broken off completely before it is all said and done.

Thanks Chuck !
I instantly reached for the parts once I spilled the glue. Luckily common sense kicked in just before my fingers made contact, and I didn't touch anything. By letting the glue evaporate first, and not touching the surface while wet, I avoided a huge catastrophe !

I have been debating on whether or not to leave the upper panel loose or not. If I knew I was going to, I could have left the side MG's off too. Since this one is getting a "Splinter" camouflage, I am kind of hesitant not to glue in down before painting.

Coming along well Louis, looks like the fit of the Monogram kit is not as precise as the ICM. But nothing a decent modeler can work through.

Today I was able to get some filler added on both the Monogram and the ICM kit.

I started out with the engine nacelles on the Monogram kit.

Then I added some on the ICM kit. I would venture to say that this is probably due to poor modeling performance on my part. I know the bomb bay being a tad bit crooked caused some filler work for me.
Here's a little bit added to the top center seam just behind the cockpit.

And the rest is self explanatory by looking at this picture. It's actually a bit ugly but again I'll take the credit for that.

I hope to get some more work done tomorrow on these two after the filler has set up.

As usual comments are encouraged. Have a safe holiday weekend.

Thanks David ! I'll try to get the Monogram kit wrapped up by the deadline. I seriously doubt the ICM kit will be done in time however... 🙁 I needed a little break and started the Tamiya Me-262 which has taken time away from these two builds.

Hello Paul,
Thanks my friend for the kind words... I have been itching to build a twin engine plane for a while. I have a few 1/48 scale Japanese twin engine planes scheduled for later in the year if things go well. A Ki-45 Nick, an "Irving" and a Ki-46 Dinah...

But seriously, I had to take a little pause of the Heinkels... The Me-262 was calling out to me.

So that's what I have been doing over the last few days.

However, yesterday I did some more seam filling work on the Monogram kit. It's almost ready to install the engine nacelles now !

Please stay tuned, as I have a strong feeling that some RLM 79 is coming into play really soon on the Monogram kit... it's getting close.

Thanks again my friend.

Today we had some more rain as usual... Pretty much every day now it will rain some since we have entered our typical summer weather pattern. I'm not griping about it as it's essential and helps reduce the threats of wild fires.

I did take advantage of this and got quite a lot completed on the Monogram kit. Please follow along and I'll explain today's progress...some of which started last night.

Last night I added some Tamiya putty to the areas surrounding the engine nacelles. I allowed it to dry overnight.
Today I began sanding the putty. Here's the Starboard side engine.

and the Port side which seemed to be worse for some reason. The panels didn't align properly and more putty was required to blend in the two different levels that existed between the engine and the wing.

the Starboard underside inner gap was fairly big too. I shifted the engine nacelle more towards the outer side to get it fitting better in the areas that would normally be easier to see when the plane was displayed.

Here you can see the difference as this picture shows the outer gap on the underside of the Starboard engine. Sharp eyed viewers will note the radiator has now been installed...

as it was on the Port side too...

Once I was happy with how the putty work was done, I sprayed on some sand able primer.

It acts as a final filler and will get wet sanded with a 2000 grit paper after it dries. Hopefully tomorrow I will tackle this.

The upper wing surfaces look much better now...

and all gaps are no longer visible. I will need to spend some time with re scribing the panel lines that were lost by filling in with filler, or by the actual sanding process.

Once that is done I will add the cockpit and that fabulous green house nose...and the dorsal gunner's seat. Then with a little luck, and a lot of masking, I should be able to start spraying on some RLM 65 and 79.

I'm calling it a night.
As usual,
comments are encouraged.

Louis, what sand able gray primer our you using? Is it a automotive cellulose based primer?

When a artisan is building this kit ...the model can hold its own with a little TLC. I wonder if Monogram deliberately, made things like the engine mountings a tad off to allow for the expansion and contraction of the plastic. It looks like your floating the engines into the wing and then gluing and filling. Given that folks where using slide rules and given the age of the product the kit ain't bad. I've read that Eduard has cut molds with the idea of making them a little bigger than scale to allow for the contraction of the plastic . Knowing how much the plastic will shrink to the appropriate scale must be an art.Keep up the good work.