What putty did You use?

Looks great so far, my friend @gblair!

@gblair I always have problems with putty, because during grinding it simply peels off from the substrate. It's annoying. Lately, I've been using CA glue for this, which dries very well. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

One step forward, two steps back. A couple of days ago I decided, against my better judgement, to add the horizontal stabilizer before I added the wings. I usually like to have the wings installed so I can judge the "horizontalness" of the elevators. But I wanted to add the stabilizer early so that I could fill and sand the area at the same time I did the rest of the fuselage. The stabilizer sits in a cradle that is formed by the sides of the rear fuselage, so I "assumed" it would keep everything straight. What could go wrong?

Today was the day to add the wings. There are two large wing spars that are sandwiched between the fuselage sides that are designed to set the dihedral and keep the wings straight. So I jumped in again with my "What could go wrong?" attitude. Well, I immediately noticed that the wings were wonky. One was too high and one was too low. The angles were wrong. In addition, one of the wings was an 1/8 of an inch too low to fit into the wing cutouts on the fuselage. I fixed all of this by shaving the bottom of one pair of wing spars and the top of the other pair. This allowed the wings to fit correctly, and took out "most" of the mismatch at the wing fuselage join. I glued and clamped the wings. Yeah.

I was in the midst of patting myself on the back when I noticed that now the horizontal stabilizer looked very wonky compared to the wings. My first impulse was to leave it, but the mismatch between the wings and the tail is very noticeable. So, I carefully took the low side of the tail and pushed till I heard a loud crack. Luckily it separated at the joint between the stabilizer and the fuselage, and it broke only on the side that needed adjusting. Once the wings are dry, it will be time to re-glue and repair the damage to the tail, including a reinforcing strip that I added to the tail. One some photos, you can see a reinforcing plate that was added to the place where the horizontal tail joins the fuselage. One more thing to repair.

More adventures tomorrow. Cheers.

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Definitely an adventure, George @gblair
In the end it will look perfect once corrected.

I spent most of my time today repairing problems. I taped off the wing and fuselage around the too large recess for the left wing, then added some putty as neatly as I could. A little sanding was all that was needed to complete this part.

Next, I fixed the horizontal tail that I had to break and re-level with the wings. It took several rounds of putty, sand, check, repeat. This was caused because I added the horizontal tail surfaces before the wings. I had nothing except the fuselage to judge whether the tail was level or not. It turns out the fuselage didn't work so well. Next time I will wait until the wings are on.

I prepped the engines, cowl flaps, and props. I used a razor saw to cut between each of the cowl flaps. I still need to convert the cowls for the modified exhaust system. I need to add four small exhausts to the bottom of each cowl. Then I need to add a large single exhaust to the outboard side of each engine. I got two different types of exhausts that might work, but I think the Ki-44 will work the best. I suspect it will take a lot of cutting and sanding to get them to fit.

More tomorrow. Cheers.

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Progress on the Mitchell is great, George @gblair
Nice work on the corrections. The Ki-44 exhausts will look great, a near copy of the original ones.