Thanks George (@gblair) and Spiros (@fiveten). I have other bits I can focus on on the Fury build while I wait for the new blade. I am still several days away from being ready to paint anyway.

Thanks John (@johnb). I get pretty frustrated doing the design work on the computer because I do it so infrequently that each time , I have to relearn what I learned previously. I suppose if I built models faster, this might work out better. Anyway, I did some additional research about the vinyl cutter and found out a few things about the blade settings that I will use when my new blades arrive.

In the meantime, I am working on the pylons for the underwing stores. HobbyBoss simplified the pylons stations to a single type for the Bullpup missiles which are incorrect for the outer stations. References tell me that the Fury had a variety of pylons and adapters depending upon the application.

My best photos of the Bullpup pylon were on the outer station when I modified the one I planned on using. I will only have one Bullpup on the kit and it will be on port innermost station (more on this in a moment).

So I used that one phot good photo and some others to tease out the way I thought the pylon should look and the missile should be mounted. Additionally, the kit pylon has poor detailing so this was improved.

I then put that aside and returned to the Bullpup guidance pod and it's associated pylon. This was nothing like the pylons in the kit and had to be modified a fair amount by cutting some parts away and adding additional plastic. While doing this, and test fitting it, I realized that this pod pylon had to be considerably shorter in length or it would interfere with the landing gear retraction. This is because that pod is supposed to be mounted on the starboard innermost station (Station 4).

Since the Bullpup would be on the corresponding port station (Station 3), it occurred to me that my pylon for the missile was also too long and would interfere with gear retraction. Further examination of photos revealed that the kit pylons are fairly close to the innermost station Bullpup pylons, so I simply improved the detailing on that.

The sidewinder pylons were also incorrect in the kit and I am in work on modifying them. These get mounted on the outermost stations (1 and 6) in this build.

So here is the current state of the underwing stores.

Thanks John (@johnb). There are quite a few differences. I do wish that Hobby Boss / Trumpeter would hire research team members for these projects. It can get tiresome trying to figure out what the company did wrong or didn't do at all and then try to find solutions to fix it. I don't mind this overall in most builds, but with newer releases, I want to see better products for the money spent.

Fantastic job on those pylons,my friend @clipper!

Thanks Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). Things are starting to come down to painting . I'm anxious to complete this build as I want to start on a ship model next (first for me since I was a pre-teen).

Excellent job so far, my friend @clipper! Sounds very nice to be excited on starting your next ship model!

Perfect preparation for the final steps, Carl @clipper
Looking forward for the paint session.

Thanks Spiros (@fiveten), John (@johnb), and George (@gblair). It turns out there were a few more defects which showed up upon closer inspection, but I got all of them handled.

I was going to mask and paint the green tail today with the white "NJ" lettering on the vertical stabilizer. I had planned on using vinyl masks cut with my vinyl cutter, but as I mentioned earlier this week, I was having some issues with the cutting and wanted to try a new blade. Those new blades arrived today. Unfortunately, they were not compatible with my cutter, being designed for an earlier version of the cutter. So I've returned those and located an alternative source. Hopefully those new blades will arrive tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.

I had already applied white to the nose and tail as I was going to do the red intake as well as the green tail. Since the tail is on hold, I went ahead and masked off the nose and then painted it red. The plan is as follows, and it stems from the incorrect text on the kit decals. As I had mentioned previously, the text on the decals is "DANGER JET IN TAKE" instead of the correct "DANGER JET INTAKE". My vinyl cutter is incapable of cutting letters small enough for this, so I decided I would cut out the text from the decal sheet and overlay it on the red painted area. At the same time, I will close up the gap in the "IN TAKE". I think I got a good match on the decal color with Tamiya LP-7 Pure Red. It's not a perfect solution. If it doesn't look good, then I may try creating a decal instead, but I'd rather not.

Anyway, here are the in progress photos from the red paint.

After I looked at the photos, I realized it would have been easier to mask and paint the red after I had painted the main aircraft color. Oh well. 😐