Back on the Bench

I've resumed work once again. I'm in the middle of painting the easy stuff first. Wheels, prop and exhausts but I have finished the cockpit and am ready to put the two fuselage halves together. Those fuselage inserts took a lot of sanding and re-scribing. I have to make a decision here. Do I follow the directions and glue the cockpit to one side of the wall and then put the two halves together? Or as some builders suggest, insert the cockpit assembly and front radiator after the fuselage halves are glued together and seams repaired?

Here's some progress:

Fantastic cockpit, my friend @eb801! Great remedy for the missing piece as well! In my Typhoon, I joined the fuselage halves, trapping the cockpit and radiator (together with its top front housing) in between. If I recall well, I had no issues there

The cockpit does indeed look great, Eric @eb801
Good save on the broken, this will not be visible anymore in the end.

Thanks guys for the comments. @gblair, @johnb, @airbum, @fiveten.

Two Halves Make a Whole
Fuselage that is. I decided to take Spiros' recommendation and just followed the instructions and and sandwiched everything together like it said to. Surprisingly the fit was great and assembly easier than I thought it would be as the fuselages halves closed up nicely with almost no gaps. I do need to fill and get rid of the middle seams on the top and bottom and get out the scriber. However, I can see what it would have been just as easy to glue the two halves together minus the radiator and front office assembly and add them later from the open bottom. Having these out of the way would have made the clean up process much easier with less potential damage. I am going to attach a set of Ultracast resin tailplanes while waiting for the seam fillers to cure.

Here is an odd photo of the fuselage I snapped showing its current state of body work:

Both halves joined nicely, Eric @eb801

Goin' strong!

A good move to keep the kit elevators, my friend @eb801! Who knows what this bulge stood for...

@fiveten and @johnb -could that bulge have been a counter weight or Hasegawa imagination at work? I’ll see what I can dig up. Nothing in my Squadron Typhoon Reference book either.