That's some great progress, my friend @gblair!
Very nice detail at the main wheel wells.
Love the reinforcement/joint you "created", regarding the lower part of the fuselage halves.

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). I got the fuselage and wings puttied and sanded today, so hopefully tomorrow I will get it standing on its landing gear in preparation for painting.

Thanks, Louis (@lgardner). I really agree about the very small photoetch, especially if they have to be folded before use. I didn't have any trouble with the PE on this plane, but I somehow managed to lose two of the very small plastic parts in the cockpit. Overall, I am really impressed with the way this kit is going together. Taking the day off tomorrow to drive up to our new house to see how the construction is progressing. Cheers.

This is a really cool looking plane, and you are doing a great job on this kit. It should really look good when done. Good tips for all on supporting and getting things to fit, sometimes forgotten, in the age of Tamiya perfection.

Very nice progress, George @gblair.
You applied those handles very precise, no glue remains at all.

We got home early from our granddaughter's first birthday, so I managed to get a little done.

Both the rudder and elevators had a square cross-section where they attach to the vertical and horizontal surfaces of the tail. In all my years of flying, I have never seen an airplane that didn't have the forward edge of the rudder and elevators with a rounded cross-section. I rounded the front edge of the rudder and elevators before adding them to the plane. I added the elevators, making sure they are both displaced the same amount in the down position. When I test-fit the rudder, the rounded front section made the gap look uncharacteristically large, so I added some Vallejo acrylic putty in the gap to improve the appearance. Looks better now.

Thanks, Louis (@lgardner). There are just a handful of photos of the V-4, and they are really grainy. It is hard to see how clean the paintwork really was, but this prototype was never subject to the stresses of combat. So, I am assuming that the paint was in pretty good shape. On the other hand, it is difficult to find planes, even new ones, that don't have some fluid stains. That's the plan I have in mind for painting this plane.

My daughter and her husband live in north Austin, which is about 2 hours from our current house. We were visiting the kids, and now our granddaughter, about once each week. The travel was killing us. At one point I told my wife we should just move up to Austin. We have lived in our current house for almost 30 years, so I figured she would say no. But she was ready to move. We found an unbuilt house in a new sub-division near a lake in Georgetown, which is about 20 minutes north of Austin. We bought the house last November, and the build has been in slow motion thanks to the on-going shortage of construction supplies. The builder says that it looks like the house will be ready in October. The big shock was how all of this has affected the price of houses. We stopped by the house today to see how things were going, and then stopped by the construction office. They told us they just got a memo with the new prices for the homes they are building. The price of our model has gone up over $200,000 since we bought it. There is no way we could have afforded the house if we had to pay the current price. So someone was looking out for us when we decided to move.

Great progress, George @gblair
Your thoughts about the weathering and colors are about right I would say.
House pricing has indeed gone sky high, you must indeed had someone around taking that decision.
Like Spiros @fiveten said, it is great to live close to your family.