Thanks for your in depth response, Louis. I am enjoying this build. Too bad about the trials of your first ICM kit. I have had similar mishaps - especially with spilled glue - but none quite so extreme as to severely damage a model. Getting one tiny thing misaligned is something I am fighting in my SuE build. So far so good, but I have to be extremely vigilant with that kit. Sometimes the "best fitting" kits are the ones that least allow errors (for all the praise we heap on them, they are unforgiving). I will be checking out your 111 builds. I haven't spent any time in the Kasserine Pass GB but it could be very helpful once I get my 1/32 Bf 110 started.

Great detailing on that radio, Colin @coling
Paying attention and detailing the interior is definitely worth it.
Not always visible but you know it is there.

Very nice detailing @coling! It certainly does enhance the kit a lot.

As usual Collin, your interior detailing of any kit is delicious to behold. The scratch work adds a lot to the rather dull components available in the kit, though some should become almost invisible once the fuselage halves are mated. But like you say, you (and we) know it’s there

Thanks, guys. Glad you like the detail. I am happy to have it done in order to to get on with main building and then the cockpit. This is one of the most unusual builds I have done in that I am getting much of the exterior glued and sanded before the cockpit is added.

For the last couple of days I have been assembling the fuselage, wings and tail and doing clean-up. The He 111 has such a complex shape that I am being very careful. I am especially concerned to avoid misalignment of the wings and engines when mated to the fuselage. To avoid this, I have first glued each of the top wings to the fuselage before adding the bottom wing half.

Being able to push the wing into place from underneath and not worry about lining up top and bottom pieces at the same time gives me more control. If I attached the whole assembled wing, complete with engines, I think it would be a bear to get perfectly lined up and also check dihedral as the wing rests on the spar.. I learned this technique from one of Tom Cleaver's builds a while back and use it fairly often.

In the same way, I am in the process of lining up the engines by connecting them to the top wing before the lower wing is added.

This is slow, in that i have to glue them at the back first (the gappiest joint), let the glue dry, then glue the sides. Each engine also required a bit of styrene sheet as a shim to fit snugly. I am confident a can get the best alignment of engine to wing and wing to fuselage this way. Slow but methodical and reversible, if I want to adjust things as I go. The fuselage sanding is almost done but I had to add some bits of flash melted with liquid glue to fill some gaps with a sunken joint (this is what I use instead of melted styrene putty, which I personally find too messy and smelly, by comparison).

I have also assembled the torpedoes but may need to add something to the nose of each. It looks like the torpedoes in the Eagle Cal profile have some sort of extension. More research on German torpedoes will be necessary.

Speaking of research. I am a bit uncertain of some color details. The aircraft I am doing, operated by 6/KG 26 in Southern France, has yellow highlights. Some time ago, I got some refs from the Internet that appeared to show the yellow as more orange than usual. Two pics are, I think, a SIM image and a built model.

Sorry I don't remember who did the beautiful model or the SIM, otherwise I would credit them. I hope this qualifies as fair use to share. Anyway, I like the look of the deeper orange-yellow but I don't know if this is authentic. Do any of the Luftwaffe aficionados on the site have any insight on this?

Collin, here’s my two cents about the “orange” colour.
As far as I know the RLM paint chart issues 3 yellows, 04 Gelb; 05 Elfenbein and 27 Gelb.

Since the 05 is a very cream paled yellow, like pale mustard, and more often seen in inside parts, it doesn’t seem likely to be used on tactical markings.
Quite differently is the 04 and the 27.
Even taking in consideration that the sources you post are not factual, having the two yellows painted in the same plane was not that unusual.
The darker and slightly orange O4 yellow is likely the hue painted on the spinners and lower engine cowling, probably still freshly applied.

The interior detail is amazing, Colin (@coling), although the dark interior colors used by the Luftwaffe have probably conspired to make your improvements nearly invisible. I'm not much of an expert on Luftwaffe colors, but I vote for the darker yellow.

This is such great progress, my friend @coling! You tackle putting together this big beauty in you usual excellency. Thanks for all the details in dealing with potential gaps: they are really useful.