Thanks, Spiros, John, Chuck and Louis. I am really happy you like the detailing as it will definitely be on display through the greenhouse.
I was going to wait until the painting stage to post more but I had an interesting challenge with the clear parts worth sharing, I think.
First off, I wanted to busy up the cockpit with a bit more detail before sealing up the pit. I added some wiring forward of the rudder pedals and a strap on the cushion (seen in period photos).
As I proceeded to glue on the first of the clear parts, I noticed a ledge of unpainted plastic inside the cockpit would be visible through the side windows.
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1. Strip of painted paper inserted here after canopy glued on. Needed on one side only.
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1. I snipped off the excess length of paper later after after the white glue dried.
I therefore glued on a strip of paper painted in RLM 66 to cover this. A bit tricky to insert with the canopy glued on but OK. In the process. I knocked off the fire extinguisher. Once again, a bit of a pain to reinsert under the canopy but this worked out without smearing glue everywhere. The IP, bombight and MG had to be glued to the inside of the Forward canopy piece.
I did this with Gator glue. BTW, I thoroughly polished and cleaned the clear parts with Novus plastic polish and cleaner before attaching parts. I didn't want any smudges or lint inside.
I had considered attaching the transparencies with clear parts cement only. I had tried to prepare the joints for a clean mating with the fuselage but I found the fit - without pins or other locating devices to be poor. In the end, I had to work in stages over three days to get things glued together cleanly. As i said, I glued on the rear canopy arch first, filled gaps with stretched sprue and sanded the joints smooth. I then mated the nose cap clear part to the rear canopy only at the top.
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1. I have let the outside of the canopy get a bit smudged and dusty in attaching it but I will polish everything again before the masking stage.
This required very tiny amounts of liquid glue applied to weld it on tightly with no gaps. Too much liquid glue would run in places I didn't want it by capillary effect so I worked very slowly and carefully. I left the first joint to dry overnight before gluing the piece underneath. I need to insert stretched sprue to close gaps and insure a tight fit underneath that would not snap open the join on top.
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1. There was an unavoidable gap here with the clear part firmly attached top side. I filled it carefully with stretched sprue. Mission accomplished without glue-flow accidents.
In all this, I managed to avoid marring the clear parts anywhere. The slight frosting of the liquid glue falls only in places where there will be canopy framing. The last challenge will be sanding the joints but this is much less risky than the gluing stage. I am grateful to have Eduard masks for this one. It will be a relief to get these on and protect the windows before final tweaks and painting.
I hope this little narrative will be of some use to you. I consider this to have come out quite well under the circumstances.
