Trimmiing and polishing a canopy (something I ve done many times in the past), always presents a danger of ruining the clear part, my friend @garybrantley. No matter how carefully, I had at times afterwards discovered micro cracks that ruined the canopy. Might there be chances this canopy was worn in your version sometine? If so, this might be another reason for not attempting to trim it...

Decisions, decisions...

Well folks, at long last I have progress to report. Five and a half months ago, I set this model aside and concentrated on my F-102 build. With that one finished, I turned back to this old bird. And I've been working on it sporadically since then and believe it or not, she's about ready for the paint shop. My paint scheme plans have changed somewhat as well; I'm still doing an Afrikan bird but not one from Jg27. I ordered a set of Iliad decals today for Bf-109E7 Tropical 7./ZG1 S9+DR, abandoned in Libya 1942. It features the different camoed top starboard wing, while the rest is 79/78. It's been modeled quite a bit and there are numerous photos of her too.

The wings and stabilizers are on (stab. struts ready to install too) and I made some barrel stops in both wings and engine cowling. There was no sign of the pilot's stowage access door behind the seat so I made one from Evergreen sheet.

The oil coolers and radiators were all made from an old model car radiator from the '60s.
barrel stops:

radiators:

I've had to do some other rather basic scratch-building. Hobbycraft's version of the dust filter was all screwy and I had to shape a piece of resin into the rear-most section. I think it will be close enough for this kit after a little Mr. Surfacer, as will be the rear mast.

I think I can do some filling and sanding there and shape it better. There was no headrest armor in the kit either so that had to be built too. Again, that's been roughed out and awaits final sanding.

The wing guns provided were just little plastic pegs so I replaced those with some hypodermic tubing and sections cut from an old car model steering column.

The kit's cowl guns will work okay, drilled out and painted; with painted wing guns:

And I fashioned a pitot from scrap lightbulb filament.

The prop will spin on a piece of aluminum tubing. Serendipitously, that tubing does double duty as the cannon muzzle through the spinner. I had planned on using the pointed spinner for the deleted hub-cannon but photos of this aircraft clearly show a muzzled spinner, so the kit's alternate spinner came in handy.

main wheels:

seat:

sc250 bomb:

Here's hoping that my next update features some paintwork. Thanks for your interest and thanks for stopping in!

Really great detailing jobs, my friend @garybrantley!

The Tamiya liquid cement will not affect the vac canopy's material. It might have some chances of "holding" the canopy into place. Cyano will hold it more positively, but might create fumes that will fog the transparencies innards (I have also heard that non-fogging cyanos exist, also dipping the transparencies in Future makes them more fog resistant ...). Clearfix, or Krystal Kleer or similar products are not bad and the same can be said for white glue, but, I believe that the resulting bonds are not that strong and the transparencies might snap-off upon masks removal (ask me how I know...)...

No matter what path you choose, your excellent skills will produce an excellent result!

Thanks @johnb! Yeah, those guns aren't exact replicas but for this level of kit, I think they'll be okay. I'll admit they look much better than the kit's wing 'guns'. 🙂 But, progress is being made and I'm glad about that!

@fiveten, Thanks so much Spiros! Suddenly, I feel much better! ;). That is one less thing to worry about, onward through the fog! 🙂

@johnb, Thanks for that suggestion, I just ordered a small bottle to check it out. 🙂

@eb801, yeah, I just got back to work on her after finishing the F-102. And she's about ready for the paint shop now. I like the Quinta Studios instrument panel and think it's a great addition. When I ordered it, I planned on having the canopy open, by using a vac-form set. But, after cutting them away from the sheet, I thought they looked like a bear's *ss sewed up with a grapevine. (old sheet metal saying there! 😉 ) And so, it was back to the one-piece kit canopy (scale thickness? oh, about 3" I'd say 🙂 ) I do have an EZ Mask set for the HC canopy so that's a good thing. But I am worried about pulling the canopy off when I remove those masks. They do have Tarzan's grip when applied.

Been some good Led Zeppelin weather lately... 🙂