Hi, Guys... so, as promised, here are my photos of the build so far.
I started with the wing sections. There is a small centre insert which has openings for the pins on the ends of the wings, but not all were aligning properly. I decided to open the holes a bit wider and removed one resin pin from each wing - front pin on one, and the rear pin on the opposite - so that, along with the integral brass rods, there would still be sufficient strength to hold things in place. The wings have 10mm of dihedral at the tips compared to the insert.
I then turned to the fuselage and the cockpit framing. RLM02 grey/green was applied to these pieces and the fuselage thereafter blackwashed to show a degree of regular use; the framing consisted of two side section which had precise-length struts to be attached at various points, the ones at the extreme rear being the most tricky as you have to draw the frames towards each other without snapping them. The other parts can then be added - the cockpit floor, pedals, control column, dashboard, rear bulkhead and the seat with the belts already painted and attached.
Once the fuselage halves were brought together, the joints needed tidied up. The alignment is pretty good, but even with some tidy-up measures prior to closing the fuselage, there were still rough edges where the resin plinths had been removed. I placed strips of Tamiya tape either side of the join lines and applied Humbrol filler along their lengths, thus localising its application to exactly where it was needed. It was easier on the undersurfaces, but on the uppr rear fuselage, it was quite tricky as the join line is exactly where the peak of the central frame was. This should be nice and noticeably prominent at the top, so I had to carefully thin out the filler bearing that in mind.
Next, I built and painted the engine assembly and inserted it into the model, for posterity, really, as it won't be seen after the cowling goes on. I am happy enough to have a photographic record of its existence. I didn't intend to be removing the cowing to show it off, largely because there are two MGs over the top if it and this would really inhibit getting the main cowling cover off.
The tailplane and control surfaces are very good, and while they may need a little sanding to remove some rough edges, there is nothing particularly difficult about attaching them. The main horizontal tail has location pins to align it to the top of the tail, but when doing so, it matched at the rear but fell short at the front of the raised tail platform. I decided instead to remove the pins, and shunt the tailplane forward to match the front, and make up the shortfall at the back using plastic card. This was by far the more easy routine to follow.
The windshield is something you have to make up yourself. Clear plastic is provided and outlines of the shape of each windshield panel are provided for your to accomplish this. There are also photo-etched frames to be attached to the windshield, but I have already distorted one of those so I will probably default to using thin strips of painted Tamiya tape for the frames.
So, this is where I am at just now. A thin coat of Humbrol matt pale grey was applied by brush and went on very well. I had to tidy up a few rough edges, particularly on the struts, but thereafter everything was coated with two thin coats of Humbrol matt black - that really put me in mind of doing some 'all black' WW2 nightfighters. It looks really eye-catching as it is. At time of writing, I have applied one coat of 'Future', and will apply a second coat after this post, and leave things to dry out. I may start looking out codes and markings thereafter. Tomorrow is a public holiday here, so no work to go to... :-). I intend to get some more of this build under my belt then.
In conclusion for now, I would say that even taking the almost unavoidable rough edges associated with producing a resin kit into account, the interior detail is fine although I'm sure super detailers would want to go further. Even if the cockpit access panels are lowered, I'm not sure you'd see much more by way of internal detail. Externally, the detail looks very nice, and is enhanced under the wings and on one fuselage side by small photo-etched access panels which, once painted over, look the part. There are one or two places where the instructions don't really help to solve a conundrum as to where something should go but again, we are all capable model builders to be able to do a little research to get round that.
There are markings for no less than ten colour schemes - three German, one Austrian, one Dutch, one Bulgarian, three Hungarian and one in Republican Spanish Civil War markings. You certainly get your money's worth with this one.
I hope you like the progress so far... more to follow in due course... ;-).
Regards,
Paul
10 attached images. Click to enlarge.
