Indeed some fragile frames, Paul @paulh
Painted parts do look very nice.
It is clear that this will become quite a large aircraft.

Excellent work on the engines, Paul @paulh
The pale blue does look nice on the fuselage as well.

Guys...
The latest pics I have of my build are below... progress has been slow but productive. The external cabling from nose to tail is now in place, although there are half a dozen strands of elasticated thread flapping about round the tailplane as they need the control surfaces put in place before they can be connected up. I won't do that just now as I would be more than likely to damage and/or break them off so they are probably going to be some of the last items attached.

I managed to get the undercarriage legs assembled, painted, attached and rigged with only minor adjusments to the attachment points to ensure they fitted easily. A test fit of the lower wings was then attempted... surprisingly good, I must say. The Gotha had noticeable dihedral on the wings and an ever-so-slight sweep back as well, but even without the connection to the top wing at this stage, the upward angle is evident and bodes well for the future.

Yesterday afternoon, I managed to attached the wheels; both 'flattened' and 'unflattened' options are available, but as I intend my kit to be fully bombed up, I chose to use the former. In the evening, I was able to rig and attach some turnbuckles onto the wing centre section next to the fuselage and next to the cowlings. I thought it best to do this just now as there is restricted space here, and trying to do anything around this area will be difficult enough, let alone when the upper wing is attached, when I imagine everything will potentially become positively unwieldy.

Talking of which, I am thinking about which method might be best - should I connect the upper wing centre section onto the cabane struts as shown in the dry run in the photos, complete the rigging as much as I can there, then try and attached the upper wings later as individual items? Or should I build up the entire top wing including the centre section, attach as one piece and scare the living daylights out of myself when attempting the rigging? Nice problem to have, eh? My initial thoughts are to go with the first option and take my chances trying to attach the two upper wing sections as individual items at a later stage. We'll see, I do change my mind on reflection, sometimes...

Anyway, I am pleased with the slow but definite progress. I'll catch you again soon and thanks for looking in... ;-).

Regards,

Paul

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Looking spectacular so far, my friend @paulh!
Sorry for the repetitive comment, cannot help it, the Gotha looks outstanding.
Indeed, the first method seems to have an edge.

The detail painting you are doing is really awesome, Paul (@paulh). I can't wait to see the final camouflage on this beast. Cheers.

Ditto with @gblair 's and @johnb 's coments, @paulh!
Speechless of your painting skills!
Looking forward to your progress!

Right, then... next up, the competed painting of the wing ribs. As you saw in the previous post above, these were at the stage of needing toned down, and I used an Iwata Neo spraygun with the needle set to narrow spray and set about the undersides of the top wing first, which are in the pale shade of blue; there wasn't too much to tidy up on these areas, but I did draw back some of the staining so that it was a little closer to the ribs, by carefully spraying between the ribs and narrowing down the brown shade; however, I did leave them relatively uneven in presentation as I felt it gave a better look.

Similarly, on the upper surface of the top wing and all of the lower wing parts, the stark ribs were overpainted in grey-blue. Each surface has about 18-20 ribs so you can imagine how much work was involved, as well as time - roughly two hours in total. The paint, despite being necessarily thin, went on well but did require a couple of additional coats to each rib. Once into a rhythm, this was surprisingly therapeutic in a process that I had initially thought would be quite laborious. I have to admit I ran out of the grey-blue shade sooner than expected and had to mix some more. As you can imagine, few compound colours rarely hit the same shade a second time but I think I was quite close nonetheless, if a fraction darker. What I was pleased about was the brown shading along each rib staying strong despite the thin overlays of grey-blue. I deliberately left the ribs in slightly differering degrees of overpaint.

After this, the larger part of the national markings were applied to the wing surfaces and the lower sections covering the two sets of ailerons will be added in due course. The walkways to the outside of the engines have also been painted in and blackwashed.

In the last image on the right, I did a dry run with the lower wings to gauge how things were coming along. You can also see the ailerons, elevators and rudder in the background, taped and waiting for their final paintwork to be applied. After that, there will be no hiding place, and I will have to start thinking about attaching the upperwing centre section and start to do some rigging... we'll see how that goes. Am I allowed to silently shout 'help!' ? Lol... ;-).

Thanks for looking in.

Regards,

Paul

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

This is really some stunning work, @paulh. There's a really excellent result coming.