Everything was finally ready to seal the interior in the fuselage. I glued the fuselage halves together, and then got a start on the Vector R-985 resin engine I had for this plane. It is very detailed, but it has separate cylinders, gear box, exhausts, and push rods. The base of the cylinders was too wide for the holes cast in the center part of the engine, so I had to drill them to a slightly larger diameter. When I did a test fit on the engine in the resin cowling, I found the the engine is too large to fit. I sanded the cylinder on each side of the engine until it fit. I still need to add the push rods and paint the engine, but it looks like it should work. Tomorrow it will time to do the surgery on the wings and then add them to the fuselage. Yeah! Moving forward.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Excellent work done, George @gblair
Nice detailed engine with all those cylinders seperated.

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten), John (@johnb), and Brian (@brithebuilder). The engine still needs lots of work, but it is getting there.

George (@gblair), I've always avoided this kit because of the wings. But you seem to have found a way to make them work. Like most kits of this age, they can be a challenge to build and make right, but that's what makes it fun. Looking forward to seeing how you move on this.

Superb job on this challenging kit, my friend @gblair!

A pitty about the brittle plastic but you seem to tackle it nicely, George @gblair

Not a lot of modeling time today, but got a lot of the sanding done on the fuselage. I am rethinking the idea that I may be able to save the raised panel lines on the fuselage. This model has a series of holes pre-drilled in the lower fuselage to accept the support wires that go from the float to the wings. Since this will be a wheeled version, the holes need to go. Monogram very carefully placed the holes directly on panel lines, so there was no way to fill and sand the holes while also preserving the raised panel lines. All of the panel line around the forward fuselage also disappear after I added the resin nose piece, then filled and sanded the area.

The engine got some paint and weathering today. I still need to add a total of 18 push rods, and I may also add some ignition wiring. I successfully sanded the top of the cylinders on each side of the engine so that it would fit in the resin cowling. Nothing broke off in the process, so I decided it was time to work on the wings while my Karma was still in sync with the universe.

The wings are interesting. The one piece wing needs to be cut into two pieces, and sections need to be cut out of the front and rear to fit around the front and rear resin cockpits. I suspect that my resin set that I got from Ebay is missing a page of the instructions. The instructions are very meticulous for adding the front and rear cockpits, but there is not mention of how the wings should be done. The 3D printed cockpit set that I got has detailed instructions on how to do the wings, as well as a full-size diagram that shows exactly where to cut the wings. The parts of my old and new resin sets are virtually identical, so I cut the wings according to the new instructions. There are two resin pieces that must be accurately fitted to the wings so that they will eventually slot together. Obviously, these pieces need to be accurately positioned, so I plan to do several dry runs before I commit to glue.

Hopefully wings will be added tomorrow. Cheers everyone.

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Great progress, my friend @gblair! Looking forward to the wings attachment!