That fuselage is looking very smooth and ready for paint. The engine attachment join looks manageable. For any gaps, this is where I always prefer stretched sprue filler rather than putty, virtually no chance of it flaking off where curves are complex and careful sanding is required.

I really like the lines of this fighter. Like a hot rod fiberglass kit copy of the me 262 without the heavy nose guns. It probably would have been formidable in a dogfight as long as the engines worked (not likely with late war Japanese manufacturing problems).

Colin @coling
I'm very pleased with the fit of this kit. The fuselage is especially smooth, and reminds me of the earlier Hasegawa stuff. The fuselage will not need any more work, and it is ready for painting, once I install the canopy.

I have never tried using the stretched sprue as a filler before...Do you heat it and then pull it into small strips, then glue the small strips in place ? I'm just guessing here... . Would you mind explaining how you do this ? I have also heard that some actually mix old plastic parts trees and add some liquid glue into a small container until it melts. Then this mixture is used as a filler instead of using putty. Thanks for the input, as I have experienced problems with putty coming off especially when you are trying to re scribe panel lines. Thank you...

Hello George, @georgeswork
Thank you for the kind words. It is coming along very fast. I always try to install the upper wings if it's possible. It saves you a lot of grief with filling in the seams, and you don't lose any details because of sanding.

Spiros, @fiveten
I try to attach the upper wing section first whenever it is possible. It seems to work about 90% of the time. Once in a while it can't be done. It's a trial and error thing. The nice part of building the wings in this manner is that you can control the wing position at the root much better.

Like you, I prefer my planes "clean" with very little (if anything) hanging from the wings. Sometimes I make an exception and build the plane fully armed.

Thanks my friend for stopping by...

Take care and stay safe everyone !

That's a fantastic progress, Louis @lgardner!
I noted your comments and I am thinking of adding plastic cards to my builds more frequantly, "just in case".
Your Kikka looks great: so similar to the Scwalbe, yet so different.

Hi Louis, Here are a few pics to illustrate the stretched sprue filler method. First, I stretch the sprue that comes with the kit to get a perfect plastic formula match. (BTW I added a red sprue for fun in the pic just to show what I used to make the little handles in the cockpit of the Shiden Kai [that I was avoiding painting red]). Anyway, the procedure for filling a gap is like a weld. You clip off a length of stretched sprue of the appropriate thickness for your gap. You might even want to vary the thickness proportional to the width of the gap. Just lay it in the gap where needed, apply a few drops of extra thin liquid glue and watch it dissolve into the gap as the glue flows in by capillary action. The SM 79 kit I used here does not really have gap problems in the fuselage join but I just taped it together to illustrate. Normally, I wouldn't have any tape to hold down the sprue along the join as the glue would flow under it. I just needed a free hand to take the picture in this case. So, even though you are using substantial strips of plastic they do indeed dissolve into putty consistency. Like a weld, they make a strong additional join and never fall out. Obviously you should let the "weld" set a couple of days before sanding. I have tried dissolving flakes of plastic in cement in a bottle but the result is too stringy and goopy to handle well. If I have a broad irregular spot to build up, I glue flakes directly to the spot and apply cement right there to dissolve them.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Haven't been checking in on the group wip much lately, but this looks like another one of your masterpieces in the making!

Colin, @coling
Thank you very much for posting this tutorial. This is what I was thinking it would be, but now having pictures to explain how it is done is much more helpful. I sincerely appreciate this. Thank you. I will give it a try on my next project. I might even dig the filler out of my Hasgeawa Ki-44 where I used some filler around the inserts they placed in a stupid location on the side of the fuselage. I was re-scribing the panel lines nearby and some of the filler popped out. I'm not too happy about that...

Walt @waltosoaring
Thanks for the compliment !

Hey Robert, @roofrat
This little jet has been a joy to build. I'm very happy with it in every aspect. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you over here at the EoJ again soon. I just noticed that the dog you have on your page is wearing a "Grape" shirt... How cool !

Take care buddy, and stay safe.

George, @gblair
Thank you for the kind words. Every Fine Molds kit I have built has been a good one. I have enjoyed working on them all. I hope you get your options page sorted out. If not, then please shoot me a PM. Thanks again !

Awesome, even before BMF 🙂