Thank you for the information, it's very interesting to read and learn more!
Building the Exterior
Before Christmas I test fitted the model using some strong tape and will power, this highlighted what I thought would be the case which is that the model will need a lot of glue and care to get the panels to work out, this isn't going to be a Tamiya shake the box to assemble a completed model type event.
Firstly was to paint the interiors, this was done in aluminium but some parts were painted interior green for the cockpit walls.
Next was to add the first panels, which was the forward fuselage halves. These fitted pretty well, but lots of paint from the side of the framework and ammunition storage as well the the panels themselves need to be scraped off in order to get a good bond. First the right panel was glued and held with tape, and once it was dried after around half an hour the left panels were added.
Next up was the underbelly and the underside of the wings, this revealed some issues in fit with a big step being found by the fuel tanks. To fix this, part of the nose wheel bay was scraped off as well as part of the framework underneath the engine. This allowed this part to sit a lot closer, as you'll see later this still needs some work to tidy it up but it's manageable. A noticeable gap can be found in the section where the wing joins to the fuselage by the leading edge, I'm not sure what could have fixed this as the wing was secured to the wing spars as intended. This'll need some filler.
Then the upper halves of the wing were added, these fit fine but needed some strong convincing with tape in order to keep them all in line. This process caused some gluey fingerprints to attack the model, but luckily I sanded off the scars caused by tamiya extra thin and my thumb.
Finally I added the canards and the panel that covers the gun barrels, this had some issues fitting but holding it very tight for a few minutes delt with most, and some sanding with various grades of sanding sticks solved the rest.
On the rear of the aircraft the notable cooling fan was added, apparently the Shinden had very good cooling characteristics which were noted during the engine test and ground runs by the design team. This cooling fan attached to the axle that the propeller joins to so that it will spin with the propeller correctly.
One issue I am having is that the framework that attaches to the engine, particularly on the rear of the engine, keeps coming apart. I also find that the exhausts keep coming lose particularly when test fitting the rear panels that cover the engine.
Finally I also marked out what panels I will cut out, these are panels that are seperate on the 1/32 model to show off the engine but on 1/48 it's all together. I also marked one with a '?', but then realised this panel goes over one of the intake vents so won't be able to remove it.
