Thanks Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). I did get it to come around to my way of thinking, but I wouldn't mind something that is a bit more cooperative! 🙂

Today was mostly about getting the propellers and the radome ready. I had some troubles with the spinners with gaps and trying to get them filled, but managed to get it in the end. Then I apply a Future dip to each blade to clear them up. One of them had tide marks after drying, so I reapplied the dip to see if I can get it to look better. That's why it's not in this photo.

The radome was warped a bit and had to be held together with various clamps overnight while the glue dried. But once dried, the seams were pretty clean and only required a small amount of filler to remove a few hairline seams. Of course, like the rest of the model, it had raised details which I removed and then rescribed.

I have to work on the canopies and windscreens next and then I should be able to get to painting.

Excellent so far, my friend @clipper! You have tackled nicely the fit issues!

Thanks George (@gblair), Spiros (@fiveten), and John (@johnb).

Yes it would be nice if parts fit better. Thankfully today's kits do that for the most part. I mentioned some ideas in your FM-2 thread George about holding the parts.

This morning, I took my first real look at the clear parts for this kit and found out very quickly that they look as bad as the old Frog and Airfix canopies did from the 60's. The windscreen has no frames. Both the canopy and the windscreen have rough , not so clear surfaces (inside and out). And there is a bunch of flash and mold bumps (from tooling marks in the mold) on the canopy frame.

So I've started cleaning these up. I am sanding the canopies and windscreens smooth and then will re-polish them. You can see the work I've started here.

It may take a bit of time to get these presentable.

Also George, I did have to strip and reapply the Future to the one set of props. I am waiting for it to dry now., so I am not sure yet if this fixes the problem.

Wow, Carl (@clipper), I haven't seen this much cleanup required in a while. If I end up doing extra work because I messed something up is one thing, but you shouldn't have to do this much extra work because the kit was manufactured poorly. Good luck on the canopies.

The canopies have ben cleaned up and are fairly transparent now. I'll have photos of those after I get them installed on the plane. But before I can do that, there are a few other small tasks that needed attention first.

The windscreen on this kit has no canopy framing even though the real aircraft does. So I am going to replicate that with two pieces of aluminum foil tape applied in the same manner as I am using to foil my Thunderbolt. However, I don't want the interior color of these frames to be foil colored, but rather the correct interior color. So I have masked off the two frames and sprayed them with the interior color (I used German Grey which may or may not be correct, but I believe the interiors were a black or near black color). I will then apply the foil over these painted areas.. Later when the aircraft is painted, the outside surface of the foil will get painted.

The area directly behind the cockpit where the canopy sits needed to have some paint as well. I am not sure if this is the black that was used for the exterior color (I doubt it) or the interior color (the near black color I am using), so I elected to use the interior color and paint these areas before installing the rear canopies. I also sprayed the canopy frames (which are a separate part) with this grey.

I am close to painting now. Once I get the canopies assembled and installed, I should be able to start painting. I am going to be doing the black night fighter scheme I have decals for so I am looking forward to experimenting with that finish. It will be nice to get another airplane model painted because its been awhile.

Okay, the canopies are on. I had to do some additional shimming on these to fill in gaps. They're far from perfect, but still loads better than when I started.

I think I might have one more thing to do before starting the painting. This kit has navigation lights molded on the tops and bottoms of the wings, but I believe I saw that they were actually on the wing tip edge, so I am going to do a bit more research and make this adjustment if needed.

Those canopies turned out beautifully, Carl @clipper
Looking forward to the painting session.