Thanks!
No matter how this comes out I can 100% guarantee it will be the best HE-115 I ever built!

You are right about it being expensive Bernd. I used some gift money to pay for it. Aside from the complexity and tediosity, the expense is another reason I am taking it slow and being careful.

I am masking the 12 separate canopy parts with little strips of tape. I do the longitudinal frames first, then come back and do the cross-frames, then do the odd curved and angled frames. For each section I paint a layer of the interior color first, then give it another coat since it goes on thin and fairly transparent, then come back with the exterior color, which I am having to mix myself in tiny little batches of 6 drops at a time, 5 green drab and 1 black. I work on it a little at a time., Now, two weeks into it, I am almost done with the canopies, and have made some progress on interior parts too, but it is not a fast process at all.

Someone said not to hold back on "narrative and pictures' . Well I really don't have much narrative; progress is slow...so to create a mental image of more progress than I actually made, at least to get some bigger thing done than a canopy section, I went ahead and put the floats together last night. Although they have no alignment pins and are about 9.5" long, the went together pretty well, fit-wise. There is a supplement to the instructions that says the original floats didn't fit together right, new improved ones are included, use those. I didn't see a problem, only one set was in the box, but on extra sprues so i guess they are the right ones.

Here's some progress pictures.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Bernard, there is some resin, some PE and regular injection in there. The magazines are resin and one of the side vertical bulkheads (the one behind the magazines) for some odd reason, the matching bulkhead on the other side is not resign.

There are more parts to go in there too.

funky white patch distemper scheme?...

that's one of the big reasons I got this because to me that scheme is eye-catching and unlike so many other German schemes, should not require an air brush.

I read about the English using it too and considered doing it British, but later read they left it in German markings. Hmmm...The white overlay scheme is what I'm aiming for, it will be a while before I get anywhere near that point. The kit has instructions for that and says the white was 'rather weathered' and decals for that particular plane, said to have taken part in the big fight over convoy PQ-17, a fascinating and under-reported story in itself.

OK, I am at a major project milestone, getting ready to glue the fuselage halves together. Oh boy,Oh boy!

But before I do that I thought I take pics of the inside. Then, not until I looked at pictures to post here, I realized, following instructions really doesn't make sense, at least not to me. Now, I am no pilot, never flown a plane in my life, but it seems to me if you are going to and there are levers you have to pull to fly it, you ought to be able to reach them, and seeing them too would have to be a plus..

So those tiny levers I made out of resin and PE parts are for the pilot. No parts are named in the instructions and it is not until several steps later, after they are attached to the cockpit wall that you figure that out. The instructions have a arrow pointing vauguely to where they go. But when you get the instrument panel in, the front ones are hidden behind it, and the others are underneath three unrealistically thin gauges on the cockpit side. Well, I cut the resin piece in two, reattached the rear part, removed the gauges, and put the front levers on the other side of the cockpit in an available space.

Here are some picks, including one of the rear cabin section. The protrusion you see at the back (left side of photo) of it is a gun mount.

Now on to the big challenge, getting the fuselage together. I hope my next report does not contain any @ or * or% or$ or# or&...!

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Ralph, I find I must remind you, that discovering position errors prior to having at least part of the fuselage halves super glued together is not in keeping with the spirit of limited run kit building, best you put everything back as it was and do it right lest you incur the wrath of said spirit... 😉
On the other hand, well spotted. The best He-115 you'll ever build is looking pretty good from here.