This detailing looks amazing, George @gblair!
The bulkhead fit is a common issue at those short run kits: nothing that fit and sand multiple loops cannot fix, just annoyingly delaying.
Your Maryland interior looks awesome.

Great work George - love the choice of aircraft - one of my favourite WW2 aircraft - not sure why - I have the Warburton boxing of this kit so will be watching this with interest !
Oh and best of luck with that list!

You’re doing a bang up job on this one, George. Your article will be my go to reference when I build mine. Thanks for taking the time to share this.

I have spent the last couple of days trying to raise the interior detail in the forward part of the plane. There aren't a lot of photos of the Maryland cockpit that I could find, but the few cockpit photos I found show it to be full of instruments, wires, pipes, and a bunch of unidentifiable stuff. When I first looked at the cockpit parts, I thought they were fairly detailed, but as I started working on the cockpit I realized that it would take a great deal to raise the level of detail. I have always felt that once you start down the detailing path it is easy to work yourself into a trap where you get sucked into a lot more work that you signed up for. You know how it goes: You decide to do one or two things to raise the detail. When you are done, you decide that the detail level you want isn't quite there, so let's add a little more. Besides, the detail you have added so far was easy to do. So you add some more detail, assess again, decide to add a little more, and before you know it two days are gone and you still aren't happy with the detail. This is the "Detail Trap" that sucks you into a never-ending cycle of detailing that is far beyond what you wanted to do. I know there are modelers who really like this level of detailing and scratchbuilding, but me not so much. I prefer something in the middle where I add just enough to make it look busier, but not eat a lot of time.

Anyway, I realized that I was heading into the spiral. I painted the cockpit parts and added all of the photoetch levers, trim wheels, and assorted stuff and then checked the thousand year-old black and white photos that I had. I needed to add a lot of detail. So, I paint some round sprue in various colors to represent the various pipes, cables, and wires and then add them to the cockpit. It looked OK, especially considering most of it will be hidden when I seal everything up.

I realized that the back of the instrument panel would be visible through the large nose glass, so I decided to add some wiring to the back of the panel. I used some thin wire that is sold for beading and stuff like that. I created a flat plastic plate that fit the back of the panel, then drilled some holes for the wires, and cemented them in place using super glue. I made sure there was plenty of wire left on each side of the plate, then trimmed the wires after the glue was dry. I finished up by sanding the back side of the plate, which was easy thanks to the softness of the wire.










At this point, I decided I wanted to close up the fuselage even though I hadn't detailed the bombadier's area. I figured this would still be accessible with the fuselage glued together. There is another decision in my future about how much detail I want to add to this very busy section.

It was at this point that the reputation of this kit started to bite me. I had checked the fit of each of the bulkheads and floors as I added them. I had frequently checked the fit of the two fuselage pieces as I added pieces and had no problems. So I was a little mystified when it came time to finally glue the fuselage pieces together that they wouldn't fit. It took another hour of fitting, sanding, and checking (Then repeat 40 more times) to get the fuselage sealed up. As I was adding the 40 yards of tape that was required to hold everything together while the glue dried, I noticed that I had some serious ledges along most of the seams. I wonder if the results would have been different if I hadn't added the tabs in the fuselage to help in positioning the mating surfaces. I think that the plastic on one side of the fuselage was thicker than the other side, and the tabs simply forced one side higher than the other. But this problem hadn't appeared when I was dry-fitting, so I am mystified again. That's a problem for another day. I plan to let the glue dry overnight, then remove the tape and see what I have to work with. In the meantime, I am warming up my filler and sandpaper.

Everyone stay safe.

Model misbehavin'. Not good at all, but the level of detail you put into it is astonishing. Looking forward to the filling'n filing done. Keep pushin my friend!

Hi George @gblair!

..."Cockpit and instrument panel look ok"...

Please, let me disagree: they, don't look "ok", they look perfect! Pilot and bombardier offices are simply splendid, I hope everything will be visible after fitting the canopies.

About general fit: those issues are expected with such kits, to a degree or another and are fixable...to a degree or another!

The bombardier's transparency is a difficult issue indeed. I think it is wrongly molded wider than it should. And how about the nose transparency? Is it wider too?

Eagerly waiting to see your step by step approach.

Very nice progress George. Biting nails and fingers crossed that you come up with a "clear solution" to the nose.

Hi George @gblair! I had faced the same wide clear transparency issue with a Hasegawa 1/48 A-7 Corsair. What I did, was to use my wife's hairdryer and heat the canopy. There was a point that the canopy was hot enough to be pressed permanently narrowed, without further deformation. It was a nerve wrecking process I did out of desperation, but worked perfectly. Due to the dangers of bad deformation that might occur, I cannot warmly recommend this technique; I just mention it to keep into account.

I don't bother about mismatched panel lines. I let the "penlight ruler police" do (lol).

Your Maryland looks spectacular.