Looks great John. Good use of those resin parts. It’ll look good when it’s painted.
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Got a base prime on it (Halfords rattle can grey) and it brought it together nicely
Also primed all the other cockpit parts and the fuselage side walls.
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Now added the side wall detail from the Aires set… Tub is just a dry fit …
Needed a bit of plastic putty on the upper edges to blend them in …
Will start some painting later on…
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Almost finished the detailing of the instrument panels and tub plus the sidewalls … It’s not totally authentic, but enough to add interest.
Will start finishing up on the seats tomorrow but will hopefully have the fuselage together as well.
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Fuselage halves are together… Got rid of pretty much all the top seam…will prime that area and see if it needs more work.
Lower wing section is just dry fitted at the mo…
Fuselage went together well,and just needed a bit of masking to help it till it cured.
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Also, forgot to mention this earlier… Bearing in mind this is an oldish and relatively cheap kit, (its the Hasegawa Sundowners Phantom kit 09662), i am really impressed with how its going so far.
Compared to some other 1/48 Phantoms like Tamiyas which has what seems to be a lot more parts, this one has a far smaller parts count, which may reflect in some minor soft detailing, but nothing which is a show stopper.
A few things which are very good are the fit … Fuselage was great, went together along all edges with no issues and no requirement for filler. Same for the wings, both the upper onto the lower sections, again no issues and everything mated up nicely, and then the wings to the fuselage… This was a super fit, no gaps and looks seamless.
There was a bit of cutting and sanding required to make it a correct B version for the Jolly Rogers as per the decal sheets, but that was straightforward.
Other thing that I really liked was that the multi part canopy which is seamless… I was very happy with that.
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Started detail painting the seats… I won’t go detail crazy as so much will be hidden and not seen once the canopy is in place.
PE seatbelts yet to be done, will paint them and then fit them before I add the seats.
Quick direction question for those in the know … the seatbelts … after making my eyes bleed by looking at so many ejection seats I am still unsure of their colour … Ive seen everything from khaki to light grey to dark grey … any ideas ?
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Primed the upper to check for areas of concern, but it looks like the sanding I did has worked and the upper seam is hidden…
Will give it ultra fine sand again to tidy it up and also around the nose.
Another question… Ref the undercarriage doors … On some that I have seen, the inner lip is painted red, on some, it’s not… Was there a time frame for this and was it an actual thing ?? Most (maybe all ) that I have seen as red, were display aircraft… Period shots seem to be no red paint ?
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It was a thing in the fleet but it seems inconsistent.
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Thanks Ryan … I think on reading that and the majority of the images I have seen, I will leave mine white …
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Sounds like a good idea.
Did try to look into the seat belt color without much luck to picking a specific color.
http://www.ejectionsite.com/usnh7.htm
Looks light grey to me in that example.
Ideally if you can find photos of that plane or squadron of the time period I would go with those colors for the seat.
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Looks great so far! Really like it 
Both seats are now done, well, to the best that I can manage. I am pretty happy with how they turned out… They may not be 100% accurate but from the images I saw and what came with the resin set, that’s where we are.
There was a lot of fiddly detail painting but it was worth the effort.
The ejection pull handles were from the actual kit and added to the resin seat. The PE offered just looked to thin.
Also, as mentioned before, these are slightly smaller than the kit ones, so I need to build up the floor of the cockpit tub to bring them both up to the proper level or clase as can be …
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They look good and will do the job.
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Great looking seats
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Thanks Ryan & Bert
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Was in the process of masking up the canopy and fitting the resin parts to it, and I got as far as the RIO part and then looking at the rest of the bits, decided that me doing it was a PITA and have ordered the Eduard mask set which arrives Tue.
In the mean time, I am brush painting the rear section underside metallic areas and building up the landing gear.
Is the middle front facing section of the front canopy section a clear blue ??
Seems like it is clear and it’s the glare that changes the color.
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