Hi Everyone,
Tomas and Jesper, very nice work! Till next time has come! I’ve made a bit of progress, so here goes.
I closed up the fuselage and attached the wings. Fit overall was not too bad, the deep gaps were filled with Vallejo plastic putty, and then overcoated with Mr. Surfacer 500. As of late this method of gap/seam filling works pretty well, if additional filling is needed, I opt to use superglue (the cheap stuff, works just fine).
The stabilizers and cabanes were added, and the minor filling was made. I was pleased that the airframe was finally taking shape!
After long consideration, I decided that adding the landing gear at this point would make the rigging of it easier and wouldn’t interfere with the paint job that is soon to follow. For the rigging of the landing gear, I decided to utilize the provided rigging wire that came with the kit. The wire is thin (less than 0.0156mm per my smallest drill bit, my guess is 0.01 mm dia), and really looks good in place. Furthermore, the measurements provided by the kit instructions were dead on, only having to file a little off on one wire most likely due to alignment errors on my part. I like it!
I added the little bits of PE per the instructions at this time, including the rudder horn connectors, and the rudder. Everything was given a once over, looking for missed gaps and other things that have to get done prior to painting. Once satisfied, the bird was washed with 70% IPA, and any of the attachment points filled with liquid mask (a trick I picked up from one of our own member modelers, whose name escapes me know) so as to make life easier down the road.
I chose to prime the bird, and after much deliberation, I decided on Mr. Mahogany 1000. I chose this primarily due to the color being a good match for the dark brown camo scheme on metal, and also would make a nice pre-weathering color, especially for the underside.
Next comes the fun part of making the masks for the French 5 color camo! Then painting of this little bird can get underway. As a side note, the wife thinks this one looks cute! Not the words I’d use to describe it, but I’ll take it.
Till next time, be safe and have fun!
