Hi all! Some basic but important work has begun.
Firstly, I tackled the most annoying job; the flying surfaces. Like many Airfix kits of this era, these were quite overdone in terms of exaggerated ribs, textures, and mould release holes. The underside of the upper wing also had slots cut into them to take the struts (great if you're building this kit for simplicity, but not accurate). I filled the slots in the upper wing, and sanded back the flying surfaces (wings and tail) to get rid of the oversized ribs and overdone textures. I also sanded off the incorrectly oriented bomb racks (i.e. slabs of plastic). Lastly, I repositioned the ailerons for a more dynamic look. Here you can see the comparison of one wing sanded back, and one not:
Now both:
Though quite hard to see in the pictures, there are still rib impressions present, but very much toned down. Painting will be used to help highlight the ribs, once I get to that stage (that's quite a long way off!):
I've also built the foundational structure for the interior. I sanded off the interior pegs for the pilots, cut off the gun ring to the rear cockpit, and built up the fuselage sides with some superglue and filler to get the sides of the rear cockpit straight as per the drawings. I have added some bulkheads and frames, plus a rough approximation of the fuel tank that sat between the two cockpits.
It's not entirely accurate due to the lower wing attachment, but at this scale, for this kit, and for what will be seen on the finished model, that's good enough. As far as I can tell, not much will be seen of the front cockpit, at least. But hey, accurate or not, the foundations are there for the rest of the detail.
As I said, not much of a start, but it's a start at least!
Cheers,
BC
