This may not seem like a tremendously exciting picture, but it's been a long road getting to the point where I could button the fuselage up on my little E.I:
I actually started it back in November, but there have been entire weeks when no progress has been made on the model (although lots on the research and decal portions of the project). The cockpit consumed untold hours, and could have consumed half again as many more:
There are a couple of mistakes and omissions that I could fix, but aside from replacing the sight-glass that seems to have fallen off the pulsometer (which I just noticed) I think I'll just note them down for the next kit and move on. One thing I was really looking forward to was rebuilding and adding grunge to the underside of the cockpit floor... I cut out the molded-in opening on the bottom of the fuselage, which was completely inaccurate, and, using a photo in the Aeronaut Eindecker volume and Jamo's photos of the NZ E.III replica, scratchbuilt a new false bottom for the kit piece out of plastic card with cutouts for the "trap doors":
I also added the leather straps you'd use to lift them with on the topside, which are just visible in the second photo in this post... another fun detail. A friend in Poland supplied me with a set of HGW belts (dziękuję Prze!), but I decided to anneal and use the kit PE parts for this build, and save the fabric set for the E.IV, which may be up next.
Onward and upward,
Dutch
