Thanks for your kind comments everyone! I have made some progress in the last two weeks. The Cowlings are now in place, along with the aft portion of the fuselage sides:
The fuselage covering is ten thou sheet styrene, which will also be used for the metal side panels on the forward fuselage. These will take a bit more work, as access panels and rivets (resin decals from Archer) must be added.
The cowling looks a bit sloppy now with the putty filler showing, but I think it will be fine once the metallic paint is applied, I hope.
Note that the engine cylinders do not protrude slightly below the chin cowling as shown on my plans. This was probably the result of mounting the engine slightly too high on the firewall and cutting the arc of the cowl opening slightly too low. Ahhh, close enough. These early machines were hand built in small batches of one or two, so parts and details varied between aircraft (this is actually true in the case of the Tabloid). That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!
I also neglected (forgot) to drill out cooling ports in the front top cowling. Photos show that early models did not have these, others had varied size, number and location of ports, and there are no photos of No. 168 (she was left somewhere in Belgium after the Dusseldorf raid when Lt. Marix could not nurse his shot-up machine any further, and was never recovered as Marix made it back to Antwerp by train and lorry just in time to catch the last ship out with his withdrawing squadron). However, the reproduction of No. 168 at Hendon has small ovoid horizontal ports on the top front cowling. I have not yet decided whether to add these. It would have been much easier to do before affixing the cowling. I would hate to balls up the cowling now if I make a mistake!
Since this model is just a "look and feel" representation rather than a precise replica, I may just leave well enough alone. We'll see.
I still have some details to add to the cowling joint. After the front metal sides are in place, it's back to completing the wings!
Regards,
Bob
