Before painting the engines, I've started building the Spandaus. Rather than trying to fold properly the parts for the breeches from the Eduard sheet, I've decided to keep the original plastic breeches and add the PE parts to rebuild the guns.
When the machine guns were completed, they got a coat of flat black which will give them their basic color and a good grip for a rub with a soft drawing pen. On top of the pic, the two simplified model I made from crap (unused plastic parts...and the Eduard breeches which I finally managed to fold up). Those will be used inside the fuselage of the D-III where they should be nearly invisible.
The five engines after painting and oil weathering.
I've then rebuilt the fuselage metal panels with adhesive aluminum. It works very well, the metal strectches and matches the complex shape of the front fuselage. It can even be drilled or scribed (with care...). After I took the shots, I reworked the metal sheets with some tool I found on my wife's workbench (as usually...), so the surface is smoother. The rounded hatches have been cut with a punch. The idea of this metal covering is to give a little thickness to them on the kits, since everything was only scribed down on the original plastic parts.
