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Avionics Bay, Cockpit and Fuselage Construction…
The Airies cockpit was prepped and primed and shaped to fit the cockpit area. This takes a lot of repetition, sanding and dry fitting (the base of the cockpit needs to be paper thin to fit properly into the cockpit. The detail has been picked out with Red Tamiya X-7, Yellow (Tamiya X-4) and two bits of Tamiya Clear Blue (heavily thinned) for the dials (I might change this to clear orange after seeing the photos!) The cockpit itself has a base coat of Vallejo 050 (Grey) added, the panels have been painted in Tamiya XF-69 (NATO Black) and a final coat of wash was added to pick up the detail in the tub. The plastic model kit coaming was cut out and replaced with the resin replacement and painted XF-69, NATO Black and dry brushed accordingly. The resin seat was painted and photo etched parts added at a later part of the build.
The next stage for me was to install the Airies Avionics bay. This was a dream to install! I have not shown how this was carried out but will endeavour to describe how. The bay itself is actually marked via a panel on the side of the airframe and the resin add on is a little wider than this so you can easily cut the panel out. To do this I used a pin vice and a 1mm drill bit to mark the edges of the panel and then proceeded to drill around the edge of the panel 1mm apart. Once this has been completed you can use your scalpel to remove the excess to remove the rest of the panel. This gives great control than using a scriber or a mini saw and leaves less chance of you ruining the side of your model before you even start! The panel itself has been primed in Tamiya XF-2 (White) and is awaiting a final coat of semi gloss white (In my case Gunze Sanyo H316 Insignia White). A final coat of MIG wash will be added to extenuate the detail that this brings. The photo also shows a snippet of the cockpit wall which has been painted and washed with MIG wash which has brought up the detail. You will also see in the photo a little bit of squadron green putty that was needed to complete the bottom section of the fuselage.
Before sealing the fuselage up, 100g of lead weight was added at the front of the cockpit which is definitely required otherwise you will have a model that sits on its tail! The instructions state the 70g is required but it best to be safe than sorry! After fitting the fuselage halves together, I do have to say that I am really disappointed with the fit of this kit. It has not been the best and it has fought all the way so far, however I am pretty sure it is due to the inclusion of the resin cockpit and will not be a problem if you use the kit cockpit. Cyno-acrylic glue and activator were used on the nose section of the fuselage to ensure this was securely fixed.
Wings & Engines….
The wings were now added to the fuselage. To get the correct dihedral the each wing leaves a 2mm gap on the upper surface. It is easily corrected once set in place with cyno acrylic and then filled with Squadron Green Putty. Once these are filled, the rear wing section and the engines, the model is almost ready for priming.