Next comes the painstaking task of filling in the gaps of the kit. Armed with MMD’s Fast drying Green Putty (I love this stuff!) and applying it with wooden cuticle sticks I spent the next few nights applying the putty, sanding back and re-applying if necessary around the kit’s tail, air intake and wing joins. A useful tip I found is to minimise the amount of putty on the plastic, masking off either side of the join with masking tape; placing the required amount on the join and this reduces excess, thus sanding time! As you can see below I spent a bit of time filling and sanding down. However, I am really beginning to like the kit now it is taking shape. I will be honest and say the model does require a lot of filling of gaps, flash removal, filling of sink marks and patience to get it to an acceptable standard, so do not lose faith and take your time to fill the gaps in.
Sanding of the filler was carried out with 400 grade wet and dry, used in a circular motion to reduce the filler. The excess was removed from the recessed lines with a sharp scalpel blade and any panel lines that were removed or damaged during this stage were re scribed.
A point worth noting is that if you are planning to finish the aircraft with the air brake and IFR retracted you will need to carry out dry-fitting of both parts to ensure that these fit flush with the fuselage.
Painting
We now get to the interesting part of the kit. I always thought that one tone models (with the exception of the nose and small tonal markings on the leading edges) were the easier models to get right. In theory you can use one paint to coat the model in and finish? Right? I suppose the answer to this question lies in the amount of realism you want to give to the finish. I have opted to give my model a more realistic finish, effectively adding (I hope) depth to the finish.