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Next was the cockpit…
Out of the box this is very good but the one thing that I felt was missing from the `basic` kit was cockpit stencilling, but how can you compete with Eduard’s Colour Photo etch? The kit instrument panel builds up excellently out of the box but it has one glaring error; the blue artificial horizon – all I can think is that Tamiya based theirs kit on a post-war restored aircraft that had a replacement instrument. I used a combination of the Eduard PE; Barracuda resin detail and a bit of scratch building to detail up the cockpit. It was painted with Tamiya`s XF-71 and dirtied up with washes and pigments to get that used look I wanted. I also added some Lycra thread for the control cables but these can hardly be seen when the fuselage is buttoned up.
With the cockpit and engine done it was time to dry fit these into the fuselage sides. The engine fit was perfect but the cabling on the cockpit sides needed a little `adjustment` to get the cockpit tub to fit as some of it interferes with the ribs. When doing this kit, keep reading the instructions as there are some differences to the Mk.IX build – I found this out the hard way!! Firstly make sure you drill the hole out in the lower fuselage, which I did notice but what I didn’t notice was I put the retractable tail wheel unit in upside down and this caused some problems later on but more about that further on.
I next turned to the wing and once again take note of the instructions. Depending on which version you do you need to cut out a small area from the wheel wells and all versions need the light holes drilled out before you join the wing halves. If you intend to use the bomb racks drill the locating holes for these at the same time. There are also different gun cover inserts so be careful as the Mk.IX`s are still included in the kit and if you don’t read the instruction there is a recipe for disaster here.
Once the wings were dry a quick fit to the fuselage showed an excellent gap free fit along the wing root – don’t you just wish all kits fitted this well !!
Warning …
