The final part with the main model before I went back to the resin engine was to fit the outer wings. These slot nicely onto the spars but I would recommend going over the spars with sharp knife to remove a fraction of their surface to ease the fit as they’re a little tight otherwise and there is potential to damage this area if you were to try and force them on.
The wing support struts are great as they give the folded wing a bit more support and ensure the fold angles are correct and equal for both wings.
Resin engine
Now for that resin engine. I initially assembled this in a different sequence from what I am about to describe and found that the cylinders didn’t line up with the front and rear cowls and it just looked all wrong. I ended up dissembling everything, cleaning up the parts and repainting them where necessary before starting again.
I discovered the trick with the assembly is the use of 5-minute epoxy glue, using the front and rear cowlings as alignment jigs and doing a few cylinders at a time. The glue allows you time to adjust the alignment of the cylinders before it goes off and by doing the cylinders in stages this allows you more time to ensure you have things all lined up correctly.
The pictures pretty much guide you through the construction process that I used and this worked. The only issue I had was with the rear cowling. I snapped this when I was trying to remove unwanted superglue from my first unsuccessful attempt at putting it together. I couldn’t get a clean fit when I glued the parts back together and I couldn’t get all the excess superglue off it without doing further damage so I ended up using the spare kit rear cowling. Even with this compromise the end result is far better than the kit engine even with the extra detailing I added (this is not to say the kit engine is at all bad, it’s very good, but resin just allows more detail to be seen in the casting process).
The resin engine slotted onto the kit engine bulkhead and exhaust stubs without any issues. Just be aware that, unlike the kit cowlings, you cannot fit and remove the centre cowling sections. They are designed to be left off and are for show only as being detached.
IMAGE SET ONE
IMAGE SET TWO
Summary
Well what can I say about this kit. It carries on from where the birdcage and 1A left off and in keeping with these two kits is a beautiful model. It may be expensive but you pay for quality and this is what you get here. From the box it will make into a very nice model but if you add the extras as I have you can get a stunning model.
There is not a lot more I can say except if you haven’t built one you really need to and once you’ve done one the chances are you will want to do the other two (or three) variants – I did!!
Dave C.
SMN Quick summary star rating out of 5
| FEATURE | STAR RATING |
|---|---|
| Quality of moulding | ***** |
| Accuracy | ***** |
| Instructions | **** |
| Decals | *** |
| Subject choice | ***** |
| Build enjoyment | ***** |
| Overall | ***** |
Gallery
Below are a series of images of the completed model. Click on a thumbnail to see the enlarged image.
