Thanks Tom, glad you like it.
Oh, I've been such sloth lately...
But I've finally got some more progress to show. I was thinking I was almost ready for priming but it turned out there was still a few things to do before masking the cockpit opening and starting to shake up that primer can.
First was the gunsight. The moulded-in reflector glass was thick and had a seam running down the middle so it had to go. Due to the nature of injection moulding, there was no lens detail under the gunsight glass, so I glued in a small ring made from wire to represent this.
The gunsight glass was made from left-over acetate sheet from some PE set.
^ Now that's the style of sprue channel placement I like! The part can be painted and handled while still connected to the sprue and it's placed so it doesn't need any touch-up when clipped off.
Out of the box, the fit of the pitot tube was loose and sloppy due to the too large mounting hole. I plugged the hole with a piece of styrene rod and drilled in a new hole so the pitot fit snuggly.
Peculiarly, the antenna mast was also a bit loose fit to its mounting hole in the fuselage. That was easily solved with a shim of thin styrene sheet. The wire mounting loop was moulded solid so I sliced it off and replaced it with a bit of brass wire bent to shape.
Okay, now I think I can safely say I'm pretty ready for priming. I've still got to take a look at the prop retaining grommet, though. I made the mistake of installing it without checking that it worked like it should. It turned that the space where it's trapped is slightly too long, letting the grommet to move back and forth just enough to render it useless. I hope I can insert some narrow styrene strip between the grommet and the front edge of the its cavity to get it sit snuggly. If not, I guess I'll just have to use blu-tac to make the prop sit properly.
Oh, and more thing, I've got to add brake lines to the main landing gear. That's it with the tinkering then, I'll promise!
