A quick question.

On the Airfix Hampden and Battle, there appear a profusion of rivets on fuselage and flying surfaces. I'm guessing that these are too pronounced (but might tone down under a coat of paint). The reason I ask is I have seen some footage of a Hampden that seemed to be completely smooth in finish.

Should I remove all rivets and if so, would panel lines still need representing?

Sand down the rivets, no reasonable amount of paint will tone them down to a realistic level.

Thanks; will do! :-)

Yes the rivet detail on the old Airfix kits are over done, although the first time around the models were pretty good, in most cases they take some work to make a decent model by todays standard.
I don't build in 1/72 but if I were to build one of the old Airfix kits I would sand off all the detail and use a pencil to draw on the panel lines after the matt coat. If done carefully this method looks pretty good in this scale. You could of course scribe in the panel detail but I reckon in 1/72 scale drwing them on looks good and is much eisier
Mal