I thought I had been cured...

[Gondor]

Filler, filing, prep work and drilling. That is what I have been doing today, at the cost of a 0.5mm drill bit;    the wings are ready to accept the new wingtips, though. First, the underside of the wings need lost detail rescribed into them, not something that I am the best at, although I think I might be getting a bit better at it.

I also found out that the conversion set has two sets of doors. One closed, and the other open, so when building one of the spare forward fuselages, I won't need to get hold of a spare set of undercarriage doors; I can use a closed set! In fact I think I only need to make an intake cover and then I can cobble together the rest of the covers, etc that I need 


Gondor

[Gondor]

I'm a bit of an idiot, although some others' thoughts on that may vary, I still concede that I'm a bit of an idiot.

The reason is that I decided to remove some parts from their supports and test-fit them. Nothing wrong in that, you may think. However, you may change your mind when you realise that I was test-fitting the radome and everything is almost a very tight friction fit, and with the radome, you have nothing, and I mean nothing to get hold of to try and pull it back out once it's in 



Test fitting the radome had not been a problem with the first build, especially when the forward fuselage had not been fitted to the rest of the airframe. Now, not so good an idea as all the fuselage sections are firmly glued together.

This may lead to plan B 

Now, plan B involves one of the initial forward fuselages. This has had a cockpit fitted along with an intake trunking to make a forward fuselage section. I have also fitted a set of closed nose undercarriage doors, and am currently making up an intake cover to go over the front of the nose section. This will get part of an old From Lightning F.6 radome fitted into the centre of it to represent the P.8's radome.





I also managed to rescribe some panel detail to the underside of the wings.



It's not perfect, but it's on the underside and will do the job nicely.

Next up, I need to make instrument panels and fit the combing that goes over the top of them, it might also be a good idea for me to cut to shape one of the canopies so I can check that everything fits inside the cockpit. If all that goes well, then I will feel safe enough to add the undercarriage and wings.

Gondor

[scautomoton]

if you pinch the sides of the nose the radome should just slip in and out easily

[Gondor]

I had a quick go this morning, no luck, but then this is the latest version of nose with integral intake ducting, so probably not very flexible. Not a problem as the intake trunking was painted and I only need to paint the part of the nose that will be seen.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Slow to no progress most of this week. I did manage to get the wing tip launch rails fitted to both sets of wings.



0.3mm rod glued into 0.5mm holes. I allowed for the glue, but maybe a 0.4mm rod would have been better.



A bit of filler and a sliver of plastic card, and everything should look good. The other three are similar, but all fitted, which is the main thing.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I have been away to Inverness for a wedding, not mine, and have been mainly relaxing since I got back. Today though, I got a bit more work done. Three canopies have been cut away from the rest of the clear plastic to a standard of 'very close', which will allow me to ensure that I can get the interior parts checked for fitment while everything is separate parts. I have also been working on the main undercarriage legs. One set is assembled and ready to be fitted to the fuselage, the other set has been prepared ready to be assembled to the same stage.

I have also been finishing the fuselage, which I had previously added some filler to the rear join. That was also sanded back today, and the fuselages given a wash. They both need to be checked to see if any detail needs to be reinstated, and once that's complete, I can then add the undercarriage.

I really must get on with painting the ejector seats, or they will end up holding back everything.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Received today from @scautomoton, now Machina Models



This will be built in the future along with the AW.169

Gondor

[Gondor]

Further work has happened, just not a lot of it.

The cockpit display has made progress, so let's start this update with a big toothy grin



The small pieces of square plastic rod are to act as supports for the radome





The instrument panel coaming has also been started



I know it's not what was recommended by @scautomoton in the instructions, but as this is a display or a cockpit section that was rescued from the scrap heap, bits needed to be made to replace missing parts. That's my reasoning behind the scratch building of the coaming and any other disparity.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Further work was carried out today.

Dentures were fitted 



and the opposite end of the cockpit was covered over



I tried to have some of the panels overlap, as it might have been done in real life.



Some came out better than others. Just the thin plastic card and a pair of parallel pliers, along with some imagination, were all that was used other than the glue to stick the parts in place.

Gondor