Blast from the past: don't have and couldn't find the acrylic version of 109 WWI Blue, so dug out my enamel, just like when I was a kid 🙂
(And figured sod it, might as well use the metalcotes too)
... but no, despite being the sturdy 1:48 one, between removing the spine part of the chair from the sprue and then looking at it again 5 seconds later, I'd managed to lose an arm!
Bodged one with a bit of offcut sprue.
My thinking is, from outside of the cockpit tub once assembled, it'll look fine. Disaster averted.
Still love to know how I managed to knock that bit off!
Not wishing to cast aspersions on Airfix's calculations but I'm going 5g more than they've recommended, I don't want a tail-sitter doing wheelies.
Of course, iron weights and the aforementioned neodymium magnets have already been arguing as I did a dry fit... sigh.
That snapped together nicely. Gap between wing top surfaces and fuselage is a bit bigger than I'd like/expect, but not sure if filler would actually make more of a mess!
Two Rolls-Royce RB.37 Derwent engines - think they've come out quite nicely. So many different metal finishes in there, adds a lot of texture and interest. Citadel washes impressing me too.
Cameras and the complicated nose wheel / camera mount thingy. Bit worried about how strong it is, given all the weight I packed in on the other side of that bulkhead!
As Sun Tzu never said, precut masks never survive first contact with the model... but I'm at least consistent across the two!
It occurred to me as I masked these two that I'm building a scale model of a scale model 🙂 ... which is a two-edged sword as they each help explain some fits and positions on each other, but I also want to get them as similar as possible.