Marcus B. Hi Martyn, I've made some progress with the kit. Sorry for not posting any pictures here, I did however post an update on my blog couple of days ago - plasticwingsandarmor..ju-88a4-part-ii.html - and will be posting another one either today or tomorrow.
If I am to go into details, the cockpit area is the main challenge with this kit. Be especially careful with fit of part J-C100 (step 13 in assembly manual), you need to think about it beforehand, while working with final assembly of cockpit sidewalls (step 😎. It is especially challenging since J-C100 is clear plastic, but needs to be painted. I really think that Revell could have gone an extra step and provided regular plastic part with clear inserts, would have made this step a lot less scary.
15 April 2014, 00:11
Martyn Fox Thanks for the heads up. I managed to pick up the kit at a show on the weekend. It only cost me £15 and that was with the Eduard canopy masks.
15 April 2014, 09:58
Marcus B. Progress report - main components are now assembled and primed. Next preshading. No major issues to report, although I didn't like the fact that Revell expects you to drill the holes for location plugs of wing bomb mounts by yourself and doesn't even provide decent instructions for their position. In the end, I just cut of the location plugs and guestimated correct position of the mounts.
15 April 2014, 19:50
Marcus B. An additional heads up regarding the bomb mounts. Revell provides two identical sets of sprues for mounts, wheels, engines and so on. It may seem a bit confusing at first that the total of mounts is actually six and not four, but that's because inner mounts are slightly different while outer mounts are identical. So Revell simply duplicates 'outer', 'inner right' and 'inner left' on each sprue. It is actually good idea to write inside the parts which step in instruction manual they are to avoid mixing components together when gluing them in place.
15 April 2014, 19:56
Marcus B. Main assembly and paint job done. Word of caution about ridiculously over-engineered belly copula - seven parts if one is to count a machine gun split in two parts (why?) and two of the parts being made of clear plastic but nevertheless needing almost complete overpainting. Getting all the parts to fit 100 percent was beyond my skills. Dry-fit that sub-assembly often and carefully if you want to avoid potentially time-consuming mistakes!
17 May 2014, 20:11
Marcus B. And I'm done. Not for beginners and taxed my skills to the limit and on a couple of occasions beyond it. But I must say that I am quite pleased with the end result.
4 June 2014, 21:00
Martyn Fox Excellent looking model. To my eyes you've got the paint job spot on with some wonderful subtle weathering. Well done 🙂
Marcus B.
Martyn Fox