Hi All,
As promised, some pictures and explanation to the many problems with the kit that I've encountered so far.
Wings.
These need a lot of sanding to remove the flash and the sprue attachment points. There are a number of holes to fill. Some to mark out and drill. Worst of all there is a definite 'sink' line along the rear trailing edge of the upper wing, which will need some filling, rectification.
Note that the boom attachment points are very narrow, so I intend to create some internal reinforcements inside the booms to help with alignment, and strength.
You might also be interested to note that the ailerons are shown on the instructions and in situ, where as they are separate items. Later on in the build the mounting ports for the wing support booms and the struts, do not appear in the build, just notionally in the instruction in situ.
Fuselage.
Well apart from the flash, the parts inhibit a coarse finish, which needs polishing out.
However, when you do a dry run, with the wing and canopy you realise that the fuselage is some 1.5mm narrow overall around the cockpit. Dimensionally, this my be incorrect, but to fit the parts supplied the fuselage needs a slight widening overall, this I will do by adding some plasticard shims.
In addition the locating pins do not help with the alignment as much as I would like. So I am going to add some thin plasticard tabs to the fuselage innards to add reinforcement as per vac-forming techniques.
Also this kit needs a lot of 'input' from the modeller, for instance the holes for the landing lights in the nose don't exist, the locations are given on the instructions where to drill, but it is not an easy task to get accurate.
When joining the upper fuselage I intend to add some brass pins to reinforce the delicate joining points, and perhaps some tabs, and maybe some 'not correct' internal sparing to beef up the structure. I might also need to enlarge the bulkheads by adding some plasticard to the parts to fit the enlarged girth.
Some pictures follow:-
Bigkev