The undercarriage was fitted and this consists of some fiddly parts and you have to ensure everything sits correctly. With the wings and tailplanes fitted it was time to move on to the cockpit glazing, Initially I tried to mask this using Maskol but as some of the panes are small I opted for the Eduard set, disappointingly some of these are oversize and those for the rear turret main glazing don't have the lower cutouts for the framing. As usual Klear was applied before the decals were applied. It could have been me but some of the wing walkway ones seemed oversize and had to be trimmed. Despite applying Micro Set before applying them some of them still silvered and needed work to get something like. The main culprits were the fuselage codes so I carefully cut around them and the roundel with a sharp Stanley blade. An online builder said he had the same problems with the Airfix kit!! The propellers, upkeep mine and brackets were fitted before Satin varnish was applpied. All the fiddly parts like the aileron actuators and mass balances were then fitted. Bad move. I should have left these off as an actuator disappeared whilst removing the masking only to be followed by a rudder mass balance as I took the plane to be photoed. I had thought about using superglue for these small parts so another lesson learned. Lastly the turrets and fairings were fitted.
Online reviews of the kit say there are two major faults, the undercarriage is too short and the outer wing dihedral isn't steep enough. Others are, there is no DF loop for the cockpit, the glazing of which is a poor fit, and the instructions have you fit the H2S box (the one on the stick) in the cockpit. Provisioning Lancasters didn't have this fitted. It looks like a Lancaster so that's all that matters to me.
