After putting the fuselage and wings together it was time to turn attention to the engines. These go together really well so I just took my time painting all the different components and then putting them together. Nothing tricky here.
The undercarriage components came from Scale Aircraft Conversions. All items were a direct replacement for the kit parts. I did struggle a bit to make these fit though. It felt like the metal parts were slightly smaller than the kit parts. They needed persuading to get them in to position.
When it came time to install the engine into the nacelle one thing I learnt which I think would help other modelers is to not glue the rear L shaped part of the engine mount until the next stage when the nacelles are fitted to the wing. These L shaped pieces fit into slots on the wing so it makes the whole job easier of they are not glued until that time.
Next up was the browning machine guns. The brass barrels from Mast Model are gorgeous, in fact they are may favorite upgrade. All you need to do is remove the kit barrel, drill a hole in the plastic part to receive the post on the end of the brass barrel and you are done. Once these are in position they look awesome.
The 20 mm Hispano cannons are also terrific add-ons but need a little more work to install. Once installed though the business end with the recoil springs really looks the business.
With these components installed it was finally time to put some paint on the bird. The whole model was primed with Mr Surfacer 1000 and then given a couple of light coats of Humbrol Medium Sea Grey.
In order to do the camouflage I took the kit paint guide down to my local Staples and had them enlarge it by 333%. This gave me a pattern that was just about the right size for the model - I think 335% might have been dead on.
I cut out the patterns so that I could spray on the Dark Green and used rolls of tacky putty to mount them on the aircraft. Copious amounts of masking tape were used to keep the lot spray proof. I had already decided to glue in position one set of engine covers, the others I mounted in place with masking resin so I could peel them off later.
After spraying the camouflage scheme there was still much to do. I replaced the kit fuel tanks with the Paragon Design after market items. These were just so much better than the skinny items in the kit. They were relatively easy to put together and sand to shape too.
Another Paragon Design after market item I used was their wheel well doors. Check out the picture - major improvement over the kit items.
I think I was running out of steam at this point. I did have a very hard time with the decals. They didn't go on well having a very thick film. Not sure if I did something to cause it but it didn't seem to matter how much Micro Sol and Set I used I couldn't get them to bond well. In fact about a week after putting them on one of the fuselage codes peeled off!
Fortunately I was able to procure some stencils from Mal Mayfields Custom Masks so I am going to spray these codes on to fix the problem. Many, many thanks to Mal who "came out of retirement" to make them for me.
So that was that - I tried to do some real weathering on the model especially from the exhausts over the wings and down the nacelles. I also did a lot of paint chipping and weathering on the propeller blades and wing leading edges. The tyres too got the treatment with some weathering powders.
While I was doing this I discovered Jamie Haggo's blog where he showcases his weathering work. Highly recommended, good work and a great sense of humor. Definitely worth a visit. Here's the link http://haggismodels.blogspot.com/
So that's it done. One last item - the canopy is an amazingly good fit so need to mess around there! Now just need to find somewhere to display it.
