With the pit finished and the bench in pace I was able to finish off construction by fitting the wings, tail and the few other parts.
When I was adding the lever to the cockpit IP I think is for the tow cable release, I realised there was no attachment point for said cable. On checking some pics I noticed a small hole at the front just under the nose. Guessing that this is for the tow cable, I drilled this out.
Next up was a coat of primer and some paint. Its hardly the most challenging scheme in the history of aircraft and makes RLM 70/71 splinter look exciting. The Germans painted these aircraft a single colour, which I believe was RLM 02, just before the assault, including covering up all markings, in an attempt to confuse the Belgium's.
I have never pre shaded an aircraft before, and now I know why. A lot of images show a dark circle on the fuselage side where the black cross would be. I am guessing the cross was painted over with black first to stop the cross showing through. I painted the black circle before painting, but despite thinning the paint sand spraying very lightly over that patch, the circle vanished, as you can tell above. After about 3 attempts, I finally got it, though it is very faint and doesn't show in the pics below either.
After finally getting this sorted, I used some Flory wash in the recessed areas and then lightly dry brushed with the base colour and white oil paint. Its still wet in the pics below and I will have to wait a day or two before I can do the underside.
So that's how the glider sits for now. next, the base. The side received a single coat of wood stain and then several coats of varnish.
Once dry, the celluclay, mixed with some white glue and acrylic paint's to get the colour wanted, was added. I use the paint sold in large bottles designed for children and you get lots of it and its pretty cheap. This was left for a couple of days to dry in a warm place and then just went around the edges filling in where it shrank. I must have got the mix right this time as shrinkage was minimal.
Then today I got all the grass and some bushes added
Finally, the weapons and figures. Squad 8 carried 2 of the large 50kg hollow charge weapons.
And 3 of the smaller 12.5kg weapons.
The Preiser set has 3 of the larger devices and 2 of the smaller. As you can see, the small device is pretty well replicated, but the larger one is just a flat dish.
You can see in the image of the large device a join towards the bottom. It can in two sections, and several accounts report it being assembled on the objective. This makes sense as trying to carry 110Ib load one handed, as 2 of the Preiser figures are, while running in a crouch would be near impossible. carrying that load on your back is bad enough. So using some sprue from the kit which was just about the right dimensions, I scratch built the 2 large devices and one of the smaller ones.
I still have to add the carrying handles to these.
And finally the figures. The trousers were painted with Tamiya field grey, I then dry brushed these. The smocks were done in Vallejo Green Grey.
Next up i'll get on with the figures while I leave the oils on the glider to dry. I also have to finish off some barb wire.
Thanks for looking, all comments welcome.
