It was time to add the decals to the other cockpit now. These are the decal parts that all had to be added to this cockpit. The majority of them are for the instrument panels alone:
Here are the decals added to the cockpit side panels:
These went on very well and stayed in place nicely. I did notice that these weren't cut to the shape of the side panels either, but with some simple adjustments, I got them to fit well enough.
Here are all the little decals on the instrument panels. It was a challenge getting them all on without messing up the ones placed before. The trick is to start in the center bottom and work your way up and out. These had just been hit with Solvaset so they hadn't yet sucked down into the details when this pic was taken:
Here is a shot of the two cockpits side by side so you can see the differences between the P/E set and the decals. You can see that I dry-brushed a white on the P/E parts to bring out the details:
One thing I realized later was that I had forgotten to put in a piece behind the front pilot's seat on each of these cockpits. I did try to pull the seats out but I had glued them in too tightly to remove them. Here are the cockpits next to the piece I forgot to install:
We shall see whether that will make a major difference or not once everything is put together and covered with the canopy.
Moving on, I then assembled the front gear bay and cemented it to the cockpit tubs. Afterward I installed these sub-assemblies into one side of the forward fuselage. The instructions call for 5 grams of weight to be placed inside the nose cone, but since I don't have a scale; I'm supplementing the weight inside the nose cone with the additional weight in front of the cockpit as seen here:
I then closed up the two fuselage halves on each one. You can see on the P/E cockpit that I was correct; the incorrectly cut P/E on the side consoles did make the two halves difficult to close:
With some extra pressure and clamps, I was able to close it up sufficiently and will hopefully not have a seam at all. Looking inside; it appears the P/E was not dislodged or damaged in any way. Here are both cockpits closed up inside the forward fuselage halves; the P/E one has more clamps on it:
Later on I'll add the P/E ejection seat pull handles, paint them and then close the canopy down over these to protect those P/E pieces. I will also probably mask them afterward with some liquid mask to prepare this early for paint.
That's all I have for now on this.
Still a nice kit though!