SPA Modeler

Man... watching your work is better than watching TV. I'm in awe with the progress. Enjoy the break and spend time with your family and fishing.

Leaving for my fishing trip on Friday so I'm only doing small things on the Dora this week.

Here's a closer view of the starboard wing root joint that needs attention. I used a piece of sprue fused with Tamiya Extra Thin cement to fill the visible gap. The panel including the bulge on the wing is the one piece access cover for the wing guns so the joint at the wing root needs to be completely eliminated.



A look at the joint on the fuselage bottom. You can see the white sliver of sheet plastic that I used as a shim. After the joint is cleaned up, I'll finish up the rivets on this small portion of fuselage bottom.



This small piece between the wheel well openings is now ready to be glued into place. First I want to secure the ammo chutes so I dab some Elmer's White Glue around the joint.


I then put the wing piece into place and allow the ammo chutes to dry in the final position. The incessant dry-fitting has scraped away some paint on the ammo chutes as well as the ammo container. Once the white glue is dry, I'll remove the piece and fix the paint scrapes.



I can now glue that final wing piece into place. Note the two holes along the centerline. These need to be drilled out beforehand if you are planning to mount the centerline drop tank.



Speaking of drop tank, I decided to put some dents on my already painted drop tank. The paint was wiped off and I added a few dings using a Dremel.

Good job with the stretched sprue to fill the panel seam. A very good idea I will file away for future use if need be. Your approach to things like that have been a trove of new ideas and techniques to add to my bag of tricks.
Just like dinging up the drop tank... that is a perfect touch! Very clever sir!

Never thought of dinging up a drop tank. This definitely will add the realism of a drop tank. Well done!!

I'm not a big fan of Luftwaffe stuff mainly, but that is a beaut of a build (Awesome in fact).

portman wrote: that is a beaut of a build (Awesome in fact).

I'll be seconding that sentiment. Great ideas and tips in this build. I absolutely love the level of detail that I'm seeing here!!!!

Hello friends! It's been a while! My fishing trip was a bust! Spent two days on the tuna grounds off the backside of San Clemente Island. We found the bluefin tuna but it was hard to get them to bite. In addition to the sport fishing fleet, there was also a group of commercial seiners boxing the same general area so that probably made the fish skittish. I fished hard for two days and I didn't even get a bite. 11 bluefin tuna for 26 anglers. Zero fish for me. It was disappointing but that's how these things go sometimes. And despite the lack of fish, I had a really good time. This was an invitation-only private charter so most of the peeps were good friends of mine that I don't get to see too often since we don't fish as much as we used to.


I returned from the fishing trip to a busy work week so I didn't have time to do any more work on Black 1. Today, I stuck my head into the workshop just to see where I was at.

The drop tank has been repainted after I added the dents. I've added the stencil decals so the tank is ready for some weathering.



The wing roots are in the process of being cleaned up. After the sprue filler, one round of puttying/sanding is complete and I've added another application of Mr Surfacer 1000 on the MG cover since there should be no seam here.



Our family trip to Berkeley is coming up in a few days so this build won't get revved up again until next week at the earliest. I hope that everyone is well!

Too bad about the fishing trip John. But if you were in good company that you have not spent time with for awhile, that makes up for the lack of catch. You guys really went out into open ocean, going west of San Clemente.

The little update on your build looks great. The drop tank is ready at least!