SPA Modeler

Kit decals... after much Micro Setting and Micro Soling. The design of these is impressionistic; and meant to look like the modeler painted the highlights and the lowlights or the lights and the darks in a loose way. This feels a bit dated to me, but the whole darn point of doing this group build is to simply build and finish. So! Onward. Actually I made the propeller hub much better but this will need to be primed in white first. No photos yet. It's too late for that. All the best.

Go rest your eyes Bruce, looks great so far! Watching this come together

Thanks, Brent. You and your family are in my prayers. Thank you so much for your encouragement!

Looks like the kit decal is off register. But in this scale it will be hard to tell once the cockpit is closed up. Keep pushing forward Bruce!

And, all tha SPAMmer were chanting, “Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” And were awestruck. By the simple elegance and industrial beauty of the construction. Well done good and kind Sir! Well done!

Great stuff Bruce!

Yes, build and finish. Stay focused on the mission. The IP decal looks good enough. I bet that thing is about the size of a small fingernail or less. Once it’s mounted and closed up in the fuselage, any imperfections will be hard to spot.

I'm having trouble viewing the pics from my browser at the office. I think the firewall is blocking access to Postimage. For a brief moment, a window opened and I was able to access Postimage so I can see Bruce's photos on this page. But this page only... strange.

So you are going to light the fuse and try to finish the build before the dynamite blows? I guess that's one way of forcing completion so I'm interested to see how this goes. The cockpit looks fine. Depending the clarity of the clear parts, you may not even be able to make out the instrument panel, let alone discern any details. Have you determined your subject? Is it the "265" aircraft? I can reference the JaPo 109K book for details.

Goals updated:

Week 1

Cut everything loose. No way and I am not sure why I wrote this in the first place other than it sounds good, taking action! In reality I need to keep all of the parts on their respective sprues to avoid feeding the carpet monster.

Cockpit build and paint. Yes. On schedule for completion when the Revi gunsight and seat belts are added. I checked fit and everything will seal up inside as intended by Heller.

Canopy mask and paint. Mask tonight.

Problem: missing piece 38 which is the armored headrest; solution: scratch build it. Build today from clear plastic or vinyl sheet.

Fuselage assembly and clean up. Cut gunsight loose, paint, add to IP and decals of seatbelts to cut out and white glue to the pilot seat in order to seal the fuselage tonight. Here’s hoping Micro Set will keep the decals in place. May need to add thinned white glue to the top decal to seal that more permanently.

Wings assembly and clean up. Tonight.

Propeller blade correction. Done. This has been the most complicated change to the kit so far, which really was nothing by comparison to kit builds we pretty much are all doing these days. I guess that’s the “Royal We” like the Dude says.

The Heller spinner backing plate is slightly smaller in diameter than the spinner cap; although the backing plate is the right size. I temporarily glued the parts together and sanded them to shape using photos to guide me. By sanding the front half to match the rear plate, and blunting the tip slightly to remove the 'pointy' look, an accurate spinner shape was obtained. 
The hole for the co-axial cannon in the spinner was drilled out.

Shouts of thanks: Clint, thank you so much! I’ll keep moving! Lyle, Thank you for your support which truly means the world to me. Carlos, Thank you most gratefully for all of your advice on the subject. John, hullo and welcome! I don’t know why the servers of Post Image are not working to show you the images. I checked my phone and desktop (Safari and Brave are my browsers), and can see everything. I don’t have a way to check a PC, maybe someone else online can confirm? Finally yes there are markings for three aircraft in the kit and 265 is my choice. Thanks again!