SPA Modeler

That looks excellent Joe

I hope you enjoy your vacation!

Thanks Stuart. I’m looking forward to throwing some paint on this bad boy.

Just to show some progress at the bench. I've managed to get the fuselage halves joined together. I've just got the upper nose panels press fitted into place during the whole body work/ painting process. Sanding and filling are at a premium here.....



One thing I do NOT miss about aircraft modeling is seam filling in small areas. The seam line going down the middle of the bird was interrupted by these small panels in front of the windscreen soooooooooooo.....gotta take care of the seam lines on the panels themselves. I'll be using my tried and true super glue filling method on these and then I'll rescribe the panel lines.

Some more progress so far. It's mostly been build up and getting things ready for the painting stage of the build. Looks like the wing/ fuselage fit is gonna be pretty good on this one. Good ol' Tamiya kits...just can't beat 'em.

Flawless

Excellent work Joe!

Sent gut!

Thanks fellas! Due to some issues at work, my time on the forums has been limited but I'm trying to make a comeback. I have not, however, given up bench time.

Of the Tamiya kits that I have put together, I haven't yet seen one with such a bad fit between the fuselage/ wing join areas....until now. I've been sanding all week long and will produce some photos of the results when I'm done with that process.

Here's the pics of what I'm up against though. A most terrible fit for such a good kit. At first I thought it was due to the aftermarket landing gear bay pieces but all of those clear the inside of the wing bottom. Dunno what it was but in any case.....I had my work cut out for me.



and the topside aint any better...

It's been a good ten years since I built this kit oob, I can't remember if I had problems here or not

I've never built this kit but I did build the DML/Dragon kit and had the same issues in the,same places