Classic Airframes 1/48 Hawk III

[Bear43]

I finished with the engine. Painted the hub aluminum. The cylinders have a base of gunmetal topped with dark gull gray and then a black wash. Exhaust pipes were painted flat black then brushed with Tamiya rust powder. After that I attached the lower wings. Next step will be to fill a few more gaps and then hit it with primer to see where it stands before paint.

 

[Bear43]

Upper wing is together, cleaned up and primed. Fuselage assembly had final filling done and is ready for primer. Slowly but surely it is coming together.

 

[Bear43]

The fuselage assembly is in primer now. A little bit of smoothing in a couple spots and it will be ready for paint. Rather excited now. I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this kit.

 

[Bear43]

Final bit tonight was test fitting the engine and cowl. As you can see the engine is on nicely with exhaust routed well. However..... the cowl that goes around the engine is too small.... by a lot. So, I have to get that fixed. I already glued styrene rod to the ends of one cowl half and will need to trim, shape and smooth it out. It's an adventure!

 

[Golanthius]

Final bit tonight was test fitting the engine and cowl. As you can see the engine is on nicely with exhaust routed well. However..... the cowl that goes around the engine is too small.... by a lot. So, I have to get that fixed. I already glued styrene rod to the ends of one cowl half and will need to trim, shape and smooth it out. It's an adventure!

That is looking really good.
I had the same issue with the cowl on the Staggerwing. I attempted to modify but elected to just leave it off.

 

[Bear43]

From what I have read it seems to be a fairly common issue.

 

[Bear43]

I finally got some paint on the upper wing. A few weeks back I bought a cordless airbrush to try out and it works pretty well. I am still learning to work with it but it did work okay on the first coat on the wing. I also have the engine cowl sized right but still need to finish smoothing it out.