Big updated tonight representing about 2 hours of work put into it this morning. Sorry about the white balance bouncing around so much; my workbench area gets morning light.
First I trimmed up the cockpit areas on the fuselage in preparation for the photo etch pieces. The fret has a cockpit tub shape and sidewalls so there needs to be room.
Drilled and shaped openings for casing chutes, intake and lift points. The chutes were tricky because I don't have a file small enough to get it just right so I was very careful with a sharp #11. I actually went around behind the opening and thinned out the areas so it looks more in scale.
The landing gear doors weren't designed to really fit in up position so a bit of sanding/shaving was needed around the edges.
They also don't fit totally flush without a little help in the form of an offset. The extra bits of styrene also help to close up and peek-a-boo gaps.
Also added the wheels. Since the edge of the tires are the only thing that shows I just glued them straight in place. I was a little concerned about there not being enough room (which is silly because I'm not using the wheel well part) and I cut off the detail on the inside of the upper surfaces.
This was also a good time to join the wings.
You can also see I filled and puttied open areas on landing gear areas. There were initially filled with styrene but then I trimmed it down and added the putty. The final look will be nice and smooth. Also puttied the supercharger intake.
Opened barrel mounts a bit. The Master Brass barrels look damn fine as Hippo's eyes.
A couple small things, too. Primed/Etched PE to better prep it for painting, cowling assembly and added aerial and vertical antenna lines.
Dry fitting the wings to fuselage cause me to learn about a gap that needed filling...on both sides. This was remedied by some very thin styrene which I will trim next.
But the angle looks good....
Lastly, for this update. This bird is magnetized. I figured the short stack would be plenty powerful enough to keep it from spinning around if the center of gravity is off. That's yet to be determined. BUT the magnets I used are also just right for the top of the Round 2 ball joint. I had to rough up the magnet with some super coarse grit sanding sticks to get the bond nice and strong.