Hi folks, just a quick update on my progress to date. My work schedule and family obligations usually means I get a chance to work on this starting around 10PM at night so progress is a little slow. But getting there.
Most of the major structures have been attached. Wings went together great with no serious gaps. I did add a little bit of putty and associated sanding along the fuselage’s middle lower exterior panel beneath the wing roots. Because of the sanding I will have to rescribe some nearby panel lines.
I have painted some of the exterior details and the guns, which will allow me to finally attach the clear canopy parts this week. Last week I was able to get the canopy polished, coated with future, and finally masked using Eduard masks. Wow, that took a bit of time (did it over two nights) but I can only imagine how long that would take to cut out manually using foil or tape. I highly recommend them. I had to reattach them several times to get them where I wanted and had not problems with them getting stretched or out of shape.
After adding all that PE I believe it made the already detailed and packed Revell interior a little tigher ins some parts. This likely impacted the front nose piece where I have too much of a gap showing along the sides (top and bottom are good). I haven't tried the rear canopy areas yet but dry fitting indicates they match up well.
Below are some pics of the guns (minus the reticles) and recently attached reci (pilot sight). I painted the guns Model Master Metallic paints (gun metal with dry brushed silver). The pilot sight uses the Eduard PE interior parts set, including the clear arcylic part. This wasn't as hard to mount as I thought it would be... Altough it didn't show up in this photo, the gauges received a drop of testors clear canopy glue to simulate glass. Worked out great. I did encounter an error when trying to mount the pilot gauge assembly into the cockpit area. I had adverntly mounted the gauge backing plate to far forward (basically flush with top edge) which would not allow it to fit in the canopy. Thus, I had to pry it off and remount it further back. This shot is before I realized my mistake.
The photo below shows the landing gear strut ready for painting. I used the Eduard PE exterior set for additional details such as the brake lines and some extra bolts.Before mounting the exhaust in the cowlings I decided to paint them first (will later mask them off). I used an old trick I learned from Shep Paine for armor mufflers and mixed some baking soda with dark brown Testors enamels; then dry brushed them with lighter rushed shades. This gave it some texture to simulate rust. I have since changed the tail wheel color from the recommended olive green like color indicated by the manual to a light gray shade. This was based on research of an actual JU88 A1 going thru reconstruction:
http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=21808
I hope to get most of this done over the holidays! I would like to add it to a diorama that shows both a concrete tarmac and grass. Still looking at ideas.