I decided to do a mini-WIP for my next build, 11th in my personal series of the Year of the Axis Build. I hesitate to call the kit ancient given that it is as old as I am, but it was released in the distant year of 1967. I built it a couple of times as a kid. In fact, these Monogram kits in this baby blue box are among my earliest memories, and in recent years I have scoured eBay for these kits. So this will be I think the fifth of those blue box kits I have built as an adult.
Here is the box top:
Note the shelf wear on the edges of the box.
When I received this kit in the mail, there was an extra included inside the box. I presume this is the original shrinkwrap with the price tag still affixed.
Not surprisingly, this is quite a simplistic kit with very few parts.
Note the very simplistic instructions:
The exploded diagram was, I believe, a fairly common style that Monogram kits of the era used. Perhaps this explains why modeling was so easy for me to pick up as a youngster (I built a Monogram P-40B at age 3 with a lot of help from my dad, but that one also had a page with the exploded diagram).
So the reason for my decision to do a WIP for this simplistic build is the cockpit. This kit, as normal for the era, has next to nothing for the cockpit. There are a couple of figures and a front seat, along with a couple of instrumentation decals. As with the other old Monogram blue box kits that I've built, save the F8F Bearcat, I've been compelled to scratch out details for this build. So here is the starting point - a barren cockpit:
In the second photo there, I have cut sheet styrene to fit as walls and a floor for the cockpit, and the kit's forward seat is there on the lower left. Everything else is little griblets I pulled out of my spares box - a couple of seats, a machine gun that I will use as a control column, some instrumentation, a seat mount, a box, and some ammo drums. Some of the scaling is inaccurate, i.e. 1/48, but for the most part my intent is to fill the area and make it look as respectable as possible through the thick kit canopy (which is one piece and I will not be cutting it to pose open hatches).
I have already cast an eye toward painting this little guy, by making masks of the splinter pattern that I will use on the wings and stabilizer. I may cut masks for the mottling, but I'm first going to attempt to put down scale-correct mottling on an old test subject before I attempt to cut masks for that.
Finally, the decals:
These are not usable as is. Many are split in parts. I could spray them with a sealant to see if they will hold up to water, but I really wanted to build a Wespen (German for wasp) Zerstoerer, so I found a set of decals for that.
I'll be doing option #1 on the decal sheet, a Bf110 flying out of Bryanski, Russia, in June 1942.
These old Monogram 1/72 kits typically include a stand. I am going to use the stand for this build, and close up the wheel wells (which otherwise would require some scratch building). Something else I'm toying with is cutting the blades from the props and fashioning clear disks to represent spinning props. I'm not really sure what medium to acquire for this - maybe some clear sheet styrene? Also I am not sure how to make it look like a spinning prop rather than a clear disk as the Germans didn't paint the prop tips yellow or red. I'll be researching that.