Hey FSM,
Nice to watch so much great modeling going on here!
I haven't had much time at the bench lately. It was a three day holiday for me this past weekend, but I had a list of honey-dos that took priority over plastic mashing. Hopefully, next weekend, I'll be able to share some significant progress with ya.
For now, I only have a couple of things to show. First, the SNJ.
I started its canopy. The clear parts are thick and brittle. Worse yet, they don't fit! The front windscreen's fit is passable, but the rest of the stuff is junk. I ordered a vacuformed replacement from Squadron.
I did use the windscreen and the rear part. Because of inconsistencies between the shape of the rear turtle deck and the clear part, I ended up with a major step. I had a serious gap to tackle and turned to a wad of Milliput.
After everything was dry, I started sanding and blending everything together.
I decided to use the kit's rear part instead of the vac copy because the kit's plastic's a little hardier. I figured it would handle the rough treatment better. I'll have to polish that rear piece once all the sanding's done, but at this point it looks like things may work out. I'll use the vac pieces for the greenhouse part of the canopy. (Insert sarcasm here.) I'm really looking forward to masking all the canopy panes.
Anyway, I also made a little progress on my Corsair. (Key word: little) It's all scribed and the major assemblies are together. The canopy and windscreen are masked and glued on, but before I installed them, I removed the kit's gunsight and scratched a new one. Using some clear plastic from some packaging, plastic tube and rod, I stared with this:
And ended up with this:
It's not perfect, but it's better. I go more for representation than replication, and in my opinion, it looks more like the gunsight in my Detail and Scale book than the one that came molded onto the glare shield.
So, that's where my two trainers are at. Hopefully I'll be able to make and share some significant progress soon.
Stay tuned!
-O