Hi guys,
I finally have some WIP shots to show. I was hoping to be at this point five days ago but life as always intervened. The Tamiya 262 is a dream of a kit but not without a few challenges, the tightness of fit means you need to flex some parts together, and others, while a far closer fit than most out there, are still not perfect -- the gunbay cover, for instance. Great if you have an open bay, but it takes some pushing and holding to install the closed bay part.
First up, here are the subassemblies, fuselage together and wing together. Note the engines were masked even at this point, so as to minimise handling afterward, seeing as the nose gear was an obligatory installation before closing up the fuselage.
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Then I fitted the bay covers, tail surfaces, and joined the main assemblies. The fit is so tight and close that they'll snap-fit, so after a few dry runs I ran some liquid glue around the mating surfaces and eased them together. The starboard wingroot is not quite as close as the port, but not far enough out to be worth trying to do anything about it. She looks pretty good with main structures finished:
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The Eduard masks came in yesterday so my next job should be to paint and install the gunsight, then fit the canopy and apply the masks. Wet tissue in the engine trunks, figure out how to mask those open, detailed gear bays, and she'll be just about ready for the paintshop. That means I need to research Red 13 and see if I can get a handle on the most likely RLMs.
Cheers, guys, keep up the good work, remarkable builds all round -- comments forthcoming, I promise!
Mike/TB379
PS: Frank, happy birthday, you've joined the 40-somethings. See, it didn't actually hurt, did it?!