Finally managed to get back out to the bench last night after a weekend and change of illness, and found that a few days away were more than enough for several dozen tiny spiders to set up shop in between bottles and under lights and pretty much everywhere. Ugh. Good thing I keep the kits in tupperware bins.
I must have wanted to make up for lost bench time, since I got a ton done on the La-5 last night. Got the stabs, control surfaces, and major forward panels attached, and it's really looking like a plane now.
The control surfaces let me down a little bit. Their fit is nowhere near as assured as the internal structure/fuselage/wing assembly. But it was more of a frustration than any real problem.
The forward panels were a bit more of a hassle, since you've got four major pieces that have to hold together and to the fuselage with nothing more than your adhesive of choice, and all of the major seams are choked with some of the finest surface detail I've ever seen on a 1/48 kit.
I know this kit hasn't had near the exhaustive coverage of others, so in the interest of sharing, here's how I tackled this section:
I stated with the gun panels/air intake bulge piece. This piece basically covers the area from the windscreen forward. It sits on the exhaust shielding on the sides, and uses the engine as a support up top. I couldn't bear to mar the fine detail on the exhaust shielding, so I tacked the piece back near the cockpit, pulled the engine, then joined the sides from inside the fuselage. Once everything was pretty well cured I shoved the engine back in.
Next came the left and right engine access panels. These also contain the leading edge of the wing root. I touch-n-flowed along the wing root, figuring it'll need filling and sanding anyway, then along the top where the panels butt up against the intake bulge.
With these in place, it's easy to notice that the "tongue" protruding from the lower wing cants up too high and doesn't align. I fixed that by prying the tongue down and welding it to the access panels from the inside, and then the outside.
After that it was a simple matter of attaching the cowl. This could have actually been a lot easier with one simple addition to the kit. The top of the cowl has a little tab where it lines up and slots into the intake bulge. Another tab on the bottom to position the underwing tongue would have really helped ensure proper alignment. But oh well.
I also ended up chopping off the exhausts. Love the idea, but with the covers in place, you literally cannot see them, and on top of that they were interfering with fit.
Overall, I'm still loving this kit. It's fun and forces you to stay on your toes, but it's also test-fit friendly and the soft-ish plastic welds together like a dream.
As of now, the La-7's getting close to the end of principal construction, and the Yak-3 is just about ready for primer.
