Hi guys -- it slipped my mind I'd taken some progress pics of the Hasegawa E-7 as I was bringing her together (this work thing occupies far too much of my attention!) Here are some shots as I was getting the subassemblies together:
She came together pretty quick after that point, though work has been slow due to commitments. The last couple of days I've been sorting out the headrest. I didn't fancy messing about with the etched one in the kit, which I find a bit gratuitous or faddish on the part of Hasegawa, so I pulled out one of their K-4 kits and liberated the alternate/old style headrest, cut away the curved portion and painted it in early war 02. Then, instead of fighting to fit it to the canopy, which was moulded without locator sockets (they seem to have retooled the canopy sprue to accept the etch!) I simply glued it down directly behind the seat, with a slight forward incline -- superglue to the rescue. The canopy then dropped into place over it.
That's where she is right now, and I'll get the masks on tomorrow -- I really want to be spraying before the long weekend is over! In other news, the Airfix E-4 got its canopy parts also:
She already has her masks in place, so the next photo will hopefully be all three E's presently underway with masks done. After that I have a couple of small jobs to do, the E-4 has a broken tailplane strut to rebuild, and the Hasegawa E-7 represents a plane that started life as an E-1, and the early wing gun apertures need to be drilled into the leading edge, as the factory did not rework them when the airframe was rebuilt to E-7 standard. That would be my target for tomorrow, and start laying down paint at some point.
Cheers, M/TB379