ChuckD

Aaaaand it's out of stock.

Turned out great, but don't you hate it when a build seems to fight you every step of the way?

After a busy weekend, I got a few hours at the bench today. Making slow but steady progress. The way the cowls go together, they all had this little ridge that needed to be filled. Mr Surfacer 500 did the trick. I thought I took pictures of them filled, but apparently not. While the Mr Surfacer was drying I decided to fill this gap in the nosewheel of the Eduard set. Epoxy putty was the answer here. Way more better. I also added the brake lines with solder wire. The ball turret went together pretty well. The Eduard mask set was a godsend here. I first painted it interior green then the neutral gray of the belly. I finally got the bomb bay doors on. I held off as I thought they might get damaged as I was sanding the belly seams. If you follow the instructions, Hobby Boss would have you add all eight bomb bay door pieces - 4 in the open position and 4 in the closed position - so, be careful with that one. The ball turret is fully installed. It is held in place only by the plastic shaft that has to mate into a cup on the top of the fuselage interior. I'm glad I left the bomb bay doors off until I got that in place as I was able to see the shaft and cup. It would have been nearly impossible otherwise. The belly plate around the ball turret will require some filling at the fore and aft ends, but nothing too bad. Here's a crappy photo of the engines in the wings. I didn't realize my phone decided to focus on the ever so important trash can in the background. Anyway, the engines are about as underwhelming as has been reported elsewhere. Not that it can be seen here, but I did add the eduard ignition wiring set which helps spruce things up a bit, but yeah. A pretty poor showing by Hobby Boss. On the plus side, their simplicity made making 4 of them a pretty straight forward affair. Most of my day today was spent sanding the wings and nacelles. The sanding required for the nacelle left a small divot at the join where the cowling sits. So, as I closed out the night, I filled that with epoxy putty and will sand it into shape next. Once that's done, it'll be a relatively quick rescribe and rivet job and it that should just about do it for the body work. With the engines in place and a couple placeholder turrets, she's really starting to look the part. I'm debating my previous opinion of when to attach the wings. I might be able to finagle it around my workbench and painting area, then I wouldn't have to worry about touching up any sections after gluing the wings on. Time will tell, but I think I'm still on track to finish it by the June 6th deadline.

Back at it again. I've more or less finished the build... well, I made it through the instructions anyway. There's going to be lots more to put together as I paint things. Despite the progress, there's not a lot to show. Just a lot of time sticking slabs of polystyrene together and lopping off a half a million sprue gates. Of interest... The quickboost prop vs the kit part. QB Hobby Boss... The prop hub and blade shape are pretty bad. The landing gear is an amalgamation of 3 separate sets. Eduard wheels, Synthetic Ordnance Works struts, and Hobby Boss supports. The wheels and struts are orders of magnitude better than the kit parts. With the tail together, she's really starting to look the part! I can start shooting some paint soon!

I hate to be that guy, but if you Google your thread title, it'll likely turn up a great post here on LSP from Dana Bell that covers this is pretty good detail.

Hi, Andy. Initial testing looks very promising. There seems to be significant contact surfaces between the interior of the wing and spar piece, such that there is still a very positive location effect. So, the wing positioning is very good, but without the anchors, the wings will definitely slide off the spar piece under their own weight. The wing root fit also seems very close and can be closed entirely with a little upward pressure on the wingtips. I'm thinking I will use 5 min epoxy on the internal structures and rig up a jig to hang the beast from its wingtips while it sets. Worst case, I'll have to add a little extra thin cement to the roots and will touch up any damaged paint. Time will tell soon enough!

Funny enough there's not... If you knock it off so many times that it gets put in the bowl of stuff to be added to the build at the last moment.

Back with an update. Progress has been slow but steady. After hosing the interior down with a broad brush, I spent some time getting the Eduard cockpit and HGW seatbelts around. I added just a little weight to the cockpit section with lead sheet. This is something like a pound of weight. The interior... given the size, this thing is difficult to photograph. Ammo boxes-o-plenty. A rough fitting of the fuse halves. The fit wasn't great. There's enough openings in the fuse to verify that all internal bulkheads were located correctly, but still there was a decent gap between the halves in the upper spine above the ball turret and another on the bottom between the bomb bay and nose wheel well. Break out the super glue. The canopy actually fits nicely. The aforementioned upper gap. The also aforementioned lower gap. Glue applied! Channeling my P-38G conversion from a year ago, it's time to slather on the super glue and sand things down. Fortunately, Trumpeter's lackadaisical approach to panel lines means that there was not a ton of detail to worry about having to restore afterwards. While the glue was curing, I moved on to the wings. The gear bays are monstrous things. Starting to look like a Liberator. Here's something I'm not too thrilled about. The instructions call for sandwiching the wing halves over the heavy spar piece then... I dunno... it looks like you're supposed to screw them together, but there's just so much wrong with that idea. There are no screws included with the kit and assembling the wings in that manner would leave you no option than to try to paint this monster as a single, complete unit. That ain't happening as there's no way to maneuver it around my paint bench when fully assembled. Sooooo, these 4 studs gotta go. Easy peasy... the wings now slide on without trouble. The wings with control surfaces. I had to sand down the hinges for all the control surfaces because they were too wide and interfered with the control surfaces themselves. Annoying, but not a show stopper. Once nacelle installed before running out of steam today. The fuse halves are filled and looking good, now I just need to do a bit of rescribing. This thing is a monster. I gotta say though, aside from its overall size, it's not a very inspiring kit. Everything is big, chunky, and heavy. There's very little in the way of small details - everything is big and chunky. Ah well, there's no other show in town, so we'll make the best of what we've got.

In 2022 I challenged myself to complete eight kits. I managed, but it came down to about 7pm on New Years Eve.

I've noticed that too. It seems to be hit and miss, especially with their weekend deals links. Try searching for the manufacturer manually as opposed to following the sale link from their email or at the top of their homepage. The scale filter tends to be present more reliably when searching that way.

20 of the same kit is absolutely mind boggling to me. You guys are amazing.

http://instantrimshot.com/

I just got a shipping update for it showing shipping in July.

While the knowledge is definitely present at all those sites, none of them come close to the quality of character here at LSP. There are some good folks there, but there is also an abundance of pedantry lurking just below the surface, just waiting for someone to post a tank with the wrong color shade, a decal out of place, or the wrong variant of tow cable attached. It gets really tiring to read, so I usually just end up back here even if there's a tank on the bench.

Awesome. Can't wait to watch this one!