r0t0rdr1ver

Wow! Beautiful work!

How is the fit on your kit so far with the main gear bays once you place the wings over top? I just found more nasty surprises on mine.

Looking really nice! It's somewhat comforting to know that the intakes fit rather well, but I see there is more work involved to get the cockpit pieces to fit properly and look good. You've made it look too easy. I now see what you mean about the nose gear bay / cockpit floor. I'll have to build a 'false' floor with mine using some plastic card. I don't know how you can entertain building another one of these kits, I can't wait until my first experience with it is over!!

Thanks for the nasty surprise! All jokes aside, I couldn't leave the edge so thick. Once I clean up that seam, I have some Archer rivets I can use to replace the raised detail. The nose gear bay was another pain in the rear to get together, but I'll have a look later today to see how I can fix the issue where it joins with the cockpit floor. I had no idea it would be an issue!

Yep, agreed! Great start to the paint work. Look forward to the next update, popcorn in hand.

Stunning Dora build Jim. Flawless paint work! I absolutely love the scheme. Taking notes on your work with the rivets, I have the same product and am super impressed with the effects you have achieved. Bravo!

Wow! Absolutely amazing build! Love the plumbing work, very clever approach.

So, the pictures don’t seem to show much progress, but there is literally a weekends worth of work in these photos. Wheel bays assembled. I opened up the holes in the walls as well, only to realize later these seem to be covered up on the RCAF Vampires. Oh well, they’re staying! Started grinding away the nose where the nose gear bay will sit, just some minor cleanup to do. The plastic is very thick here, and I wanted to achieve a more realistic thickness, so out came the dremel. I don’t plan on fixing the placement issue with the gun ports, too much of a mojo drain for me I think! All major subassemblies have been assembled and cleaned up. I figured out the issue I was having with the main bulkhead / wing spar. I glued the top fuselage halves together using a flat surface, but there is meant to be some dihedral to the final assembly. Hence the bulkhead wasn’t anywhere close to fitting properly. Lots of careful bending at the seam line, brute force and quick setting cement did the trick. It looks awful, but will work. Just a note for those building this kit, be sure to glue the bulkhead in at the same time you’re joining the halves! Next up is detailing the cockpit and sprucing up the wheel bays a bit so they can get paint. Then I can install the cockpit, button everything up, do a final sand / rescribe any lost detail, and start slinging some primer. Hopefully no more nasty surprises! More to come....

I had a marathon day of cleaning flash and mold lines on parts, sanding, dry fitting, sanding some more, then gluing sub-assemblies together. As Thierry and Iain have mentioned already, careful cleanup and test fitting will go a long way with this kit. A little extra care is needed when assembling the tail boom halves to ensure everything is aligned correctly. Be very careful building the main gear wells, the instructions aren’t super clear on which parts go on which side. I had a couple mis-steps here, but managed to catch my errors in time before glue had fully set. Thanks to Thierry’s warning about the main rib that is glued to the roof on each wheel well, they are slightly short. I fixed this early on with a bit of styrene. So far I’m fairly happy with the kit, it’s fighting me every inch of the way, but I think the end result will be worth it. One issue I’m having is with the fit of the main bulkhead / wings spar / turbine face piece. I have some HUGE gaps. It’s almost as if this part wasn’t meant for this kit. Thierry, I see yours seems to have fit fairly well, did you modify the part at all? Too tired to post pics, but I’ll get some up tomorrow.

Hopefully this explains what I’m seeing a bit better. Forgive the shoddy picture and graphics!

Absolutely stunning! I hope mine turns out half as nice. Well done!

This is looking amazing, can't wait to see the next update!

This is going to be awesome! The Hunter is one of my all time favorites, and is going to look killer in these markings.

Thanks Thierry, I'll take a closer look at the main gear bays today and keep those things in mind. Not a ton of progress, just lot's of clean up of the parts. One thing I did notice is that the area where the windscreen mates to the fuselage is slightly crooked, as is the panel line just forward of it (when viewed from the top). Perhaps once the windscreen is glued in place, it won't be noticeable, but I will have to rescribe that panel. We'll see. I'll post a pic later to show this.

Great start! Looking forward to seeing your progress, keep it up!