Hi Paul,Yes, those gun panels don't fit that well and I remember a little bit of sanding. You have to fit them in the right order as some overlap others and that's not self evident, or indicated in the instructions. I find them peculiar and suspect they are pandering to the Asian market where people like to display kits opened up with all the gubbins on display. Nothing wrong with that but I prefer a more 'realistic' pose. It's one thing to offer them as an option (as Trumpeter do in some of their kits IIRC) but there is no option with this one.
In the end I have used the kit parts for the hood and rear canopy, just using the corrected windscreen from HpH. Being cast from clear resin it is not as clear as the rather good kit clear parts and is also a bit 'heavier' looking, if you know what I mean. It fits okay if you make sure to shape the little, resin, fuselage inserts correctly. I've had to do a little bit of filling around the front of the screen but nothing drastic. I wanted to have the windscreen (HpH) and sliding hood (Hobbyboss) meet properly, despite the fact the hood will be posed slid back eventually. If you weren't bothered about that happening exactly the fitting would be much easier. I effectively had to tilt the screen back very, very, slightly. HpH supply a special paint mask to fit around the windscreen and suggest several layers of paint fill the transition from kit to extras but any fool, even me, can smooth out that transition more conventionally.
The rest of the correction bits have fitted perfectly. I am particularly impressed with the horizontal stabilisers.
I plan to use the resin cockpit door but at the moment I seem to have.....ahem....mislaid it !
Good luck with the 'Stuka'
Hi Dave. I assembled and primed the 'stacks' with Halfords Plastic Primer.....and forgot all about them until this morning when first I sprayed them with Alclad 'burnt iron'. That was a little too dark so I dry brushed them with a red-brown mixture I made up, just to give the impression of a lighter colour. After that I dry brushed the lighter staining. Usually I use a grey for this, but this time I've used white and will do so again. Finally I wanted to lighten up the end of the individual stubs and make them appear more metallic. For this I dry brushed a mixture of metallic bronze and, believe it or not, Mid Stone.
Cheers
Steve