Progress has been slow what with work and catching up on sleep, but I've been doing little bits here and there.
All of the turrets are now pre-painted. Thankfully the rear one can be fitted after painting which saves a bit of masking. Talking of masking, large canopies in 1/72 are a bit fiddly!
Not perfect but good enough for "freehand". And yes I know I've missed a bit. I wasn't happy with it so I redid that part after the pics.
I've also been having troubles with the undercarriage, which goes back to me making a poor job of fitting the nacelles and internals, parts of which support the main weight of the U/C. That, and the fact that I've not done one yet, made me decide to this display one as a flying piece, fully buttoned up.
So to that end, this happened.
A piece of steel rod I had lying around, cut & bent to shape then epoxied in through the bomb bay and into the wing spar above. The bomb bay doors will cover the mess. I know the convention is to use clear acrylic rods, but I didn't have any so this will be fine. When mounted properly it will give the aircraft a slightly climbing/banking stance. Something like that shown below. You can also see the fitted turrets, and the rod should give me somewhere solid to hold it while painting.
Big couple of days coming up. Taking a 20 year old car for its MOT is always a bit nerve wracking, then on Friday (the 13th!!!) I'm back to see my consultant for (hopefully) a final diagnosis. If both of those go well I should get around to some final masking & tweaking, then primer, before getting back up for work at 4:30 on Sunday
...especially turrets.
That or put a lot of holes in the model to show it has come under heavy fire …