Morning all,
due to the right side of the mantlet aperture having wandered offline I needed to strip it all down
made some new side pieces and started building it back up
rebuilding the aperture in the correct place - the left side was ok but the right side had to move 1mm to the left
As you can see there was not much left to fasten the side plate to after chopping it all apart
but it went well and came back together - much happier with it this time
new dust cover
i also added some new bolt tops around the cupolas as the kit ones were a bit vague
unfortunately the red goo suffered from the handling and various bits are now bald, plus of course the revised mantlet area needs re-coating as well
once done I shall prime the entire thing with Halford primer - this should hopefully help to keep the red goo in place for casting
I also reworked one of the fuel tanks but don't appear to have taken a photo
The tanks are all a bit wide due to them being moulded with very sloping sides so I sanded them down to make them more vertical again
This of course removed the moulded seam line around the middle so this had to be replicated with some micro strip
Fuel tank now ready to be cast
Hull front filler also sanded down ready for building up the details again