CANicoll

John, VERY helpful!!! That diagram with your paint is brilliant. The plane is beautiful - great paint scheme and nice job on the decals - they look terrific. IT is an eye-catching scheme that I have not seen before.

Took advantage of some open time this evening to make a bit more progress on the nose stencils on the right side of the fuselage. Other than the Sidewinders, I think I have about 60 stencils still to do.

Said a VERY wise man!!!

Ahhh! Gotcha. I've gotten away from the Dawn wash 'out of the box' lately, but sometimes I see where I do need to wash parts so I may just go back to it.

Peter, do you completely sand the entire aircraft during assembly? I see the white coating and I keep meaning to ask where does that come from.

Carl and Peter, One thing this pause has enabled me to do is sit and think about the approach, and give you all time to weigh in with suggestions that I had not thought of, so this is very helpful, thanks. Carl - First, I'm laughing over the masterpiece comment. Thank you!! I think your suggestions are exactly what I'm going to do. The nice thing is I have a set of digital calipers so I can get a pretty accurate read on the size of the brass rod I need. I have a bit more confidence in drilling and using a screw on the resin wheels supported by some thick CA.

Nice aircraft!!

Carl, having built a number of 1/48 B-17s and going crazy on the interior detail, only to then close it up so nobody ever would see it - I feel your pain. I do wonder about our tendency to do all of that detail work, then close it up!

I'm looking forward to the paint scheme!

Sorry to miss you all this year, but next year in VA!!!....

Hmmm.. Slide fit would be interesting. Nice idea Rob, thanks. The white metal LG should take the screw but you just reminded me I need to check the diameter of the holes. On the main gear the screws hold the tire/wheel to the leg, on the nose gear the screw seems to just hold the two nose wheels together onto the leg. Will check out the Albion option - thanks!

Is that her general opinion of things??

Rob, Several of us seem to have been hitting roadblocks on our builds lately which is a shame. Your work is too good to be wasted on projects that are not well enough engineered from the manufacturer.

John, Sometimes you get a build that just fights you every step of the way. Fully understand the desire to bin it.

Amazing work with all of that brass. Wow. Looks terrific.

I didn't know Moskit was still making the metal exhausts - I used them on some P-39 and P-51 builds maybe 15 years ago! How do you keep everything aligned given all of the small pieces? And especially with all of the bits on the engine? Definitely not a kit for the inexperienced. And even the experienced!

Wow, so much simpler controls, knobs and switches compared to the F-4! But your IP looks terrific.

Definitely looks the part, Peter. Your washes bring out the detail nicely (and a reminder to do the same on my F-4!). Spitfire cockpits are always loaded with detail and you brought it out beautifully. Disappointing about the Quinta Sutton Harness should not have fought you that hard but it looks like you got it sorted.

Have to hit the pause button on this build as this coming week is going to be busy. Moving my 88-year-old mother into a senior living facility nearby this week. Lots of work left to do on the stencils, markings, Sidewinders, attaching the wheels to the landing gear (and any suggestions on how to attach resin wheels to the landing gear using screws?) not to mention some touch up and details to be added including the nose probe. Probably a couple of week's worth or work left (don't hold me to that!)

Excellent work! Those canopies just shine - nicely done, John!

Is there a 'Better Late than Never" category in this build?

Rob, Nice job on the tub, but especially on the exhaust - the pipes look terrific. I keep forgetting to use the hairdryer on hard-to-conform decals but your CF pieces look the part. The Brembo calipers look like the real thing - you captured the gold perfectly. Nice work!

I cannot even IMAGINE doing these with masks... Torture, for sure! Thank you, Carl. Seriously, is it even possible to do stencils like this in 1/48? You must have a strong magnifying glass!

Looks awesome!! Thanks for all of the detailed pictures. Nice work.

Thanks, Peter. Have to agree with you. Spending hours upon hours just doing stencils is sapping my will. Trying to alternate working on other parts - which does help. I wish I would have started this build a month sooner, however. Not sure I would tackle the stencils again in 1/32 scale although I cannot imagine doing them on a 1/48 build. And it is amazing how they look on the aircraft. I did screw up a few stencils, mostly folded over and I could not correct, and I tore them. One wonderful aspect of the stencils is they are very thin. It only takes a few second in the water to loosen them. And I got the colors wrong on some - white on the brown and black on the green which I mostly corrected. The stencil sheet diagrams are fairly generic as the diagrams do not match the wing/fuselage configuration I have so where the stencil sheet called for stencils to be placed on certain panels/access ports, some of those don't exist on my aircraft. Also, the stencils in white are extremely hard to see and the number call-outs are not always clearly placed. It takes a while to see exactly where the decal is, and then CAREFULLY cut it out. On some of the stencils there is not a lot of room between them. Something else I learned, some of the decals are fairly long, and better cut into 2 or more pieces. I guess what I'm saying is that in addition to the sheer number of stencils, it is a bit of a chore to 1. find the right one, 2. ensure the proper color, 3. cut it out, 4. put it in place. Time consuming so I've taken to get three or four ready at a time Put another 30 or so on the wings and started on the right side of the nose... I really want to get to those Sidewinders!! Hope you and Diane are doing well.