CANicoll

That is a riot!!!!

And this arrived! Thanks to Mike (@Seiran01) for the kit. I think this is my first Airfix kit and I am very impressed with the detail and quality of the kit. Going to pick up Mike's recommended Airscale cockpit set. The two fuselage sprues not in a bag were separated by paper. Nice! The engraving is very fine and the surface detail looks terrific. The instructions are amazing. Not sure if I'm going with one of the kit's marking options, or going AM.

Love that car and will also be following along. Will be an interesting build!

Thanks Peter for the vote of confidence. Patience is definitely the watch-word for this build. I'm trying to mix making progress on other parts, as I deal with the various seams issues. On the bright side, the 3D missiles are on their way from AUS. Yay!

Carl, I hear you. No perfect solution, but once the seams are dealt with, I know I put some work into it. Thanks Martin! They came out better than I expected laying the Quinta belts over the resin ones cast into the seat.

Well, seams are the bane of my existence on this build. The landing gear are the latest culprits. Especially the nose gear which is half styrene and half metal. Made more progress on the seats and cockpit. The bottom cushion on the right-hand seat skewed a bit, but very hard to notice from the top, when it's in the cockpit. Dry fitted here. The refueling panel, with just a little putty, fits better than it looks here.

Kriss, Beautiful work on that interior - you've pulled out the maximium detail there. The IPs are excellent. Nice work!

I've order from HN too. Agree! Excellent service.

Beautifully done Peter! The washes really work well to highlight the details and the stencils do bring the bird to life.

John, Thanks! Big help and appreciate the effort to show what magic you perform!

I'm understanding the process, if not the actual work. I think the part I most am comfortable with is the cuss factor part. Lots of practice there! Definitely keeping notes of the hints, much appreciated John!

John, Wow, I wish you would do a tutorial on how you cleaned up those seams!!! Really!

WTH!!! I miss looking at posts for a week and all hell breaks loose! Glad to hear Diane is doing much better and on the road to recovery but SOOO sorry to hear of her fall. Please ignore Mike - he knows not what he asks. I don't think I would be able to get the vision of you in a nurse's outfit out of my tiny mind....

Peter, thanks for your comments - Funny you mention Reskit. I had barely heard of them but did a bit of online research so ordered the Reskit missiles (Sidewinders and Sparrows) and the inboard pylons as well (why not if I'm going this far!) from BNA and they shipped in a matter of hours!! Wow. Got a few other bits I'll add on here when they arrive. Still looking for bulged tyres, however. Here are the Speed Hunter stencils. WTH did I get myself into? These pages are just the relevant pages for MY build. There are other pages I omitted but will put into a review write-up I'll do. The good news is the instruction pages are incredibly well broken down into sections. I guess you could say that it also breaks down a HUGE task into more manageable bites? Yeah, wishful thinking!! The sheet has both white and black markings, indicating which to use over the various camo colors on the aircraft. I may need a month just to get the stencils onto the aircraft - especially considering the gloss coat, letting it fully cure, then the sealing coat, and the washes... Oh my... This will be the most-stenciled aircraft I've ever done.....(Astute observation of the obvious...)

Fran, Cheers, mate! Nicely written and I appreciate the commentary you provided. Looks good. Now if I could only swap all of my B-17 reference materials for B-26!!

Quick view of the cockpit temporarily fitted into the fuselage. Got the side panel pieces in place and just wanted to see how it all fit together. Did finally remember to put the navy refueling door panel on which will take some putty to fill in the slight gap at the back. Working on the rest of the landing gear, wings, tail.... Putting the missiles aside for a bit. Looking at some 3D Printed/resin options especially for the Sparrows since I did such a miserable job putting those halves together.

Thanks Peter! In this pic, all of the gray belts are Quinta - I laid them over the resin belts on the seat back, but for the seat bottom, I cut off the resin belts, used the Quinta seat cushion to cover, then added the Quinta belts. Then added the various placards and the ejection seat handles.

Love this aircraft!! Beautiful job on your build.

The Reid Air Stencils showed up today. OMG, what did I do? I'll post some pictures tomorrow of the instructions, which are incredibly detailed. It may take longer to apply the stencils than to actually build the plane... Worked on some seams for the Sparrow missiles but almost afraid to do Primer 2.0 as I'm sure there are still seams to work. But did assemble the main landing gear (white metal core) and then went to work on the seats, seeing how the Quinta 3D belts might work on the resin seats. Here are the two seats, with the Quinta belts and seat pad installed on the seat to the right. To be fair, I had not really painted the other belts yet but I do like the detail and the contrast. Using the seat pad required cutting/shaving the seat belts, losing that 3D effect of the resin belts. But the Quinta pad and belts Look pretty good. The resin belts are of a very different configuration than the Quinta set but to the eye, still looks pretty good. I can still shave off the part of the resin belts that shows below the Quinta belts. Still some detail painting and need to install the Quinta ejection handles but fairly happy with the look. Especially to the eye. More to come!

Huge, help, thanks! I have both....

Looking SB to replace the vinyl tires which NEVER seem to age well, and came across the intake covers, which are made for the Revell and the Tamiya kits, respectively. Neither will likely fit the GT Resin intakes, correct?

Ok, I'm in... Agree with Carl on the AM decals.

Carl, Excellent comment, thanks. My plan is to mask the raised sections and then spray a darker metallic color in-between, and then go with some heat-stressing effects if I can work that up.

I love this aircraft but the old Monogram kit is, well, old. This is "New Tool" but has anyone put hands-on yet? Flory did a review and they like it but have not built it yet. 335 pieces? But looks like it could use some engine work as well as a new IP and resin tyres but holy cow that is a lot of pieces, including framing inside that likely will never see the light of day. Of course, when has THAT ever stopped us??

Thanks Peter! I have had some really good luck with the Vallejo Metal paints, but just had the itch to try the MRP on this tail. Definitely will be doing some masking and I'm sure this will hold up very well. Mark, thanks!! If I can get ahead of the seams on the missiles and drop tanks I'll be in heaven. Most of that was my own doing, I'm sure - not being careful enough with lining up the halves.