Progress on the Spitfire PR.IG!

I've been having a hard time with the intro to this post without a figurative ton of sentence fragments and the like. I'll keep it brief and in bullet form to outclass the mental obstacle. Take that brain!

• Progress on the Spitfire PR.IG
• Yay!
• Delay due to:
• Stug IV build
• Work
• Lack of enthusiasm
• Apache build with Thing Two
• Nervous about the upcoming steps with resin underside, etc
• Other reasons not mentioned above
• Pictures and words below

Some stuff I picked up for this round of work.

I was able to pick up these half round strips at my local hobby store. Well actually, it was just one strip. As I was looking at the stock in the store, I noticed this package was supposed to contain five strips but it only contained one. Someone had pushed the other strips out of the bottom seam. I took it up to the register and I got the last strip for free! I can't stand thieves, but man, it really worked out in my favor. I only needed the one strip anyway. It was cut to length and cemented to the elevators. Did I mention this before?

I took a razor saw and cut notches for the hinges.

I then took some strip styrene, cut it to size and glued it into place.

The rough hinges. They will be sanded down and rounded prior to attachment.

I made some modifications to my jig since the last post. I glued the jig to a sheet of styrene and added a back plate for support. I taped it to the cutting mat so it wouldn't slide around and I also used a piece of double sided tape to hold the horizontal stabilizer in place as the elevator was glued on.

It worked pretty well.

On to the cockpit. After some test fits, I realized that the rear bulkhead needed to be 90º to the floor. It's not obvious per the directions. I had to un-glue the seat because when the bulkhead was at 90º, the strap pulled away from it. It would have been weird to have a seat belt that was coming off the rear of the seat attaching to nothing. The seat needed to be un-bonded and re-positioned.

After I sprayed flat black on all the seams, I found areas that needed some more filler. I used Mr. Dissolved putty to do that.

Seams were sanded down again and with the help of some embossing tape, the seam lines that should be present were re-scribed.

I primed and sprayed RAF Interior green on the front area to prepare to place the canopy.

Instrument panel in place.

It doesn't look too shabby in there.

Wings glued on and taped while the glue sets.

Here's one of the areas I was frightened of. The major resin enhancement. It's super glued in place.

I taped it up in preparation for gap filling.

I used Milliput Superfine White Putty. I pushed it in the gaps and smoothed it with a wet finger or with some random metal smoothing tool I have.

While it was still damp I took the tape off. I figured it would be easier before it hardened and I can address any issues while it was still malleable.

I've gotten the courage to sand all this down so it will blend together. I'm currently re-scribing panel lines back to where they need to be. Hopefully today I will fix up an area that I turned into a hot mess while scribing. I'll add a little super glue, let it cure about 20 minutes and sand it down and re-re-scribe the panel line.