panels was the hinged surround for
the ventral signalling light, within
which I drilled a shallow cone to
represent the lamp reflector.
I sanded the tail light off, in
readiness for a more realistic
aftermarket item. A small stub of
brass tube was placed in a pre-
drilled hole just forward of the fin
root, in preparation for the antenna
trailing lead. With reference to
online images, I also added a
small length of brass tube to the
top of the fin, to form a location
point for the antenna wire.
I opted not to glue the cockpit
spaceframe within the fuselage
assembly, since it was quite a
snug fit, but more importantly
because I wanted the option of
some wiggle room should the
four-part canopy assembly that
surrounds the cockpit’s wing
support structure require it.
As it turned out, all that wiggle
room, and more, was required.CANOPY
With the cockpit assembly fitted
within the fuselage, work began on
attaching the four-piece canopy.
First, the pilot’s two sliding window
sections were removed with a razor
saw. This gave two benefits: less
joint area to match up, and better
visibility into the detailed cockpit.The remaining panels were then
offered up to the fuselage before
being incrementally sanded and
scraped until they were a good
fit around the wing stubs.
With these temporarily
attached, the roof and windscreen
sections were temporarily fitted
with masking tape, before being
similarly fettled for as good a
fit as possible. Once this was
achieved, all parts were dipped
in Klear to give a gloss finish.
When dry, the transparencies
were masked internally to leave
only their peripheral frames,
which were sprayed cockpit green.
Initially, I had experimented with
the pilot’s windows by masking
and spraying their entire inner
framework, but the thickness
of the plastic, and resulting
parallax effect, made for a rather
messy looking result once the
external framing was painted.
Externally, I masked all the
glazing with the kit supplied
die-cut items (some of which
required slight modification),
before assembling permanently
with PVA. The separate rear
canopy is moulded in a slightly
splayed condition in order to
fit over the rear fuselage in the
open position. Because of this,
there is no option to close it, since
the shut faces don’t match.As with the main canopy,
I only masked the peripheral
internal frames before masking
and painting the outer frames
in the usual manner. The only
additions to the rear canopy were
the catches attached to the lower
frames. I made these by pushing
some warmed sprue through
the appropriately sized teardrop
templates included on the edge
of one of the photo-etch frets.UNDERCARRIAGE
The instructions would have
you fit the main wheels during
assembly of the wheel spats. I
thought this would make masking,and the subsequent fitting of the
landing lights in the spats, tricky.
I therefore decided to cut the stub
axles off the wheels and fix plastic
rod into the existing sockets in
the spat halves (to form axles)
before closing them. I then slotted
the wheels, so that they could be
slid into the spats and onto the
axles during final assembly, thus
greatly simplifying painting.
The wheel spats were drilled
for their optional stub wings,
which I think are typical of the
Lysander. Straight from the
box, the stub wings are bare,
and a surprising omission is the
universal bomb racks fitted to
the undersides. Thankfully, these“IF BUILT STRAIGHT
FROM THE BOX, I
WOULD RECOMMEND
THIS KIT TO MODELLERS
WITH SOME PREVIOUS
EXPERIENCE”
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