Scale Aviation Modeller International – April 2019

ofered, the kit’s decal being
reasonable for what’s visible.
While I was assembling and
painting the seats, I did all the
others for the crewmen. The
cockpit module is extended
backwards with the spine
and racks in the bomb-bay
leading to the irst intermediate
bulkhead, which includes the
long, robust wing spar, and the
central loor and rear catwalk.
Both bulkheads and the loor
spaces have a number of boxes
racks and tables to be added,
most of which are replaced
in Eduard’s rear interior set.
(I’d mistakenly added the
kit’s plastic before the etched
sets arrived, so out came the
razor saw!) Forward of the
cockpit is the navigator’s and
bombardier’s compartment,
again enhanced with major use
of etch, some surgery being
needed to allow some of the
boxes and the folding door to be
itted. Much of the etch is self-
coloured, but a few items need
painting aluminium, black and
wood – for which I used Tamiya

Dark Yellow XF-60 streaked

with Burnt Umber oil paint.

With the internal structure

nearly complete, attention

turns to preparing the fuselage

halves to receive it. Airix have

cleverly provided clear parts

for the entire forward nose

panels, which incorporate the

multiple windows around the

cheek gun positions, although

curiously they suggest itting

these right at the end of the

construction sequence, so

being clear, these will show

the outside colours through

unless painted inside. The mask

set I had included individual

pieces for the outsides of all

the windows, so I used a stencil

cutter to make a corresponding

set for the inside and ixed the

panels to the forward fuselage

so they could be painted XF-

at the same time as the forward

fuselage interior. The bulk of

the interior was painted with

Vallejo Aluminium, and given

a fairly heavy wash of Burnt

Umber oil paint, before starting

the interior detailing. I then

chain-drilled and cut out the

crew entry hatch to allow the

use of the etched version.

ETCH A-PLENTY

There now followed a rather

mind-numbing process of

forming and adding all the

etched details to the fuselage

shells. Most of the equipment

boxes are ofered as lat-packs,

which need careful cutting from

their fret, edges cleaned-up,

folded into shape and glued

onto separate pre-coloured face

plates before itting. I didn’t do

an accurate count, but a quick

eyeball suggests there are

around 220 individual items

to it on the fuselage, many of

which are only a few mm square

and have complex bends. (there

are around 120 items for the

exterior of the airframe too) I

realise this sounds like a moan,

but to carry out this level of

detailing needs a certain mind-

set and serious patience! I don’t

regret it, even with most of it

disappearing into the darkness,

but I found that I could only

stick at it for relatively short

sessions, and was easily

distracted, which probably

accounts for the fact that this

build took me at least three

times as long as I expected!

Phew! With all the inside

done, it was time to close up

the fuselage, and despite the

complexity of the internals, this

was pretty painless, the only

issue being with the seam at the

front upper deck, which needed

a sliver of plastic strip packing;

excellent engineering from

Airix. With the seams tidied,

the interior could be purged of

dust and debris using an aerosol

duster and vacuum cleaner

and the glazing masked and

glued on. The kit instructions

now move on to building up

the wings and engine nacelles,

although in reality, I was

doing these in parallel with

The kit’s plastic intake and exhaust manifolds don’t fit the resin engines too well, but given
that they’ll be almost completely hidden by the cowlings, even with the open cooling gill
option, the impression is good enough

The wing to fuselage joint is excellent and

well supported by the built-in spar

The Eduard etched exterior set offers the option to open the crew access hatch, here the

aperture has been drilled and cut out

The kit’s engine fronts are reasonable,
but the Quickboost resin items add to the
depth of detail, and the Eduard brass will
add further detail

The fit of the rear gunner’s compartment

wasn’t perfect, and needed quite a bit of

blending in with the use of superglue as

a filler

SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL • APRIL 2019

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