K7 bluebird 1/43 scale build

[Scratchbuilder]

Started off reading about a kit that was donkey years, old and then got into the meat of your build... Keith, you have taken a run of the mill model and made it into a thing of beauty.
I was worried about those awfull panel lines and so pleased you finally got rid of them...
Once your build has finished I hope you will take it to Coniston and show the people there your build and produce a small booklet of your build for them to see the work and workmanship that has gone into building this iconic machine.
Excellent.
Mike.

 

[Keith-7]

Thanks for your kind words Mike.

 

[Rimmer]

I don't think anyone could put it better than Mike did - this is simply stunning and a cracking bit of workmanship.

 

[Keith-7]

Thank you

 

[Keith-7]

While there is still a lot to do, I've been putting together some final plans.
I need to make the rudder, it's mechanism and mounts and the stabiliser (which I presume is a sort of fake rudder to equalise drag) and it's mounts. These two parts will really get in the way, as they stick down low below the hull, making it impossible to place the model down on a flat surface, so I want to try and make these two removable.
At least the splash guard arms (if not the complete splash guards) will need making and holes drilled into the body for them.
Seatbelts, a coat of primer, rivet decals, final coat of primer and the two pipes/vents for the top of the "fuselage" before painting the main body.
The sponsons need a lot of work, panel lines and brass parts making. I decided to tackle the sponsons last, as if they are a completely separate project from the rest of the model.

The fin will be the guinea pig and will be fully finished.... painted, have the decals applied and be clear coated before any painting is done to the rest of the model. The idea being, if something goes wrong with the painting process, I should be able to find some new union jack decals if needed and only have a small part of the model to restore.

 

[Keith-7]

There were couple of things I wasn't happy with.
The brass frame at the back of the cockpit should be on level with the top of the fuselage, but I had a slight step down to the frame.

Another problem I was aware of was the rear frame of the canopy was too thick.
The frame that's moulded into the canopy is hard to see in this photo, but the point of the red arrow is on it. The little white line indicates how thick that frame is. By the time that's painted blue, it would be quite a chunky looking frame.
The simple solution would be to trim more off the back of the canopy, making the frame thinner, but then the canopy would be positioned further back. As indicated with the blue arrow, the opening of the cockpit is preventing the canopy from being moved further back.

 

[Keith-7]

As well as the cockpit opening being too big to be able to shift the canopy further back, the opening was a bit more to the left.

Below is the solution I've come up with.
I made the opening smaller using a plastic strip. I will fill in the void with body filler. The plastic strip will give a nice even edge for the filler. The strip has also corrected the uneven opening which was off to the left a little.

 

[Keith-7]

This work created another problem though. The instrument panel was now too far forward, so I had to shift that back a little.