I first built this model for Revell for the toy fair just before it was released  and I liked it so much I acquired a couple of copies one Revell and one Monogram, not much difference except the promodeller instruction sheet is much better with pics of the real thing.
     The kit comes with the usual plastic bits and pieces plus a very clear canopy frame and on top of all this you get an etched brass fret with perforated dive brake/ flap set, wiring harness for the engine and parts for the rear gun mount. All the parts fit together pretty well and I never needed any filler.

    There is a lot of pre painting to be done before assembly takes place but time spent here will definitely pay dividends, I made up the fuselage and added the tail planes, but the wings are another story. The etched brass fret gives the impression that you can just drop the flaps and open the dive brakes, but not so, unless you perform some surgery you can only show them in the closed position.  

   I decided to drop the flaps to show a little extra detail, to do this I first drilled out all the tiny holes on the plastic parts of the flaps using several sized drills then I cut the flap section of the lower wing away from the main part, I assembled the remainder of the wings and fitted them both to the fuselage and the brass upper flaps were added with C/A glue. Each of the lower brass parts were lined up with the plastic parts I had cut away and glued together then put aside until the painting and decalling were finished.

    The fixed portions of the canopies I cemented in position but the movable parts were only tacked on with white glue to provide masking for the interior, I masked all the clear panels with Sellotape (scotch tape) just adding a small piece to each window and outlining the frame with a cocktail stick then trimming with a new scalpel blade. The wheel bays were covered with the doors using a blob of Blue Tack and the door pressed into position on top of it.
     I sprayed the white areas first including the fin and wing tip areas; these last two were masked to match the size of the decals then the Intermediate Blue was sprayed freehand followed by the Sea Blue, all the colours were from the Humbrol "authentic" range.  I dusted on a couple of coats of Johnsons Klear (Future) after leaving the paint overnight to harden, a further coat was then applied and lightly sanded with worn out 1200 grade wet and dry paper before the decals were added.
    A whole day was taken to get the decals on and then I coated the whole lot with another coat of Klear and then a final coat of 3 parts Klear mixed with 1 part Tamiya flat base to give a nice sheen finish, all the masking was removed and any touching up done with a fine brush.
 I enjoyed this model I hope you will too


Ted Taylor Sept 2002