Bristol Beaufort

"adjustment of parts and filling required" - understatement of the year. The instructions were more like hints, suggestions and wishful thinking. I was expecting a challenge, but it exceeded my expectations 🙂 

No control column, tailwheel, undercarriage, wheels, bomb racks and bombs (my spares emporium to the rescue). The wings weren't even made of the same plastic... 

More flash than Gordon and the Justice League put together. 

I drilled a square hole! I decided to drill out the window spaces (filled them later with Humbrol Clearfix), very impressed with myself for my square drilling 😉 

Scratch built most of the interior: a lot of plasticard went into this interior - and raided my spares for seatbelts 

Another view of the interior - note the loo aft, don't want the crew to have nowhere to go! 

All sealed up, windows masked, prior to copious application of Milliput to smooth the vac-form canopy and chin window into the fuselage. 

Bit of a test fit of the wings. Yes, I resorted to downloading the Airfix instructions for their Beaufort to get a better idea of several parts! 

Nacelles under construction, engines detailed, props done with brass rod as other option was to glue them to the front of the nacelles or something (nothing provided in the kit). 

Milliputted, Mr Surfacer-ed and primed 

Smurfed on the underside - doing a desert scheme so went for it with the deep azur 

Camo mask applied on the "mid stone", "dark earth" coming next 

Ahh, the satisfaction of peeling off those canopy masks, like peeling off a plaster. 

Note the map on the nav desk 😉 

Varnished, decal-ed and the fiddly bits fitted (antennas, pitot, fiddly cast white-metal air intakes) 

Tra-da, happy with that - it's come out better than some of my "easy" models to be fair! 

Particularly happy with the wing tip navigation lights - silver underneath, clear green/red on top to give it some depth. 

Chipped the props too (and checked what direction the props spun in to chip the right edge).