Well, I will tip my hat to Airfix – this is one lovely build. I am almost going to get away with no putty, and if the Mr. Surfacer can be coaxed to thicken up by letting it evaporate a little, I can paste it on instead. There was only one little bit of fettling on the wing roots and then they mated perfectly.
I must admit to a little trepidation re. the tailplanes, but the inclusion of a measuring diagram specifying an 80º angle between vertical stabiliser and the horizontal planes meant I could block it up on my building plane and get it adjusted minutely before committing to cement. It was as simple as.
The Stein Staterometer was called in and a suitable block of musket ball hammered into a cylinder for inclusion down the intake. The instructions call for 3 g, but I opted for practical experimentation. Then there will be no surprises.
I’ve spent the afternoon coping with the opposition – the Zvezda MiG 15 show plane and its rather spindly landing gear, There were positive sockets for it but it still ended up slightly out of true in the end. And nowhere near sturdy enough for me to feel confident about it. So discrete daubs of PVA glue went in to reinforce it. I may have to do the same with the Sabre – the gear looks nice and scale in appearance but there’s not a lot of plastic supporting the entire thing. I think I would be prepared to sacrifice a little authenticity for more weight-bearing capacity.
Still, cannot complain about the wheels as such – detailed, with squashed tyres and all. And now that I am masking the hubs before painting th tyres, all that much better a job.
The way this has progressed so nicely after starting it at the club suggests to me that I should not be too prissy about dividing my efforts between out-of-house modelling and work done in the Little Workshop. Just stick to one build at a time and do whatever comes up, wherever I am at the time. With the exception of airbrushing, when I wish to use my own brush here with the particular mixtures I favour, most other tasks can be done at either place.
The Little World 
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