The Little World

I have taken to adding a new stage to my regular builds – I try to get a mock-up of the basic flying aircraft fitted dry before I reach for the cement bottle.

This means taping parts together or even using the Micro Scale temporary adhesive. The benefit of doing it is I catch incipient disasters before they are wet with cement. If I’ve neglected a flash strip or an interfering alignment pin I can knife and sand them off now. It is rare to get an entire model stuck with tape, but you can get close.

It also means you can see whether or not there will be stresses in the fuselage that need progressive cementing and clamping. With this Italeri product there was none of that – all parts dropped and stayed together perfectly.

This was confirmed at the cement stage – no filler needed for this baby. And the interior spaces could be painted early as the gear doors would cover them during the silver spray to come.