Cockpit Finising Details

From Complex Plastic

Progressing along nicely now. I added the ejection seat, HUD and Canopy actuators to the cockpit. I had to carefully cut the ejector seat rails from the kit seat, then reduce them in depth by sanding to accomodate the quick boost seat. Its all a rather snug fit in the end - just like the real thing.

The painted resin seat was then secured in position using thick superglue gel.

The HUD was carefully painted flat black for the body and the framing on the sides of the lens was carefully picked out by hand with a 10/0 brush and enamel paint.

This was then secured into position on the top of the instrument panel using Gators grip acrylic glue. This stuff is great for clear parts as it dries quickly to give a good bond and is clear and non fogging.

The kit supplied instrument panel coaming shrouds would completely hide all my painting work on the instrument panel and are overly thick to boot. My reference pics showed that these were folded back over onto the coaming whilst the plane was on the ground, so I decided that this is how I wanted to show mine. I used the kit parts as masters and formed thin lead foil over them using a cotton bud and a toothpick to emboss the shape into the foil. I then carefully cut the formed part from the foil and using gator glue attached them to the coaming. A quick brush coat of flat black enamel and it was good.

The canopy was then added after a quick polish on the inside using novus plastic cleaner. I have also noticed the primed boarding ladder still on the sprue so I'll deal with it shortly.

Here is another pic of the progress so far.
Well just some weathering to do now but a few steps will be needed to complete it so stat tuned,

Till next time,

Cheers,