With the fuselage glued together, it was time to glue on the nose section. I needed filler where it attached as the diameter of the nose and fuselage mount was not the same. Next on to the wings. Fit here is not bad, but not exactly perfect either. I found that I needed more filler than I would have liked on the wing roots as they just didn't match up well. I also had some filler needs at the front section of the wing as well. If it sounds as if I needed filler on each join, then you are correct. In some cases a lot and in others very little. I needed none, however on the tailplanes. Those attached with no trauma at all.

I now had a complete airframe. Turning to the underside, the carb intake was glued on and then the belly radiator. This last part was a two piece affair that fit well, though I did end up doing a lot of sanding as the front section was larger than the aft. It fit into the depression on the underside of the wing with no problems. As is typical of many Hasegawa 1/72 kits, the canopy is a single piece. This was masked off using Tamiya tape, and after a bit of touchup painting was done to the interior, the canopy was glued in place. I should mention that the gunsight is molded onto a fuselage half and not a very strong attachment as it disappeared during one of the many sanding sessions!

With the canopy in place and masked, it was time to add some paint.

For the upper surfaces, the camo was hard edge masked as in this scale that would be the best way to do it. Once that was done, the wheel wells were hand painted in aluminum as that seems to have been the standard color. Then the kit was taken back to the work bench and had the landing gear glued in place. The holes for the main gear are quite a bit larger than the gear legs so you need to be careful on how these dry. Even though I thought mine were initially even, after several hours one of them had managed to move a bit during drying and they are not perfectly aligned! Once dry, the kit was taken back to the paint shop and sprayed with a clear gloss in preparation for decals. Of course, the Xtracolor parts didn't need it as they were already glossy!

There were a few bits and pieces that were not glued on for fear of breaking them when doing decals and matte coat. One of these was the prop assembly. Now to me the prop blades look a bit odd, but I have been assured that they are correct for the type. I also had a devil of a time getting the blades aligned. I really do not like these separate blade setups unless they have a very positive alignment, which this kit does not. The spinner and blades were sprayed flat black and the yellow tips brushed on. Then the spinner was given a coat of Future gloss clear as the matte color just didn't look right. It was then pressed onto the shaft.

The masking was removed from the canopy and the clear landing lights were simply press fit into place (they really fit tight). Flipping the model on its back, the gear doors were glued in place and fit rather poorly. The carb and radiator intakes were given a bit of paint treatment to make them look better and the underwing pitot tube glued on. The final assembly step was the addition of the stretched sprue radio antenna wire. I use clear sprue for this as the antennas are just about invisible in photographs. Final touch was some staining with pastels and outlining the control surfaces with a Rapidograph.