As a consequence of the discussions that followed last week E turned up on our doorstep with this.

As you can see they have moved from their positions around the decking, along the side of the Rectory has proved a much better protection against the wind and rain whilst the preservative dries.

A couple of the pieces appear to have bowed, or may have been delivered that way, either way, now they are protected against the elements they will reside thus…

hopefully to flatten again until the rest of the parts are delivered.

and this embroidery in a frame sourced by her on Ebay.

The embroidery itself has gone back on Ebay, the frame was the desired object.

Next I need to order a mount.

First fitment.

And with the flap fitted.

The pilot now has his oxygen mask painted, though there is a lot more detailing to be done yet, the folds need to be emphasized, the goggles painted in and the whole needs to be “leatherised”. The same applies to the navigator, who also has his life vest (Or Mae West) picked out in bright yellow, and his map bag in a canvas effect.

Annoyingly a number of the screw heads stand proud, so I am not sure how smooth the end result will be, but once the filler has dried I can sand it down and we will see.

And the answer is, reasonable, but not perfect, Unfortunately the paint I had mixed specially ran out, so I had to make up another batch. Which, of course, didn’t quite match. As a result I have had to paint the whole liner anyway, fiddly, but not impossible.

That done, the holders for the visors have been painted silver, they are completely wrong, but at least this way they look closer to the original.As you can see in the above I have also put the interior lights back in. with the silvering on the back they look a lot better. I was also concerned with the length of the pegs showing through on the rear scree, so I have snipped the ends off almost flush to the “Glass” with the sidecutters.

Then the Visors and Mirror are installed.

The fuel filler caps fitted and the hinges screwed in

And a dry fit of the ejector roof

And here the problems start. The ejector panel no longer sits flat on the roof, I can’t believe that the roof has distorted, or the panel just because they have been painted, however I know they sat nicely before. Fortunately I have been able to rectify the problem simply placing the ejector panel on My leg and using My palms to gently flex it so that it sits properly once more.

Finally the roof is finished.

Another part to go away for now, till the model as a whole is assembled. Now I will turn My attentions to the rear seat back and parcel shelf.

And the old hardstanding has been swept clear of detritus.

And the panels stacked, ready for painting.

The Autons, for those who don’t know, are Doctor Who Monsters, who take the form of various plastic items (Depending on which episode they were in) Most famously, shop window dummies. Remember them now? with the hands that dropped down to reveal a gun?

The reason for the subtitle will become apparent shortly.

Anyway, back to the plot…

The next stage in painting the crewmen for the Mosquito is to scrape off the excess blue paint, there are a couple of reasons for this, firstly that it makes it easier to paint over those areas in lighter colours without having the blue shading through (Although I have deliberately left the paint in some recesses precisely because it will shade through and effectively low light them). Secondly it makes it easier to see where I have to paint up to.

Even with just the first coat of a couple of colours (In this case the satin black of the boots and the flesh tones of the faces) they are starting to come to life. Even if they do look a bit like the aforementioned Autons.

The painting over of the hair in flesh tones is intentional, to make painting the hair easier later on.

By the way, Mosquito EG F was piloted by F/Sgt Steadman with P/O Reynolds as his navigator for “Operation Jericho” So I have decided to nickname the crew “Steady” and “Ready”

First of all, and deviating from the order of the instructions are the quarterlight windows.

The reason for this is that the windows have to flex to fit the contours of the body, to ensure they didn’t pop out at a later date contact adhesive was applied to the pegs and holes, and the windows clamped with pegs whilst the glue set. I wanted to do this before the roof lining went in so I didn’t damage the paint finish during the process.

Back to the order of the instructions and first stage is to insert the rear screen.This simply clips in place at this stage, as does the inner frame for the ejector roof panel

As does the front screen

These are all held in place (At least partly) by the roof lining itself, which is held in place by no less than 16 screws

These, as discussed previously will be filled in and painted over. As a consequence the next stage, fitting the fuel fillers and flaps will wait until this work is done, to prevent them getting accidentally damaged. However It’s a good time for a couple of dry fits…

First the ejector panel, which sits reasonably well, if not perfectly aligned with the rest of the roof.

As well as the sun visors and rear view mirror.

As you can see, this has been done in a number of sizes, it’s My experience that, however you set up the original, the printer distorts the sizes somewhat, so this is the best way to get the correct size, in this case marked with an X. The chosen print is then laminated front and back with sellotape, and the pieces cut out.

Then the dashboard was sanded flat, no easy task for the middle section.

And the printed sections glued on.

 With a little touching in of the bare plastic, its starting to look the part.

A little more cleaning up and they will be ready.