de Havilland DH.88 Comet

As usual parts are washed and allowed to dry. The parts are finely moulded, with barely visible mould lines, but the odd blob of flash at the end of some, long, thin parts. 

Another builder had mentioned that the wing joins had noticable steps that needed work. I took their advice to thin the inner section before assembly. 

Working on interior and checking fit of fuselage/wing joint. 

This worked well at the wing tips and roots, but I was too cautious at the trailing edge and left a step. I mixed the tan interior colour from yellow ochre and insignia white. 

I was pleased that I bought a masking kit for this very fine framed canopy. 

Masking complete. 

I'm too ham-fisted to use all of the provided photo etch parts. I don't have any hope of forming the rudder pedals and one of them flew off while I was removing them. I think they would be basically invisible anyway. I have used the control wheel, instrument panels and seatbelts. 

Fuselage closed up and wings fitted. The fit is excellent and I like that the alignment is by finely moulded tabs and slots. 

The undercarriage is finely moulded and comes in multiple parts, with few locating pins. Port and starboard assemblies are identical, using the same part numbers. The challenge will be to end up with a matching pair. 

They're looking good so far, but seem quite fragile. There are multiple location points for various bits of the undercarriage so I'll try them out before the cement fully sets. As the locations are at the 'top' and 'front', then I'm wondering if I can fit these parts after the fuselage is painted. 

The dry fit of the parts is good enough to check the stance. I hope that the wheels will fit into the legs with no problems. 

All flight surfaces attached. 

Overview shows how elegant the wingform is. Cockpit is dark and I'm not bothered about the missing rudder pedals. 

White primer applied, but it does not look much lighter than the bare plastic. 

The primer is not very opaque, but it has covered the steel of the canopy and unified the surface. Having seen some footage of the race, I think the canopy framing was painted black inside, but I went with steel as I was worried that black might be difficult to cover.