Hi Stephen
No chance of me ditching the Halifax (as tempting as this weekend's test-fitting makes it!
) - but I've made a start on the La-5.
Something for the sleeping-bag brigade.
The wings and fuselage arrive with large pour-stubs to remove. The aren't very thick, so I tackled them with my trusty Tri-Tool scriber, rather than sawing them off with all the inherent dust that would cause. The Tri-Tool is my favourite scriber - it must be 15 years old and is still wickedly sharp, and I find it's very controllable and excellent for both fine and medium-heavy work.
Removing the pour-stubs on the fuselage reveals an inerior lip with must be removed carefully to maintain the correct cross-section. If I was going to tackle this stage again, I'd run an ink-marker around the exterior of the lip (vacuform-style) to give a clear mark as to how much resin to remove.
With the parts basically cleaned up, it's time for a test fit. You need to add the cockpit base to spread the fuselage sides - otherwise there's a huge gap at the wing roots - but, with the base in place, the fit isn't too bad... some work to do, but I've seen far worse!
While everything's taped together, a sneak preview of the sort of side-wall detail Vector have included. The casting is superb and the cockpit is really going to look great when painted
Perhaps the weakest part of Vector's kit is that it doesn't include any painting instructions at all. My main references for the build will be (surpise, surprise...) Erik Pilawskii's "Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-1945", plus MBI's La-5 book, which includes masses of detail - including scale drawings and colour illustrations of the cockpit.
All the best
Rowan
