I've made a start on Eduard's Avia.
The cockpit is building up into a nicely busy little "office", with the guns in the fuselage sides equipped with etched cocking handles and then trapped behind well-detailed side-frames. Eduard provide etched throttles to replace the moulded-on items - and, similarly, etched firing buttons for the joystick, which require the original plastic items to be trimmed off carefully. The seat comes with a separate cushion and a rather neat harness with unusual double-fold-over buckles/guides.
I've left off the shoulder harness until after the fuselage is finished. Eduard suggest folding it straight over the back of the seat, but there's a slot in the rear half-bulkhead that looks as though it might have been for a Sutton-style harness to thread through... I haven't managed to find a photo to confirm that.
I've "glazed" the dials of the instrument panel with Klear brushed on the rear face of the etched part - surface tension is enough to let the Klear fill the holes without running out across the surface of the panel. Once it's dry, the effect of glass in the bezels is quite convincing.
Holdfast describes the technique in more detail in his article Glazing Photo-etched Instrument Panels.
More to follow soon.
All the best
Rowan
He's dead, Jim!
