I will only show one photo of it during the build. Photos showing pieces being cut out and sanded would tell nobody anything new. By the stage shown in the photo, this is a list of ther work I have done to it.
The flight deck was made using a combination of kit parts and scratch built parts, tarted up with paint to make it look busy.
I glued strips of plastic card along the inside of the fuselage edges to help mate the two halves. That was successful.
The canopy in the kit's package seemed to have been sat on at some stage. I tried to uncrush it, but failed. I resorted to cutting out the top forward section of the fuselage, glueing the two halves together and using the shape to crash mould a new canopy. At the back of the clear section, it looks as if it overlaps the rest of the fuselage. It doesn't. What you can see is a narrow lip of plastic card glued under the fuselage edge so that the replacement canopy could sit on it neatly. It does.
The port engine parts were fine and went together without problems. One part of the starboard cowling, however, was rather lumpy and poorly shaped - something must have gone a bit peculiar during the moulding. I tried to rectify the problem using filler. In the photo, the starboard engine cowling looks fine, but when seen from above, it was completely out of alignment. I could not live with it, so I cut it off and replaced it with a cowling from the spares box, suitably modified.
I used the kit's engines instead of replacing them with spare injection or metal parts. Vacform engines can often be unusable, but the detail on these was acceptable. I usually prefer to build vacform kits 'as they are', i.e., using as much of the kit's parts as possible. I made some small rectangular pieces to show the engine gills in various open positions. There are also some open covers on the intakes (or whatever they are) under the engines as these are usually shown open in photos when the Harpoon is on the ground.
The main wings were attached using a piece of brass rod to support them. I cut out wheel wells and built box shapes using plastic card.
The tail wings and fins/rudders went together without any problems.
There were some cast metal pieces in the packet for props and u/c legs.
Other pieces such as guns, aerial masts etc. were scratch built or came from spares.
After a few coats of paint, the result is as below.
I mixed some blue with black to give the overall finish. Whether it is correct or not, goodness knows. Photos of the Harpoon in its post-war and restored states show a variety of colours that range from dark gloss blue through to what is almost a faded anthracite colour. So take your pick. The white codes on the tail are not entirely accurate - it should be FP for this particular aircraft. I compromised.
All in all, a highly recommended kit if one wants to build a most satisfying model of quite an attractive looking type.
