FG2Si

Max, it may be possible. I'm closer with the CT-133 so will probably focus on that and work on the Sea Fury in between.

I got more paintwork done today. I masked off the lower side of the plane. I then sprayed the blue upper colour on. With the masking tapes removed, I found a couple small areas that will need a quick touch up.

Max, it is definitely makes an interesting size comparison. I was surprised at how big the Sea Fury is relative to the Silver Star.

So I kept looking at this pic @trickyrich posted of his Seafire and something about was different to mine. Then I realized it was the insert behind the exhausts! My fuselage had a huge gaping hole on both sides and no mention of doing anything with it. But after looking at the pic, I realized that there should be something to close it up. Sure enough, I found a pair of panels that go in place. No mention of them in the instructions though. This gave me some impetus to get a bit more done. So I primed the lower wings and fuselage joint to see how it looked. I found a few flaws and fixed those. RCN Sea Fury colours are apparently quite the hornet's nest, especially in the two tone grey scheme. I ended up using a mix of Tamiya XF-19 and XF-83 in a 1:1 ratio that a friend used on his Sea Fury. Topside view. So some decent progress on the build.

Time for an update. The upper wings went on. No issues there thankfully so just a bit of seam filling along the leading edge. I made the tip tanks as well. The plane gets so much larger with those on. After some additional seam filling, I started on the paint. I've used a white grey for the underside as that's closer to the actual colour than a straight white. I found a few missed seams and did some touch-ups and then a second coat.

I would be up for this. Still have a bunch of Bandai kits in the stash.

There should be holes in the bulkhead that are sealed with grommets that the anchor cables pass through. I made a bulkhead for my 1/32 conversion following the images of Roy Sutherland's conversion. Hope that helps.

Like others have said, it's a great kit out of the box. I made the mistake of building mine simultaneously with the HK kit when they first came out. I stalled for a bit but when I got it finished, I was very happy with the results. Now to get back to the one I started converting to a Tse Tse.

That looks really good. Gotta love these Bandai Star Wars kits.

Rich, I think mine is more the exception than the rule because of the parts mix and match with regards to the wing and cowl.

Thanks Max. I really am enjoying this build. It's not something that's straightforward and yet it's been fun. As for the bench, I somehow manage to find what I need. I think it's mostly due to my putting things down in roughly the same spot all the time so I'm having to look around too much.

I can confirm it's out as I picked one up today from Wheels and Wings. The instructions are 58 pages!

Now the fun began. I installed the intakes and used a combination of Tamiya cement and CA for this. The wing root section of the fuselage that the intakes join to needs thinning out. Also the back corners of the cockpit tub need sanding so the intake trunks will clear it. For some reason, both front lower sections snapped off so I had to do some repairs as well. Thankfully the kit plastic was soft enough that the cement did a great job melting the broken bits back together. The rear fuselage section needs a spreader bar so that it better conforms to the shape of the lower wing. With that in place, the wing went on next. That's where I am now. Still can't believe how fast this one is going together since I only started it on Tuesday.

With the fuselage halves joined together, I had to do the next bit in the right order or I would be in trouble. First up was some nose weight stuck in the uh, nose. Then I fitted and glued in the nose gear bay. Again, a bit of sanding and fettling was needed. Then it was time for the cockpit. I had to use a couple clamps to hold it securely in place while the glue set.

The cockpit on the CT-133 was mostly black so I used NATO black and did some post shading with straight black. Then I painted the dials and buttons using a Gundam marker. The kit includes PE panels for the IP but oddly, the rear one is too wide to fit so using a file, I carefully narrowed it down.