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The lower wing has been smoothed and the aileron, flap and the wing fold lines recut. I used superglue to fill the joints, rubbing down soon after application so that it remained fairly soft. It took several goes to fill all the join lines. I decided against removing the flaps and ailerons so as to be able to position them on the grounds that it would add more time to the build, though I haven't passed the point where I can't change my mind. The maintenance manual has a diagram of the lower wing with the ribs marked. There are twenty full chord ribs between the wing-fold and the wing tip and I've been experimenting with various methods of replicating the ribs. I tried to replicate the ribs with circuit board tape and micro-strip, but settled on Slater's 10 thou rod. I may still try decal strip for comparison. In the photo these are attached with Tamiya thin, which melts the rod just sufficiently to adhere to the resin, but mistakes can easily be rectified. The next step is to super glue them before attaching the the part-chord ribs at the leading edge, as they are not stable enough to be rubbed down at present. One wing surface done - seven to go!!

That looks very nice!

It certainly is a more challenging medium. I've only finished two resin kits: a 1/48th Model Design Construction Blackburn Swordfish, which took me years on and off, but turned out fine eventually and this 1/32 Fisher Sea Fury. It's hard to find superlatives adequate to describe the quality of the Fisher kit. I've also been working on a 1/32 Silver Wings Sea Gladiator on and off for a few years and an HPH 1/32 Walrus, which is a challenging build. However, I think that this IIIF is going to be the toughest of them all.

Thanks Keith. Yes, it's quite brittle and snaps very easily. A drop from any height seemingly guarantees major damage.

I've had to carry out some significant repairs to the fuselage caused by carelessness - hence the lack of updates. The whole project nearly ended in the bin as I managed to drop it twice. The resin shatters very easily when dropped from even quite a low height (we have wooden floors). I repaired the rear fuselage a while back, but the front fuselage was trickier to get back together, as it shattered into numerous pieces. The results can be seen below after re-scribing the panel lines: I took the opportunity to attend to the two teardrop cut outs on the underside of the nose. These were moulded as depressions in the original, but I replaced that part of the nose section with a piece of aluminium sheet. And fitted: I think I have the teardrops slightly too far apart, but it will have to do now. Having repaired the fuselage, I moved on to the tail, separating the elevators from the tail plane and rudder from the fin. This is necessary to be able to model the cut out in the rudder (at the point that the elevator controls pass through). I considered drilling this, but decided that separating the two surfaces would make it easier and also have the advantage of allowing me to pose the rudder in a slightly deflected position. Separating the elevators and rudder was unproblematic, but I did snap off the extreme rear end of the fin, where it joins the rudder. In this photo the tail plane is resting on it's brass pins (as is the fin), but I haven't yet modified the rudder. The damage to the fin has been repaired with with milliput. All the surfaces have been roughly sanded to remove the striations: All of these surfaces will need to be detailed, but I want to check out the fit of the airframe before I start this process. Moving on to the lower wing, I have sanded each part to remove striations and pinned with brass rod: I found that making oversized holes allowed me to slightly adjust the alignment before glueing. The photo below shows the fuselage after repair and re-scribed, and the wings glued in a rough state. All I have done here is glue them and adjust the size of the tips, which were slightly too large: It is going to be quite large when assembled. The dihedral I set by eye, to give a slight positive sit to match the available plans. However, I am concerned that they will sag overtime with the weight of the resin, but time will tell. The next task is to finish the wings to give a smooth surface before adding the ribs. I'm still undecided whether or not to separate the ailerons and flaps.

I'd appreciate guidance here please. Other than the Profile and Putnam Westland Aircraft are there any other good Wapiti references?

That is really rather nice.

The cockpit is complete as it is going to be other than the harness for the pilot. It's a concoction of fact and fiction. I can't recall ever building a model where so much guesswork was required. Despite a few rough areas, once enclosed in the fuselage it gives a sufficiently busy impression. The next step is to join the front section and start detailing the fuselage exterior.

I've pretty much decided upon S1307 as a subject - either as a float or wheeled version (more of that later). It's a well photographed aircraft as a wheeled version: However, it has the rear cockpit divided into separate Observer and TAG stations, which means further modification to the Wellsprop kit. I made a top deck divider from aluminium sheet as I found that my first attempt from plastic card wouldn't hold it's shape well enough. The photos I've seen seem to show leather edging to each cockpit. I tried fabricating the leather edging from Green Stuff sculpting putty, but found Crystal Klear better: The Crystal Klear is not quite dry in these photos except for the Observer's cockpit: More progress has been made on the cockpit, which is very nearly finished. More on that later.

Looks really nice. I like the scribed lower wing surfaces.

Martlet 1 in the BJxxx range seem to have been repainted in the UK in stages. I have a series of photographs showing BJ561, BJ562, BJ566 and possibly one other with 804 Squadron at Hatston taken in the autumn of 1940/spring of 1941. One of these Martlets, in original wavy camouflage demarcation finish, carries the name "Nevada Nemesis" on the cowl and has a spade shaped motif (possibly with a sceptre) behind the canopy. They were definitely flown in the original US applied camouflage for a while. In the photos I have, Sky rear fuselage bands, black undersurfaces to the port wing, and rectangular fin flash have been added to the original camouflage. Squadron codes S7x are also carried, painted in what clearly is a washable distemper. On two aircraft these codes have almost been scrubbed out. These codes were painted over the original BJ56x serials, which were larger and carried lower on the fuselage than evident in the photo posted above. All of them carry a yellow concentric to the roundel under the port wing. and all have coloured wheel covers outlined in white. Another photograph in this collection shows 3 Martlets in flight with what appears to be the original wavy demarcation camouflage roughly levelled off on two of them by the addition of camouflage to the original pattern to extend the demarcation to a low straight line (ie not low demarcation TSS). Finally, the original scheme may have been overpainted in TSS and single code letters applied. I have a much better print of the photograph posted above of BJ562:A, BJ561 (previous S7x code still visible) and BJ566. If these are in TSS (with original camouflage to the cowlings of BJ566 and BJ561), then the S7x codes were also reapplied after they were repainted, before the squadron moved to single letter identification.

I'll check the Squadron Diary, which I have a copy of, but I'm away from home at the moment. It has quite a few photographs of personnel in it.

Looks very nice!

I've been working on this at a snail's pace. The cockpit is about 80% done now and it's got to the stage where I want it finished to move on. i've added a radio, which swings out like the original, TAG seat with belts, Lewis ammunition drums, observers bomb aiming hatch and controls, folding Observer's seat, Vickers gun stock to pilot's cockpit port side, pilot and observer's instruments, belts for the observer. I still need to add the stick, throttle controls, Vickers ammunition box and to paint the pilot's seat cushion add belts and height adjustment controls. i the end, I added a TAG seat similar to the one found in the Swordfish as I could not find a photograph showing the seat

Can you cite any scientific evidence for these views, that isn't funded by Big Oil? This 60 second video produced by the Royal Society obviously won't change your mind, but may prevent others who stumble across this thread from promulgating dangerous, factually incorrect, disinformation.