On the Bench

and a venture into Photography

1) December 2008. With the final completion of a model-maker's bench (that I made myself) the model-maker's Study is complete after a 3 year hiatus. Back in 2006 I packed all my hobby equipment away with the birth of our baby. The kits went into the attic and the baby took the Hobby Room as a Nursery. Three years later and we have moved house, the baby has her own room and the Study returns! It took seven months, after we moved in, to get to this stage. A lot of hard work.

2) Work starts on three Accurate Miniatures 1/48th scale Il-2 Shturmoviks/Sturmovik/Stormovik. One is the Accurate Miniatures two seat Il-2M3 whilst the other two are the Accurate Miniatures single seaters. One of the Accurate Miniatures single seaters has skis. If you trip over to the Project Pages here, here and here then you can see what we are dealing with. First I started with the Accurate Miniatures Il-2M3 as the most complicated kit. It would be the "model" for the other two builds. The test case. Why? Because they would be crammed with a lot of resin and metal so mistakes might get made.

3) First I built up both the CMK resin cockpit and the model's own. This was because I needed the help of the kit cockpit to see how to position the CMK resin one. The CMK superdetail set is great but the modeller is left clueless as to how to position the cockpit inside the fuselage halves. Their instructions are just too vague.

4) I also used the CMK Il-2 weapons set that included the wing weapon bays. This is quite chunky resin and needed quite a lot of careful thinning down in order to fit inside the wing.

5) Here we are experimenting with the positioning of the CMK resin cockpit and CMK resin weapon bays. To cut a long story short - you will struggle to use both as they leave very little room for the fuselage sides to slide down between the resin items. Note the change in coloured background for this shot. I will be developing my model photography techniques during this build. I have a great Olympus E-410 DSLR but will be buying some lights and a fill-in flash to improve the photo's of this build.

6) With the new photography lights setup the quality of the photo's come on in leaps and bounds. Still not perfect but I am sure some experimentation with positioning the lights, and maybe a fill-in flash, might polish the result. This photo shows the left cockpit side after complete assembly. Of note here is the internal ribbing and wiring that had to be added. Although the Il-2 didn't change a lot internally through the war the two seaters preserved in museums do show a few differences arising from their preservation. Many pictures are contradictory so it was sometimes better to look at the wartime photo's if you have them. Note here the difference between left and right hand sides where I have hacked away at the bottom of the wing root segment to get the fuselage side to fit between the resin cockpit and weapons bays. This produces a distinct downward pointing "L" shape sticking out to the front. The bottom of the "L" is required to align the fuselage to the wing underside.

7) Similar view of the other side. There is a lot more detail here with my own added extras. The CMK set here is most infuriating as it matches no photo I have ever found. I know that in Ricardo Rodriguez's build (Airmodeller - issue 21 - Dec '08) he actually decided to not use these resin sections, choosing instead to cut out the useful bits and scratch build the rest. This is the best approach and I will use this on the single-seaters. Cut the useful parts out of the CMK resin and combine with the Eduard parts with a bit of scratch building.

8) The rear gun represented its own challenges. The Accurate Miniatures version is actually quite good but the CMK resin item is modelled after the museum versions from the late/post war. These all appear to be different as they have a third (shorter) 'barrel' on top and no cocking arm. I guess this was a pneumatic cocking mechanism that was seldom seen during the war. It can be deleted from the CMK item with a sharp knife. The second problem is that the CMK resin gun seems a little short and its photo etch trigger guard does not resemble the real thing at all. I elected to remove the handle section from the AM plastic part and grafted that on instead. I removed the gun barrel itself and drilled into the resin with a 0.8mm drill bit from the front. This allowed me to install a brass tube that look about right in width and length (ie, longer than the resin barrel). Next I added some prominent mounting detail, obvious in all photo's, to the right-hand side of the gun, plus the cocking handle on top.

Build Notes: I am combining the CMK resin Interior Set (No 4004), the CMK resin Armament set (No 4015) and the Eduard Il-2 photoetch set  (48 255). As you try to combine these you find that you have to quickly jump to AM's Step 4 "Lower Wing Center Section" on the Accurate Miniatures Instruction sheet. This is because the cockpit bath rests on top of this floor hence you need to complete this assembly to position the resin cockpit. When this is done then you can position all the other resin and photoetch items.

• Contrary to the CMK instructions you do need to fit the Accurate Miniatures item numbered 24 "oil cooler duct top". I fitted the Eduard photoetch items 63, 64 and 43 to the kit part 24 as they are a good reproduction of this area. However I did not use Eduard's part 65 as it is too short and narrow. I replaced it with plastic card. You will need to thin down the radiator bath on AM's part number 22. I also discarded the CMK resin item "PUR 2" as this bares no relationship to the radiator tunnel on an Il-2. I cut the holes for the weapons bay in the lower wing and thinned the plastic in this area. However, this proved unnecessary as CMK actually made the resin weapons bays to fit inside un-thinned surfaces. I realised this too late. I had to thin down the sides of the resin cockpit plug, the weapons bay walls, the fuselage sides and the CMK cockpit side panel inserts all to get a reasonable cockpit fit. It is all hard work and a very tight fit. You are probably better off using the Eduard Photoetch weapons bay rather than the CMK resin one.

• The rest of the cockpit can now be assembled as per CMK's instructions. Note that you will have to cut off the bottle attached to the side of the tank between front and rear cabins otherwise this middle section will not fit between the fuselage sides. CMK's part "PUR 6" the rear bulkhead is also a very tight fit so measure twice and secure with BluTak before committing the superglue. Thin down the Accurate Miniatures bulkhead part 62 to get a scale appearance. You will need to fill the upper of the two push rod slots on CMK's part "PUR 5" as it is too high. Cut a similar slot 2mm further down. CMK recommends fitting the Accurate Miniatures push rod part number 84 however this is hopelessly over scale. I replaced it with stretched sprue and actually glued it to the fuselage wall from the rear so it threaded through the holes supplied in "PUR 6", 62 and "PUR 5". I used a cut down yoke from the Accurate Miniatures part 84 and superglued this to "PUR 4". With careful dry fitting the push rod will meet the end of the yoke and can be joined up after painting and final assembly of the cockpit. The "push rod guard" Accurate Miniatures part number 112 can then be fitted. Quite how the model maker is suppose the slide the push rod through its guard using either AM's or CMK's construction sequence is not clear. The likelihood is that the modeller will have snapped off the push rod in the attempt.

• You will need to make CMK's cockpit wall inserts "PUR 1" and "PUR 3" as thin as you can. As mentioned earlier, the fit is very tight. After all this work is done you can fit the delicate photoetch items dry assembling as you go along to ensure nothing gets snapped off in later assembly.

One of the references I used was Ricardo Rodriguez's build of the Accurate Miniatures 1/48th Il-2M Type 3 as featured on pages 16 thru 26 of Airmodeller (issue 21 December 2008). I was interesting to compare his work to mine because he appears to have assembled and painted the CMK Cockpit without dry fitting it to the Accurate Miniatures fuselage sides. It remains unclear how he then assembled it as he wasn't saying! Although not mentioned in his text it is clear that he filled the push-rod slot in the CMK resin part "PUR 5" to reposition the slot further down. This does suggest that he had performed some of the exercise I completed. He may have found some other way of forcing "PUR 5" in with that small bottle attached.

10) Underside view at this stage.

11) At this stage I selected the subject for this build from the Aeromaster set. I dug through my references for photo's and found one in "War in the Air". However it mentioned that some thought this photo was not of an actual scheme and that the White Arrow (containing the word "Avenger") was added by a photo-retoucher. I put this to the online Soviet Warplanes forum at http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=705.0 and had some response that pointed me at some new photo's online. Although one did show the same photo without the markings it looked clear that this photo had been retouched to remove the markings. I then found a second photo of the same plane with markings intact so it did look as if this matter may have been settled for certain. The photo I show here is a well known and high quality propaganda photo that is a likely montage with the bottom of the photo (showing Berlin) added later.

12) These photo's show the different retouched versions side-by-side. I have marked the areas showing evidence of having been retouched in the lower set.

13) Two different photo's of the same plane strongly suggesting that the aircraft and its paint scheme were real.

October 2009 - work starts again with the assembly of the engine area and undercarriage bays. You can follow the Accurate Miniatures written instructions here. I had actually followed the guidance in the online article by Steven Budd but it turns out that his advice is identical to that on the AM instructions. However he was building the single-seater so checked to see if earlier releases of this kit had different advice. They don't. Maybe Mr Budd never read the instructions?! There is other online advice that says join the sides of the engine compartment to the sides of the fuselage first. This may give a better fit but you will have more of a challenge fitting the air ducting section. See photo 17 below for the assembled engine section.

14) By early November 2009 I was working on the undercarriage main bays. Here you see the plug moulds for the main gear bay doors. They are slightly larger than the photo-etch insets shown alongside. I had a rummage in a kitchen drawer and found a small metal tea strainer with a loop handle. I used bulldog clips to attach small squares of the plasticard to this metal handle before heating the plastic over a burning candle. As soon as it started to melt I simply plunge it over the male-mould. The mould is simply the gear bay door that has been cut from the gondola. It is glued to a strut of sprue. The doors are already quite thin. When in contact with hot plastic they will also melt and bend. You obviously do not want this so you need to support it at the extremities and supply plenty of thermal mass to wick away the heat. I used plasticine and BluTak - whatever I have to hand. Plasticine is better.

15) Here we see the gondola, main gear legs and main wing centre section. Gear bays have now been fully boxed in. Small missing struts and some photo-etch has been added to the gear bay.

16) The main gear all wired up. I have also attached the hydraulic ram that is missing from the kit. To help hold this in place I actually super-glue it to the thin fuse wire representing the hydraulic piping. When firmly in place I can drop the legs into the gear bay and get everything positioned before securing the hydraulic ram to the gear leg with a drop of super-glue. Note in this photo the actuating yoke at the bottom of the other strut. This is simply a triangle of plastic cut from leftover bomb-bay doors left lying around the bench from earlier surgery. These gear legs are not finished as further pipework and cabling has to be added later.

Since photo 6 we are working with two very large and powerful photographer's lamps for these photo's. I have ones with large CFL bulbs so they don't get very hot. They can be positioned quite close to the subject & I have mine sitting on the bench top. This does produce a bright patch either side of the subject so they could do with being moved slightly further away. Apart from this the light is good as the lamps came with their own white-clothe diffusers that slip over the front of the lamp. The photo's are brighter and with better white-balance as the bulbs are daylight balanced.

The next photographic problem to solve is focus. It is difficult to get close enough to the subject without everything being out of focus. This can be a little offset by using aperture priority and setting a high F-stop. However, I chose to splash out on a macro-lens for my Olympus - a Zuiko 50mm. To counteract the 'halo's' I need a fill in flash. Having spent over £170 on the Macro lens I baulked at the cost of an Olympus Flash (near enough £200 - I am not made of money). So I found a much cheaper Metz 36 AF-4 Flashgun for £70. Then it was onto EBay to find a Flash Hot Shoe extension cable for the Olympus. I found a Chinese supplier of cheap rip-off Olympus extension cables. Olympus peddle their version for over £40 but mine cost £18. When this kit comes together I hope to seat the Flash Gun away from the camera firing upwards into a reflector to bounce in fill-in light.

18) The next set of pictures were taken in mid January 2010. Now I have the new flash gun and the Macro Lens and the results are obvious. Good crisp close-up pictures. 18 shows the plug-moulding of the new undercarriage covers - this time for the second Il-2 under construction - the first of the single seaters. On the first Il-2M3 2 seater I originally only made up two male moulds in the belief that they were symmetrical each side. But they were not so I constructed another two. This picture shows the plastic sheet after being plunged over the male mould. The undercarriage doors has been cut out.

19) Here are the undercarriage door moulds with the newly formed doors plunged down on top. The plastic is heated with a candle until it become pliable before it is plunged over the mould and allowed to cool.

20) Two new undercarriage legs complete with new struts and wiring. These two were simply copied from the original two done for the two seater.

21) Undercarriage legs old and new. Building fiddly parts like this becomes much easier after you have sweated blood making the original masters. I think the trick is to leave an adequate amount of time between build to relieve the boredom!

22) February 2010 - Work done on the centre section of the 2nd Il-2 (a single seater). This time I used the superior Eduard photoetch for the weapons bays. Note also that I have cut away the bottom of the radiator trough and replaced it with thin plasticard after fabricating the insides from more plasticard. The radiator trough sides were thinned down to match. It is much easier to do this after the trough bottom has been removed.

23) The undercarriage sponsons form the 2nd Il-2 after clean-up. Much superglue poured into the interior over the seams added strength and covered over joints it would otherwise be difficult to remove. A motorised router really helped out here.

24) The finished undercarriage doors from the second machine. I made up two more male plug moulds for these after I realised that all four would be unique as they are handed left and right. I use one set for the first Il-2M3 but corrected the mistake on the second machine. (The third machine has skis and no doors.)

26) Comparison of the first and second machines. The upper fuselage side is from the single seater assembled second in sequence. Instead of resin it has plasticard faired in with putty on the fuselage wall interiors. This better resembles the actual photos of the armour plating in this area. It is totally smooth without the 'step' modelled by AM.

27) Similar view of the opposite cockpit wall showing the different layout. The machine built second (at the top) better resembles the photos whilst the Il-2M3 at the bottom was built up from the CMK resin parts that don't match any photo's I have.

28) Close-up of the second machine. This is the starboard cockpit wall interior. Note that I took some parts off the CMK resin cockpit wall as is clear in this photo. Fuse wire provides all wiring. Note that this area of the fuselage has been thinned quite a bit to allow the CMK resin cockpit plug to fit better.

30) The finished cockpit from the ski version. This used mostly parts left-over from the Eduard resin set.

31) The Tarmac horse, sledge & oil barrel combination. A neat little resin kit that requires quite a bit of cleaning up but is a real gem. Perfect for that snowy diorama from the Great Patriotic War.

32) Those Russian/German horses must have been very small - or this horse should be a donkey!

34) Back to May 2010 - The inside of the top of the wing-halves. There is no spare Eduard photoetch to box-in the undercarriage bay so I just photocopy-enlarged the Eduard Instruction sheet up to the right scale. Then I used this as a template to recreate their photoetch in plasticard and stretched-sprue. The top of the undercarriage bay is recreated directly onto the inside of the wing surface. The wings are a bit short as they have been cut down to take the KMC resin wings.

35) As there is no third CMK resin cockpit plug, the final cockpit was created using the AM parts with Eduard photoetch. Extra wiring has been added to recreate items found on the CMK cockpits.

36) The final set of undercarriage legs differ slightly from the other two sets as these are for the skis.

Interior Colours: Accurate Miniatures' Instruction sheet does says "Interior Grey-Green" translating as FS34226 or Humbrol 92. This seems to go for everything from cockpit to undercarriage. White Ensign Models have three colours on offer "IMUP Blue-Grey Metal Primer", "ALG-5 Grey Metal Primer" and "WUP Grey Interior Primer". The first two are a very similar light bluish-grey and the latter quite a dark grey with no other hue. The Airmodeller 21 issue shows the modelmaker using some WEM paint such as IMUP on undercarriage legs but inexplicably Ricardo seemed to mix his own "ALG-5" for all other interior surfaces that is a vibrant olive green bearing no resemblance to the WEM version. Ricardo's choice of olive green is actually a close match for the bomb bay colours of preserved Il-2's in Russia and Serbia (for example the one in "War in the Air") so he may have a point. However no examples show this sort of colour used anywhere else. Judging from Ricardo's words he may not have been trying to exactly reproduce the colours of a version in the field so his ALG-5 colour can be ignored for interiors other than bomb bay and possibly the main wheel hubs.

Of the three preserved examples in Russia, Serbia and Prague they all show various shades of grey on interiors. The Russian example in "War in the Air" has the vibrant olive green wheel hubs and main undercarriage legs. This is not reflected in the Serbian and Prague examples. From the photos it looks generally as if the main gear bays are a dark grey like WUP. All undercart legs and other interior surfaces are either ALG-5 or IMUP. Instrument panels are either black or light grey. Period photo's suggest that wartime versions made in Russia were light grey same as the cockpit. The inside of the main gear bay doors are either the very dark grey (WUP) of the rest of the bay or painted the same blue as the underside of the airframe. To be honest there is no way of knowing if these preserved examples in any way reflect wartime examples nor can we tell anything from monochrome photos taken during the war. At this point we have to turn again to Erik Pilawskii's "Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-1945" We assume that "Bomber & Attack Aircraft Colours" may follow one day? The book is vast but doesn't cover Il-2 directly although Erik has covered this ground online at Hobbyvista.com. The exact interior colours would vary from factory to factory and from period to period. Unless you have exact colour photos of the airframe you are modelling then everything else is an educated guess. Erik suggests that Il-cockpits would be IMUP whilst the undercarriage bay & legs may have been AII "Blue" ("as underside"). This suggests the museum airframes have post-war finishes to interior items. The dark green seen on some interiors (ie, Ricardo's laughable "ALG-5" may) actually be a dark green A-7 primer or 4BO. Thankfully both IMUP and 4BO are in the WEM paint range then we'll use that in combination with the underside colour AII "Blue".

Exterior Colours: The advice available on the paint colours for Russian combat aircraft in the Great Patriotic War is quite bewildering. However I, like so many others, have chosen to consolidate on the advice of Erik Pilawskii. Not everyone agrees with him but it is the best we have to go on for now. I am using the AML decal sheet 48-026 for the single seaters and Aeromaster 48-349. Combining this with the advice from the Hobbyvista.com web site (by Erik Pilawskii)) we can dispense with the spurious colour advice on the decal sheet and AM instructions. Judging from some of the online Il-2's models I have seen there are some model makers who believe that the three upper-shade colours of Shturmoviks was similar to the three-colours used on Vietnam-era US combat aircraft. This appears wrong as the "Tan" colour from the 1960's is nothing like the mahogany dark brown some model makers have tried to make it represent. It looks as if the true three colours used on Il-2M3's was AII "Brown"/"Green"/"Blue" all of which can be sourced from White Ensign Models. The single seaters can use the WEM AII "Black"/"Green"/"Blue". That is what we will use. Jiri Hornat & Bob Migliardi's 2006 work "Colours of the Falcons" only deals with the AMT colour range and has only limited advice on interior colours. AII are the pre-war lacquers whilst the AMT colours were a later development although the "AMT" designation appears to be a post-war invention. AII colours were still being applied right up until the end of the war. Newer "AMT" colours wee more or less the same colours as the AII versions they replaced but had a common satin finish and improved chemical properties. Thus you might replace AII "Blue" with AMT-7 "Blue", or AII "Green" with AMT-4 "Olive Green" with little noticeable difference. All of these are available from WEM although there appears to be no AMT equivalent of AII "Brown" suggesting that colour was phased out. Hence AII colours would not have been used in combination with AMT colours. Either way the WEM colours will suffice for this project. Within this orthodoxy one is able to take liberties as the colours all faded rapidly in use and were subject to a certain amount of other weathering.

37, 38 & 39) November 2010 - after having described the evolving and improving photography process with this project I thought it would be worth actually showing what I was talking about. So I took a few photos with my daughter's camera of the rig. In the centre, on the tripod, is my trusty E-410 Olympus DSLR. It is pointing down at the workbench and has the Macro lens fitted. From the hotshoe via extension chord is the flash unit mounted separately and pointing upwards into the large reflector sitting above the rig. This is actually just wedged into a pre-existing book shelf - quite serendipitous! Either wide of the camera are the two photography lamps which are floor-mounted on their own tripods. This all works really well but space is cramped making it difficult to position models in front of the camera. I tend to tilt the lamps vertically to make some space.

40) November 2010 - I made a resin copy of the larger AM Tail wheel used by the two-seater. The photo shows the mould (top-left, the blue rubber item) with the kit original, the resulting wheel copy, the kit original tail strut from one of the single-seaters (note the tail wheel is a different size), and the rebuilt tail strut. The strut from the single seater was used as a model to rebuild the two-seater strut using stretched sprue. I hope it is strong enough. The Airmodeller builder actually soldered his tail wheel strut together using copper struts! That would be strong but probably over-kill? We'll see. Photo 41 below makes this process a bit clearer.

41) Hopefully this view of the kit original (top) and my rebuilt copy (bottom) should explain this process better. Luckily I had multiple versions of the AM kit so it could copy the tail wheel strut structure with reference to a complete kit tail wheel strut and to photos of the real thing. Note the resin wheel.

42) This photo shows how the new two-seater tail wheel and strut were broken down, copied and re-assembled with new stretched-sprue sections. You can see how black superglue has been used to join them to the kit original strut and fuselage frame.

43) The Tarmac Russian Jeep pictured in November 2010 showing the completed sub-assemblies that I had actually built up earlier in the year. I had this in my collection a long time before Tamiya bought out their new injection-moulded 1/48th scale version which makes this old resin version redundant.

44) The Tarmac resin kit may be obsolete but it is fun and a relatively simple build. It will inevitably be cruder than the Tamiya version but what-the-heck!

46) A first for my workbench! I will try using the legendary "Klear" product for the first time. Just before Christmas 2010 I had airbrushed the primary colours for the cockpits and would use the Klear to seal in the enamel used (from White Ensign Models WEMCC ACS06 WW2 Soviet VVS "IMUP Blue-Grey Metal Primer") before applying a black oil paint wash. If I didn't use a water-based gloss the wash would dissolve the under-lying paint.

47) 3rd January 2011 and he New Year sees cockpit interiors getting airbrushed en masse. The sheet of paper is A4 sized (that is a little smaller than Letter for the American folks). It is divided into three to ensure we don't get the matching sets muddled up.

48) Close up on the two single seaters. The one with skis on the left uses the original AM cockpit whilst the one on the right is the CMK resin item. At this point I have applied an airbrushed undercoat of Humbrol 67 Matt Tank Grey as a "scale black" then applied the IMUP holding the airbrush at an angle to represent the direction from which the light would flood the cockpit from the top. This makes natural shadows on raised objects that you then subtly adjust by dusting over more IMUP. The fuel tank is also scale black.

50) 24th January 2011 - the two seater et al are finally ready for major assembly. All internal detail painting has been done with pin washes and dry brushing complete.

51) 0.7mm dia copper tubing make up the larger wing cannons.

52) The finished cockpit side-walls of the Il-2M3.

54) Instrument panel for the Il-2M3.

55) Sponsons treated with pastel dust.

56) Undercarriage for the two seater.

57) The weapons bay and undercarriage bay of the two-seater.

58) The rear gun ammunition box.

59) Tailwheel is painted and trapped between the fuselage sides. This photo taken one day later on the 25th January after the fuselage was assembled.

60) The smaller wing guns made from 0.5mm dia copper tube.

62) The assembled fuselage on the Il-2M3.

63 & 64) The yet-to-be-assembled single-seater without skis. Note here the reinforcing behind the propeller mount inside the nose area. The mount here is ridiculously flimsy and I was afraid that it would simply snap off if I held onto it during painting or pushed the spinner onto it in final assembly.

66) The large cannons mounted for the single-seater as per photo 51 above.

67) Cockpit tub and instrument panel for the single seater.

68) Single seater instrument panel in detail.

70) Tail wheel unit pre-painted prior to assembly. This unit is actually slightly smaller for a smaller wheel on the single-seater.

71) Undercarriage legs for the single seater - same as for the two seater above.

72) Undercarriage bays and weapons bays for the single seater.

74) The single seater with skis stands apart as apparently having had its wings chopped off. This surgery is required ready to accept the new resin wings. This third kit also suffers from less resin and photoetch than its two siblings hence I took a different path on the undercarriage bays. For this model I emulated the photoetch directly onto the inside of the kit wing before painting, dusting with pastels and dry brushing. This gives a nice effect and the open undercarriage bays are easier to paint than those enclosed in the photoetch. If you wish to build this kit consider this approach!

76) Close up showing reinforcement behind the propeller shaft mount assembly. This is required to beef it up. This procedure was performed on all three kits.

79 & 80) Cockpit tub on the single seater with skis. This is based upon the kit parts with some photoetch. It looks as good as the resin equivalent! Note that in all these photos the armoured glass behind the pilot's head has been filled in with acetate sheet (although on the standard AM component this section is moulded in clear plastic anyway!)

83) Undercarriage sponsons differ from the other two kits as this version is fitted for skis - hence the different shape.

84) Instrument panel for the single seater with skis.

90) A brief glance at the model-makers workbench shows the mini-Il-2 production line. Here we see the single seater all pegged up as the glue sets on the fuselage assembly. Meanwhile, on the right, the vertical Il-2 is the two-seater having its nose glued on. Gravity holds everything in place.

91) Pictured late January 2011 we see all three Il-2's having their wings fitted into place.

92) Close up of the single-seater with skis having its resin KMC outer-wings grafted on. This was complicated as I had to carefully drill out holes in the resin plug to accept metal spars I had earlier fixed to the centre-section. This done I used two-part epoxy to fix the resin parts in place. You only get a few minutes to get positioning correct before it hardens (guess that is why it is called "five-minute epoxy" then?) so I dry fitted everything with a Lego jig before committing to glue. I think I got it spot on.