DeHavilland DH.88 Comet 'Grosvenor House'

Cockpit is straightforward. I deviated from the instructions and painted the office black - or better to say: dark gray - as it appeared black and not wood colored in one of the ol pics I happened to come across. 

For the floor I sticked to wood. The PE fret contains minuscle parts to detail invisible stuff - which I used, of course. I payed for it after all. 

With the wings in place it resembles a plane already 

Areas to adress. 

The landing gear is beautifully rendered and appears to be pretty much to scale. This of course makes separation from the spues and cleaning a bit of a challenge but the result when treated with care is quite convincing. 

The front part of the engine cowlings require an insert with a basic representation of the first cylinder of the engine. Everything was primed black and the cylinderrelief received a drybrushing with Vallejo aluminum. 

Wheels need some touch ups and I didn't realise the necessity of central holes on both sides of the hubs. Will have to drill those too.  

ClearProp suggests some grey for the inside of the engine nacelles. I went with lightened XF-53 and used the same color for the rear surfaces of the wheel covers in the absence of other information. 

I didn't like the kit's spinner tip and replaced it with a 0.3 mm syringe piece and a brass disc from my PE spares. 

Prop parts painted. Most of them the second time as merciless silver revealed even the smallest blemishes. Now you have to look realllly hard. 🙂 

With the installation of the shoulder belts assembly of the cockpit is complete.
Behind the cockpit is an access panel of some kind, or maybe even the nozzle for a rear fuel tank. Anyway I tried ro engrave it but ended up off center. So it was filled again with black superglue and sanded flush again. Will have to redo this.
There have been rather big oil tanks at the rear of the engine/landing gear nacelles. Their locks have been replicated with PE spares.  

Same for the fuel cells at the fuselage. To achieve a plain surface for the PE parts I drilled a hole and inserted a rod of corresponding diameter with a flat top. Like this the PE parts are flush with the surface and don't protrude.  

The whole front ofvthe engine nacelle up to the oblique engraving (arrow) was a single piece. So the seam after attaching the front had to go. I filled it with black superglue and sanded it flush 

I followed the instructions and glued the part outlined in red to the wings at an early stage ( see pic 3) In a next build I would delay that and align it together with the nacelles as I had to close a bigger gap with pieces of styrene and superglue.  

The outlets for the exhausts were opened.  

Let's hope that my homemade masks are up to the job. 

Canopy colored with the interior color of the cockpit.
Silver at critical areas revealed some sloppy work on my part.
Detention. 

Wheels done after some drybrushing and washing. There are decals for the Dunlop-Text but I think it will be too prominent. But maybe I should bring it out a bit more still. 

Props assembled. 

Final go with Tamiya sanding sponge superfine, cleaning up with IPA and I decided it's time for primer. 

 

Highly diluted Mr. Surfacer 1500 white 

Not entirely surprising but still be a bit frustrating, as I had been in coloring mood, was the detection of some areas that needed a bit more attention. Most problematic are the right inner vents of the engine nacelle. I thinned the walls to open them up but that didn't work and I skipped it. Here I perforated it and repaired it with superglue. Should have put a piece of Styrene behind. Should have...
Was thinking hard how to repair this. 

I chose gluegue to have similar properties between the kits plastic and my repair material which - I hope - will make sanding and particularly rescribing easier afterwards.  

Some more filling, sanding and (re-)scribing done. Let's wait for the gue to dry... 

Reprimed. 

Masking? For a plane all red?
Wanna try something... 

Masking done 

By using pink as base color in certain areas I want to achieve different hues of the red top coat. At the top I limited that to the control areas. 

The bottom was covered with pink all over 

The control areas have been covered with doped linen over a wooden frame. The texture of this has been nicely replicated in the kits parts. I wanted to emphasise this and carefully sanded the pink down again to show the white primer. 

 

I more or less managed to bring out the texture without sanding down through the white primer and onto the grey plastic. 

Unmasked. Has it's own appeal. 

Anxious to see how my strategy will fare when the red is applied.
Tamiyas LP-7 will be my choice.