Anigrand Craftswork C-141 - how to build an NC-141A - Part 1 by Ted Bayliss
The first 3 pics show my initial progress. The cockpit was done first, naturally, though the kit comes with plenty of shapes, there is no decals or anything else for the IP's. The fuselage was joined, though I had to remove the alignment pins, as they don't. The fuselage was difficult to align as well, the rear half having a tendency to "drift" to port. I think it's about as straight as I can get it.
The next 3 shots show the cockpit area. With a lot of skill, it could be made quite nice, but with some plans I have it won't be very visible in any case. I have added a cockpit coaming to cover the hole in the instrument panel, and the extended nose seen in the 4th shot is only a temporary addition to give me an idea on the length of the nose addition.
The last 3 shots show the tailfin area, one of the tailplanes wasn't cast very well, so I had to file it down, rub down with wet and dry and fill then rub down again. Finally panel lines were rescribed. Unfortunately, there were also dips in the large castings which also needed filling and rubbing down, but it is easy enough to sort out.
This first shot shows the now attached tailplane assembly. I did have the idea of seperating the rudder, but as it's one piece and rather thick, I soon decided against that one. The fit of the tailplane was quite good, except it was misaligned but removing the forward of the two locating pins enabled it to swivel around to align it. Also the forward portion of the fillet which is part of the fuselage (you should just be able to make out the change in colour at the joint) was not quite right, but rubbing down soon got it OK.
The second shot shows the cockpit again, with some F-4 seatbelts added.

Model, article and photographs by Ted Bayliss