Revell's 1/48 F/A-18E Super Hornet: WIP Report 6/30/13

     This week has seen some serious work on the Super Hornet, mostly remedial. I wasn't happy with the paint job on the front windshield frame, so I stripped it down to bare plastic with a good soak in Windex. While the plastic was exposed I took the opportunity to sand the framing some more as the sprue attachment points had not quite disappeared. After that, I masked the windshield again, this time using Bare Metal Foil. Once it was burnished down nice and tight with a toothpick, I cut the frame out with a brand new #11 blade. I was very happy with this and may switch permanently to BMF for my canopy masking needs.
     Once the windshield was ready, I secured it to the fuselage using Tamiya extra thin. I wanted a strong plastic weld, and previous experiments showed there was little chance of fogging. Once secure, I went to work with the putty and nail polish in an effort to blend the seams. Although most builds I've seen online show a definite seam where the windshield is glued to the fuselage, reference photos show that the real seam is so small as to be invisible in this scale. Therefore, I chose to blend it smooth. I did lose some detail during this process, namely at the refueling probe, but I hope to scribe that back in later. Here are some updated pics:

Rough fill-in before primer coat is applied.

I used MM Acryl Dark Ghost Gray to avoid using a rattle can primer. May need more  blending here.

Here too, I see some pitting that may need taken care of. I wonder if a coat of Future will hide it?