Airfix 1/72 Mosquito Mk. BII/VI/XVIII

The main undercarriage was next for some TLC and in my kit the gear retraction struts were bent or broken;

To overcome this the diagonal struts were removed completely with new ones made from plastic rod, they were also placed 4mm higher up the gear legs as the originals are too low down;

I also added the engine firewalls. The mudguards were thinned down and lightening holes drilled into them as well. The axles were also broken on my example so I drilled through one side on each gear leg and enlarged the hole on the other side ready for new axles. This also makes fitting the wheel a lot easier, I just hope I can fit the gear legs after painting without breaking them.

The rear bulkheads just need some sanding so that the engine nacelles join together then these can be glued. These will also be painted at the same time as the cockpit then the rest of the assembly should be fairly straight forward. One thing to note is that some recent Airfix kits have had ‘short-shot’ parts (including their 1/48 Sea Fury as I had one) much to the angst of modellers everywhere, however it’s nothing new as this kit has one of these too around the trim tab;

A bit of filler will sort that so no real worries.

Edit; that’s the kit in sub-assemblies and once the nacelles have been filled and sanded and the interior painted I’ll be able to put it all together;