Italeri's cockpit is not bad and the K-36 ejection seats are quite passable. However there is no side-wall detail and there are some gaps that are visible even with the canopy closed. First off I glued some thin plastic sheet to close off the rear walls of the front and rear cockpits.
I added some simple details to the left and right walls - again not super-detailing, just to imply the busy front office of a modern jet.
The tub sides were extended with wedges of platic sheet. Some fiddling was required to get the right fit there.
No modifications were made to the control panels. Everything was given a coat of dark grey and dry brushed with light grey. Bezels and other details were picked out with black and highlighted with black.
A bit of gun-metal was also applied to simulate wear.
As I mentioned the K-36 seats are actually pretty good but there's room for improvement. Using a Verlinden resin seat as reference I add some details such as arm rests with scrap platic and simulated rivets with drops of superglue applied with a toothpick. I left the molded on seatbelts and added belts made of Evergreen plastic strip with I bent and twisted with my fingers then glued in place. At first I thought of usinging flatened out solder wire with wire buckles but that would be over-doing it for this project. For the buckles I just used small rectangles cut from the platic strip. Finally I added release handles made by bending fine wire around a needle nose pliers finished off with a bend in the middle. Once they were painted up I thought they looked pretty good.
Once everything was glued in place I tested the fit of the hull halves and had to shave the bottom corners of the tub. There are still some gaps that have to be dealt with but they were there even with out the cockpit in place. Everywhere else the fit is right on.
Next up will be putting the halves together with some filling and sanding.
GB
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