A few days of progress

This post contains several work sessions.  I tend to forget to post.

Forward fuselage with shortened nose section taped on.

The picture on the right shows the forward fuselage with the nose section re-attached with tape.  You can see how the 3/8" cross section that was removed under the cockpit causes the the nose to shift back.  The next step is to remove the cockpit roof and a portion of the superstructure behind it. You'll note that I do this with the fuselage taped together as I hack away.  Note the clear plastic cockpit roof and windscreen
section in the foreground of the picture. The roof of
the fuselage will be removed to allow this clear piece to be inserted.

Fuselage with cockpit roof removed.

Below is the fuselage with the cockpit roof removed. At this point, the model is pretty-well hacked up. The old tail is gone, the nose section is separated. A 3/8" cross-section of the fuselage has been removed from beneath the cockpit and the cockpit roof is removed. Everything is held together with tape.

The clear, vacuum-formed, cockpit is set in place.

The next task is to remove the fairings surrounding each cheek gun position.  Also, the fairing surrounding the astrodome on the roof of the nose section must be removed. I used a combination of Dremel tool, x-acto knife and file for this.

The astrodome fairing is removed.

The Koster conversion provides fillersfor the
astrodome hole and chin turret hole (more on that later).

The Koster kit comes with plugs to fill the astrodome hole and the hole form removing the chin turret. I was surprised that they fit so well. They predicted the shape of the hole left over after the astrodomectomy pretty well.

The Koster-provided astrodome hole filler in place.

Koster provides clear, vacuum-formed parts to fill
the cheek-gun hole.

Cheek gun hole filler in place. Fits well.

The Koster kit provides clear, vacuum-formed filler parts to cover the gaping holes left from removing the faring surrounding the port and starboard cheek guns. I was surprised at how well they filled the hole. If you look closely, you'll see the smaller-sized window molded into the center of the part. This will need to be filled in with putty and panted.

The starboard cheek gun hole filled nicely as well with the supplied part.  Again, I was surprised at how well Koster anticipated the shape of the hole that would be left after removing the fairing.

The starboard cheek gun hole with filler in place.

The chin turret faring was ground off. Note
the Koster-supplied filler piece to the right.

Koster-supplied chin turret hole filler, shaped for install.

Chin turret hole filler. Note the snug fit, right from the sheet.

Tail section removed from the vacuum sheet
for shaping and test-fitting

Vacuum-formed, tail section removed from sheet.

Model with new Koster tail section, cockpit roof,
and nose section taped into place.