In the last two days I made some more progress. My plan for this build is to work from the largest componants to the smallest, and also in order of robustness so that I'm not having to handle the model a lot with tiny, fragile details. I broke off small bits of the MiG-21, sometimes the same parts multiple times, so I hope not to repeat that.
As the upper fuselage was complete where we left off, I decided to add the corrugations that run along the outside of it. This was a construction method that Saro had decided upon on the grounds that it avoided having to machine cutouts in the internal ribs to incorporate these strengthening longerons
inside the fuselage. Vaguely similar to the use of corrugated metal by Junkers, except the Saro technique was in order to join thin 'planks' at these points as opposed to having a large sheet of metal that was flat welded or riveted. Needless to say, such protrusions did not do anything for 'aero' in an machine that was not fast to begin with - and it was also neccessary to pay close attention to making them watertight.
I simply ruled and cut off approx 1mm strips from the edges of a parts sheet on 160gsm. These are slightly overscale, but it saved the frustration of having to deal with impossibly thin strips that curled and refused to glue in straight lines. They also help hide the joins between fuselage sections and the thick lines where they have been drawn on the template. As with everything else, they received the aluminium effect from a silver marker. It will be neccesary to retouch the roundals and serial number at a later point...
In the evening light this all looks quite convincing:
