I had been putting this off because I knew the splashers would be hard to do, and also expected trouble with the flared top on the bunker.
The first job with the splashers is to bend up the splasher faces connected to the footplate with a half-etched fold line. I started from what I thought was the back to get some practice in... turns out that was the front. As usual by the time I did the last couple I'd got the hang of it. The trick is to score along the half-etch fold lines a number of times until you can just see a mark coming through, at which point these small parts will be easy to bend up without damaging them.
Something important I couldn't find in the instructions was that to fit the leaf springs behind the rear splashers you need to remove the inside face of the splashers rather than fold it up (only the rear ones have this), and then you'll probably need to file some extra space in the footplate to boot. This is only a problem for the rear splashers because they are the only ones that have either a face or any footplate behind them.
At this point the instructions recommend tack soldering the leaf-spring brackets in that sit fore and aft of each splasher. You should do no such thing. I bent all of mine while battling with the splashers and the bunker, breaking two and having to build replacements from parts of the etches. I'm not very good at building things, but I cannot imagine any normal person getting through the splashers without causing some damage here.
Now add the angle around the splashers on the footplate and the tops of the splashers. This involves sweating the small edgings of the splashers in front of the faces just bent up, ensuring there is an equal amount either side of the face. Then add the tops of the splashers, first sweating one end down then wrapping the remainder over the face and sweating the other end down.
To sweat these parts on I put a thin smear of solder both on the footplate and the part itself, then also added a small amount of solder on the tip of the iron when joining them to aid in getting the already applied solder to melt more easily.
Once the splasher tops were on most of them gaps between them and the face of the splasher. I filled these gaps with solder, working from inside and underneath.
One thing that is important to note is that the "corrugations" on the splasher tops are not folding/bending aids, they are the top (visible) surface of the splasher. Looking at what seems to be the only photo of the prototype you can just see this unusual feature.
Next up was the bunker. I did the rivets while it was still attached to the etch. I did this for a bit of distraction while I was fighting a losing battle trying to fix up the spring brackets. Then the bunker part was cut off the etch, cleaned up, and folded
Then the flared top on the bunker had to be done. This comes in three parts, the back and two sides. The instructions say to sweat these to the bottom of the bunker then bend them to get an appropriate flare.
I annealed these before attaching them to the bunker. I also put the flare in the sides before attaching them, because they won't fit properly otherwise - the flared back gets in the way. In any case I am pretty happy with how this turned out. It isn't perfect but I think it will look fine from normal viewing distances. I think the kit designer did a good job here because there was none of this business I have read about in articles about having to make the corners from scrap and fill them with solder etc.
When I went to attach the bunker to the footplate I found the rear buffer beam was slightly higher on the left hand side than on the right, and not seated properly on the left either. This left a noticeable gap between the buffer beam and bunker, and also meant the bunker's left side didn't sit on the footplate properly.
I decided there was nothing for it except to remove the buffer beam, put the bunker on, and then attach the buffer beam again after the bunker was properly seated. I had had trouble attaching the back buffer beam in the first place and there was a lot of excess solder around the place. This could have been causing some of the problems with getting it to seat properly. I also had to widen the half-etched locating slot on the left hand side slightly to get the footplate to sit inside properly.
This is the point I would recommend putting those spring brackets in.
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