S/thing of a detour, 'diversionary' work on a 1/48th DH9a

Bought a few odds 'n sods from Dave Roof a bit ago.
Had a spark of interest in the 'DH4' on his list.

Turned out to be a few fleas on this dog, that's for sure. As a brief respite from the PTO WW2 stuff I dragged this wee mission off the shelf, to 'see what we can see'.
Some concerted digging around, in my library and onine, soon showed up some, errm, deficiencies. I believe that best describes the scenario.

The culprit.

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The profile, taken from s/thing in Flightglobal (I think).

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Although it only says "de Havilland" on the instructions - advertised w/out box - Dave called it a DH4. And in a way it does loosely resemble one. Yet the pilot's 'pit is too far to the rear and it shows the dropped sides for the gunner's place only seen on the prototype.

I'd initially planned on an 'Imperial Gift' machine, from the UK to NZ's fledgling AF. Some further perusal brought to mind it would look better as a DH9a.
Yes, I am aware NZ's 9a was Puma-powered. for the sake of simplicity I won't s/b a Puma cowl and engine. I'm keeping this in RAF fit.
Friend sent me a decent three-view. Here are some of the mods.

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Kit has some seriously big mounting pins and holes. First order of business was plug the eyesores. (Assembly will be thin wire pins.)

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Then out came the single-cut file and industrial sandpaper for the 'rash' s/one thought would replicate fabric. And here's the serendipity, using a firm foam rubber sanding block allowed the paper to reach the 'sag' between ribs but left some of it.

Once everything was all silky the wings retain a subtle look of slightly scalloped cloth skin. All that remains to bring it out is some careful masking with thin strip and accent painting.

So, a quick template and the wingtips look far better.

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Dihedral was next up. The wings needed another 1 1/2 deg.
Pasted up my trusty wing jig, onto 5mm particle board, and out with my trusty LEGO.

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Simple task to saw 3/4 thru along lines outboard of the fuz, squish in some melted sprue and set up on the jig.

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Filled in the kit 'pits with 20X40 thou 'planks' and melted sprue.

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Once everything's smooth and thinned I'll chop out crew stations with templates. Also filing down the struts and adding wire pins each end. They're almost a 1/4 of original width.

Rather than play around with shifting the lower wing position I'm moving things around it. Would rather go without the hassle of trueing up the whole wing shebang, and it's far easier to fill in and cut new 'pit.

Here's the idea.

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Thanks for looking.

Regards