The outside ones are only temporary , but really necessary. Firstly to stop the combined strip falling out behind you as you insert it into the fuse half, and secondly to hold it straight as you go. Then to hold it nice and straight as you join the two fuse halves. I can't stress enough how important this is, the straightness of the whole deal. Important only cosmetically really, but this strip runs the entire length of the spine of the aircraft, any wiggles, waves, dips or hollows are very visible , the eye picks it up very easily.
That makes it sound hard, it's not really, just take it carefully. And if you get it wrong first go it's very easy to fix because it's just all tape, no glue at this stage, just strip it off and start again.
The shiny finish is part of Ian's design philosophy, just like an RC Car the fuse is either painted from the inside in the case of clear fuse parts, like the nose cone, the fuse halves are usually vac molded in white plastic although I think Ian can supply clear molded fuse halves for models of A/C that don't have basically white colour. Silver fuse's painted from the inside look really effective. The best part of this is that just like RC Cars this arrangement is very resistant to crash or hanger damage, you can't scratch the paint at all.
Excuse me for jumping in, it may save Ian some time for designing the next model
