Model Builder International Pilot Issue Model Builder International Pilot Issue | Page 8

Fig 5 Detailing the gear bays.

Fig 6 Finished cockpit assemblies

needed, I thought about it and decided that thin
wall aluminum was the best way to go. Soft metal
equaled easier working. I plotted the exhaust
locations on .030 card and drilled the appropriate
sized holes accordingly. I cut small lengths of
tubing to length with a 45-degree angle on one end.
I used a grinding bit chucked in my Dremel tool to
get the right angle. A large amount of thick super
glue and some last-second adjustments gave me
the results I was looking for. I shaped some .005”
sheet into a cover or channel over the exhausts to
prevent that see-through look, FIG 4.
I decide early on that I wouldn’t open up the gun
bays. The fit of the covers was surprisingly good,
with minimal gaps to deal with. A bit of Mr. Surfacer
took care of any gaps that remained. I added some
plastic strip to the insides of the covers to keep
them from sagging in.
Working on the outer wings, I modified the photoetched attachment grooves. Removing the ‘peg’
in the slots meant that I could insert the etched
hinges after assembly was complete, instead of
fiddling around trying to get them sandwiched in
during assembly. I intend to do this for all the control
8

surfaces. Once the outer wings were together I
looked at the gun openings. They needed some
work, but the wing interior was visible, allowing
enough light in to show the engineered parts of
the plastic kit (not the historical details!). Looking
through my collection of styrene stock, I found
some 1/8” Evergreen tubing. The inner diameter
was just large enough to slide over the kit’s gun
barrels. I opened the holes in the wing and inserted
short lengths of tubing over the guns. After I glued
them, the tubes were simply cut and sanded flush,
resulting in a perfectly round hole and looking much
nicer than the kit offering. If you look in – you can
see the business end of the .50 cals staring back
at you!
Fleet Air Arm Corsairs had 8” clipped off their
wings to allow them to fit below decks on Royal
Navy carriers. This apparently improved lowlevel flight characteristics to a degree according
to my references. I would liken the changes to a
clipped-wing Spitfire. In 1/32nd scale, 8” is exactly
¼”. I removed about 5/16”, allowing for the halfround strip stock afterward. This was a simple
and straightforward modification. On the actual
aircraft, wings were clipped in two ways. Goodyear
assembled the wings built by a sub contractor
already clipped, and Vought and Brewster clipped
the standard wing after assembly was complete.
There were differences in each with the Goodyear
clip being deeper and more squared off, similar to
what I did. There is also evidence that not all planes
had their wingtip navigation lights re-installed. I
chose this last option just to be different.
Turning my attention to the gear bays, I found
one side perfectly molded. No problems there.
The other side, however, was full of ejector pin
marks. This made no sense to me at all. I decided
to add some minor plumbing and other bits to the
gear bays, FIG 5. After the bays were detailed I
assembled and painted them RAF Sky. Weathering
would be done later with the rest of the model.