![]() ![]() The needle tip points to the unmodified ridge and the finished strut is next to it: So the next step is to get everything that’s going to be painted aluminum detailed and finished, and that starts with the main landing gear legs.Īside from cleaning up seam lines, I also needed to drill out a couple of mounting protrusions and then turn them into two separate protrusions instead of one ridge as it had been molded. The rear landing gear strut needs to be painted aluminum, but so do a few more parts. The end goal is to have everything painted so that I can join the fuselage halves. That means I cut the strut where the bubble is, add a disc of styrene (.015″ (.381mm) as it turned out), and finish it to invisibility:Īt this point what’s driving the build is the need to shoot parts with aluminum paint. Doing another pour means wasting resin (the smallest increment that can be mixed is an ounce…and I have NO need of that much resin just for this little sodding bubble). Okay, so that means I can either try another pour or fix this one. See that white band on the strut? That’s a sodding bubble: I poured the resin for the tail wheel assembly, put it under 55 pounds (121.25kg) of pressure, and de-molded it the next day. ![]() It seems that all solutions create new problems. Being lazy, I didn’t feel like going through this process six or seven more times, so I made a mold of the tire and strut, poured resin, and will be using that instead. I have plans to build other Allison Mustangs, most of them are Accurate Miniature kits, and that means all the tail wheels are molded the way this one was. From one part I cut the tire away and re-sculpted the strut to the proper L-shape, and from the other part I cut away the strut to end up with just the tire: I used the tail wheel part from my sacrificial kit as well. So before I can use it/them, I wanted to separate the wheel and tire from the strut: The first thing I noticed is that this assembly is molded as one piece…and it’s obviously so. While the acrylic paint cured a bit, I turned my attention to the tail wheel assembly. ![]() In the next photo, the seat on the left is the kit-supplied part, the center is the seat that came with the resin detail set, and then obviously the one I’m using: This is an illustration about why I go through all this trouble. Once done with the tedium of the straps, they were all painted and glued into position: And speaking of “small,” the latching mechanism on the end of one of the lap straps is not only FREAKIN’ TINY, the loop has to be turned ninety degrees and the tail curved and THEN glued on: Pleased with how it turned out (and equally pleased it didn’t come apart once soaked with dilute white glue!), I went on to the FIDDLY task of threading all the straps through buckles and getting them ready to paint. What I ended up using was the paper from a white Post-It pad (though I’d also considered using the paper of a dollar bill because of its high linen content): But I discovered that once soaked in dilute white glue, the physical properties of the paper itself was too loose to survive any manipulation, coming apart instead: One of the things I liked about this paper was it was already about the color I wanted. The first paper I tried was paper towels from a public restroom: With the MT buckles, the harnesses are replicated using paper that is then threaded through the buckles the way the actual harness was threaded. I checked its fit and though slightly smaller than I would make today, I decided it was certainly close enough so I painted it and glued it in place: Stainless steel is strong enough to survive the manipulations required of them:Īnd from my initial attempt to convert a P-51B to an Allison Mustang, I had a seat cushion I’d made from a sheet of. Brass of this size would be more fragile than useful. This is a good thing because I’m using MT’s seat belt buckle set and it’s VERY SMALL. What made MT’s stuff so nice (other than the fact that it was a damned good product) was that they used stainless steel for many of their products. I was fortunate enough to pick up a few of their items way back when because they have since gone out of business and if anyone has picked up their line, I can’t find them. Once upon a time, there was a California-based company called Model Technologies that produced some very fine photo-etched details.
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