daxspapa

I just saw this thread and I hope I'm not too late. Your work to this point is terrific but there is a problem with the Aires cockpit tub you may not be aware of. On the aft end of the right console in an F-100 is a map case, inside of which is a ground test plug for the gunsight. The flight manual depicts this by cutting away part of the map case to show the plug. This is a common practice in technical drawings and illustrations to allow hidden items to be identified (I'm a retired engineer so I'm pretty familiar with this stuff). Aires followed the flight manual illustration exactly, in this case too exactly. The top of the map case is solid and not broken out. The error can be easily corrected by replacing the resin with a new top fabricated from sheet plastic, if the cockpit isn't installed in a closed up fuselage. It can be done even if the fuselage is closed. but not as easily. I hope this is in time for you to correct the Aires mistake easily. Great work so far and I will be following this project as I am a big F-100 fan.

I once attached a number of PE parts to an index card with double sided tape in preparation for painting. They quickly disappeared and it was some months later that I finally found them. I had sat a kit box on top of them and the tape stuck the index card to the box bottom. This was beaten by a friend who dropped and lost the ignition wire ring from a 1/32 Bearcat engine. Nowhere to be found. He scratch built a replacement. Some time later he was in his garage (far from his basement workshop) and something silver caught his eye. It was the ignition ring. Best guess is it fell in his shoe and somehow later dislodged in the garage.

I purchased this stand recently, and although I can echo most of the points in the review I did find that it had one negative feature. Try as I might I could not get the stand to lock up fully; no matter what I did it was wobbly and loose. It was quickly apparent that the small diameter locking collars have grossly insufficient surface area to stabilize the large support plates. I modified the collars by gluing a common 5/16" flat washer to each. I can report that the much larger bearing area of the washers eliminates the instability and 'wobbliness' almost completely and greatly improves the usability of what is otherwise a terrific product. I now like this stand so much I can't imagine how I survived without it!