Deanflyer

Hi Iain, sorry for not commenting on this sooner... Lovely work going on here, and vacforming canopies IS a bit of a dark art as I discovered when I did my T.9 conversion! Thanks for the help with mine, and maybe we'll get them both together on a table at a show before your client nabs it! :-) Keep up the good work, Dean

Aww shucks...thanks Matt! Nice to be appreciated... I'll be watching this one with interest too, as has been previously mentioned you virtually never see them built. Hope my build is of use to you, Carl. Best of luck, Dean

Hi James, I'm the bloke who did the Matchbox 109E seen on LSP update on the 7th January. My thoughts on the aftermarket bits available, for what they're worth: I used a PE set from Eduard for the cockpit, replacing virtually all of the kit parts. I scratchbuilt a few items in there as well, though. I don't know about resin cockpits as I didn't use one. Don't get a vacformed canopy - I did and it's designed for the Hasegawa kit, and the rear fuselage is a completely different shape to the Matchbox one, so it won't fit. I used the Matchbox windscreen and rear section, and used the vacformed centre section with a scratchbuilt frame. I used Quickboost resin exhausts which were great - hollow moulded and with a visible weld seam. I did have to expand the kit exhaust recess to get them to fit, but I was scratchbuilding the front edge of the exhaust shroud anyway from plastic sheet, so that didn't matter to me. As for decals - the world is your oyster. Have a look on Hannants website and find a scheme you fancy. Hope that helps, Dean