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Foiled Hasegawa P-51D


Out2gtcha

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Didnt get as much done the last couple of days as I wanted.........needed some square stock and some paint to continue on with the jump seat and 2nd cockpit. so I started in on graphing in the Trumpy wheel wells to the Has kit.

 

OOB kit detail in wells left a lot to be desired...started off, chopped the OOB wheel wells out & glued the Trumpy wells in, and they actually fit a LOT better than I thought they might. Hell with just a bit of modification to the wings they fit better than the Aries wheel wells I used on my Bearcat that were made for the kit.

 

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Starting to resemble a Mustang now......

 

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However.........as typical that Ive found when shoe horning AM kits like this in, especially in kits they wernt made for, some of these AM wheel well sets can distort or completely remove the dihedral in the wings. Although this is not un-correctable, this kit is not exception to the rule

 

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More work tomorrow as well as cutting out the flaps so I can glue wings together and correct the dihedral.

 

Cheers,

Brian

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Brian,

 

Providing the dihedral situation doesn't become too problematic you're way ahead on the wheelwell install, as those can be a real setback. Really like the way it looks. I got a feeling this build will make the final result unrecognizable as a Hasagawa kit.

 

Fred

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Brian,

 

Lovely work thus far. Your interior details and work are really nice. Im not to sure about that resin insert youve used in the wing and it isnt from something youve done. The aft wall of the well doesnt angle forward. It should run straight out to the tip. That isnt to say it isnt a big improvement over the kit original. It is.

 

I hope youre able to get the dihedral back in the wing. It will be interesting to see how you accomplish that task. I would think the resin is awfull stiff, hence, will not allow the wing to bend into the proper five degree angle.

Just the same, please continue to share. You can never have enough Mustangs.

Im looking forward to your finishing process...

 

Cheers,

 

Geoff

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Brian,

 

Lovely work thus far. Your interior details and work are really nice. Im not to sure about that resin insert youve used in the wing and it isnt from something youve done. The aft wall of the well doesnt angle forward. It should run straight out to the tip. That isnt to say it isnt a big improvement over the kit original. It is.

 

I hope youre able to get the dihedral back in the wing. It will be interesting to see how you accomplish that task. I would think the resin is awfull stiff, hence, will not allow the wing to bend into the proper five degree angle.

Just the same, please continue to share. You can never have enough Mustangs.

Im looking forward to your finishing process...

 

Cheers,

 

Geoff

 

Yeah I noticed that too, but I wasnt about to start chopping into the Aries piece. The outer aft wall of the wells are SOOOO hard to see even on the real one, I deemed it way too much work to fix.

I was actually considering not putting in the wells at all, as the looked to be quite a daunting task to get in, but in the end were not that bad. As you pointed out Geoff, they are not 100% accurate but a WAY better option than the Has OOB wells.

 

Not that its perfect but I matched it about as close as I can get to the Dixie Boy. Its a bit out of focus, but you can see the 1:1 Dixie Boy here:

 

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As far as the dihedral goes, its really weird, after lining a straight stiff piece of rod against the wells angled right out to the tip of the wings, its actually the middle of the wing to the tip that has the dihedral defect in it. Not too sure but it may have been the torquing or twisting of the wing to get the resin wells to fit, that forked up the middle to outer wing dihedral.

 

The middle section of the wing with the giant resin piece in it, actually has maintained the correct (or close to it) dihedral. I think im going to use some very stiff brass tube in consecutive smaller sizes out to the tip of the wings and fill the tube with either small rod or hard polyurethane filler for stiffness and strength.

 

I measured the force with my hands necessary to force the wings back into the correct dihedral, and I dont think its going to take anything SUPER heavy duty to maintain or restore the dihedral, but we shall see....... :(

 

Thanks for lookin...

 

Cheers,

Brian

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Ok gents this one became a head scratch-er for a bit but I think I have her sorted now.........

 

Having put quite a few resin wheel wells in and knowing what a crap shoot of difficulty they can be, I initially suspected the Trumpeter Aries wheel well block as the culprit that knocked the dihedral on this 51 all wonky, but Im pretty sure I was wrong. Im fairly sure it was NOT the resin wheel well at all.

 

I think now, that this major warp in the starboard wing and minor warp in the port wing was always there and I just didnt notice it. To be honest I never really gave the wings a once over from the front to check for just this kind of thing; my bad for sure.

 

I went and pulled out a 1/32 Hasegawa F6F-5E kit I have in the stash that is from the same roughly the same time period, and has similar raised/recessed(REALLY wide recessed) panels and found a similar issue with that kit as well:

 

Hellcat port wing

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Hellcat starboard wing

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Well, here is the solution I came up with. Youll have to excuse the ginormous pics as I upgraded to photo-bucket pro and now the overall size and clarity of my pics are coming over HUGE.

 

I started off by going to the LHS and getting some very thick stiff brass strip. cut them to size to fit on edge inside the wings, and will be glued to the back of the aires wheel bay. I first cut them to size and glued on a stiffening plate of the same stiff brass, ensuring the correct 5 deg ange

 

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Here is that piece, after drying, dry fit and just resting (with 0 pressure being applied) on the lower wing half, and as you can see, the center section remains fairly true while the outboard sections of the wing, especially the starboard wing, are royally warped.

 

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Here is the brass spare epoxied in place and the massive warping, especially in the starboard wing becomes very evident

 

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Well I got some new clamps with a bit less pressure and now the the center section is dry, Im going to epoxy and clamp the outer sections of the wing to the brass spare. I have test fit this several times, and it really will not take a ton of pressure as all the warping is middle to outboard on the wings.

 

More to come and thanks for lookin!

 

Cheers,

Brian

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Well I used the new clamps, and have epoxied the whole length of the spare in place so the top of the bottom wing follows the 5 deg angled brass spare.

 

From the looks of it (from what I can see around the clamps) I thing it will be very close to accurate if not 100%. I will let this cure for a couple of days in the clamps before moving on to try to cut loose the rest of the flaps and seal up the wings.

 

So we shall see if my idea pans out or not, but so far so corrected.........

 

Cheers,

Brian

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Nice fix on the dihedral, Brian. An added advantage is that it will give the finished model a little extra 'heft'.

 

This is a fun built to watch--keep em comming.

 

Fred

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