Airfix 1/72 SBD-3 Dauntless

[Carlosee1974]

H

15 hours ago, Dan Hayward said:

I apologize for the late reply, I somehow lost track of this thread. 

 

The gun ring was cut from sheet plastic to a width that would fit in the fuselage, then detailed with just a few pieces of plastic strip.  The frame for the seat was made from a piece of bent brass rod and the seat itself was carved from plastic.  I cheated and mounted it all to the floor on some plastic blocks so that it would sit at the right height to line up with the cockpit sills.

 

The wheels wells posed a bit of a challenge since they were a rounded bowl on the real thing.  I carved a piece of basswood to shape and vacuformed sheet plastic over it a couple of times to make the "bowls" then glued them in place and trimmed flush with the wing surface.  It worked better than I had hoped for!

 

Good luck with yours!

 

Dan

 

Hi Dan, thanks so much for this - I’m not sure I’m up to vacuum forming....

 

maybe I’ll give it a try

[Dan Hayward]

2 hours ago, Carlosee1974 said:

H

Hi Dan, thanks so much for this - I’m not sure I’m up to vacuum forming....

 

maybe I’ll give it a try

Actually now that I think about it, I did not vac- form them, I "smash molded" them by heating a square of plastic sheet over a candle flame and pulling it down over my wood master which was mounted on a stick.  

[Carlosee1974]

13 minutes ago, Dan Hayward said:

Actually now that I think about it, I did not vac- form them, I "smash molded" them by heating a square of plastic sheet over a candle flame and pulling it down over my wood master which was mounted on a stick.  

Now that I can do  many thanks for this. A gap of 35 years and I decided to detail up an old kit!!

 

 

[Wulfman]

Lovely job on the old Airfix !

 

Wulfman

[72modeler]

On 9/13/2020 at 1:35 PM, Dan Hayward said:

I also addressed the non-existent wheel wells by carving a basswood master for the dish-shaped interiors and smash-molding inserts. 

You could also use the kit wheels as a master and  smash-mold them, which will give you a very nice tub that can be trimmed to fit in the wheel bays. I've used this on Morane Ms-406's, Ki-44's and T-6's with very good results. Cracking job on the old Airfix kit- you definitely have modeling skills!

Mike