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Keith Park's Hurricane - OK-1


Andy G

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With the Hudson all but complete it's time to move onto another project.  For a while I've wanted to do a group of models associated with the Battle of Britain film.  One of those is to be Keith Park's Hurricane, except rather than the IIc used in the film I'm going to do a representation of his actual aircraft from the Battle of Britain.  I think there is only one known photo of this aircraft - 

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I'm going to use the Airfix rag wing kit along with Alley Cat's tin wing conversion.  I'd bought three of these when they came out and want to use them before moving on to the Arma Hobby models.  I'm also going to build it wheels down and with the cockpit open.  I've got a Rob Taurus vacuum moulded canopy replacement (yes, I know it's just a straight copy of the incorrect Airfix original) and Eduard gave away these harnesses a few years back at Telford.

 

IMG_20201004_224049

It'll be the first time I've used a harness.  I do love the term 'RAF early'.  Early - compared to what?

Transfers are from DK Decals.

The Alley Cat conversion consists of a large almost single piece moulding for the wings, a smaller part to go in front of the undercarriage bays and several clear resin parts for the landing and navigation lights and also a later canopy windscreen.  I'm presuming that the latter is not correct for this aircraft.  I'll take a photograph of the main parts before the next update.

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Assembly started with attaching the front part of the undercarriage bay to the resin wing.  This took a little bit of filing to get a good fit and holding together whilst the superglue went off.  I hate superglue!

Some filling was required to get a good leading edge.  I initially used superglue for this but finished off with Mr.Surfacer.

The Airfix parts fitted pretty well once I'd get my head around the Airfix instructions being fitting the parts from above whereas I was now fitting from below.

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The cockpit parts were then addressed.  The holes for the harness were opened up in the back of the seat and the armour plating.  The whole lot was primed and then coated with MRP White Aluminium.

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The green parts were brush painted using Hataka paints.  Fitting the harness was a right pain in the rear.  Firstly trying to find out the correct layout of the harness in a Hurricane was just about impossible and then trying to bend the Eduard parts to fit and glue them together.  I eventually ended up cutting the harness up, using bits the wrong way around and cursing a lot.  With all of the bending, prodding and bodging some of the pre-paint has come off.  After the photo was taken matt Galeria was brushed on and once that had dried Gunze Flesh was brushed onto the areas of bare metal.

I'm confident that the harness isn't quite right, but it will have to do.  The seat, etc. has been given a brown/grey oil wash to weather it a bit.  It's propped up the the instrument panel and its attached framing if you're wondering what's in the background.

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The Airfix lower cockpit parts were glued to the wing piece as per the instructions and no issues with the resin wing replacement.  They've been given a coat of MRP White Aluminium, a touch of matt black for details and AK Brass for the gun button.  After that they received a wash of Payne's Grey oil and then a bit of grey/brown on the pedals.

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The cockpit sides have been brush painted with the Hataka Grey Green and then detailed before receiving the grey/brown wash.

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IP and seat glued to the port side before closing up.  The joint between the two parts is pretty rubbish but they each locate well into the fuselage.

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The undercarriage bay also received the White Aluminium followed by the grey and grey/brown washes.

The fuselage was then closed up being careful to get as good a joint as possible.

Time to offer the fuselage to the wing.....

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Something's not quite right!

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The problem is that thick piece of resin behind the pedals stops the base of the seat frame from sitting down low enough.

Mask on (plenty of those around now!) and out with the dental burrs

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Apologies for the blurred photo but hopefully you can see the area removed.  It's just broken through to the locating hole for the filter.

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That's better.  With a bit of careful filing of the wing and fuselage that gap has closed up further.

 

Some things that I need to sort out are the propeller to fit and the guns.  In the film there is a brief clip showing the front of the wing and no guns, but I assume that this was just a case of using a IIc with the cannons removed and plated over.  I'm guessing that Park's aircraft would have been fully armed, but with the red patches usually intact.  Also, the wheels - should I be raiding the Arma Hobby kits for the wheels.  At least some of those will be built wheels up so cross kitting of parts isn't an issue.

 

 

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Here's the Alley Cat conversion.  This is one of the two, so far, unused kits and probably the worst of the three.  There's a degree of warpage to the centre front of the main wing that will need to be dealt with if this one ever gets used-sort this or build an Arma Hobby kit.

2020-10-17-15-50-21-003 2020-10-17-15-49-54-002

 

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Great work, Andy! I'll tag along, if I may?

 

The interior looks splendid, and wing/fuselage joint is a good 'un with your ministrations!

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

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5 hours ago, Andy G said:

I've got a Rob Taurus vacuum moulded canopy replacement (yes, I know it's just a straight copy of the incorrect Airfix original)

 

5 hours ago, Andy G said:

also a later canopy windscreen.  I'm presuming that the latter is not correct for this aircraft. 

Just get a standard Hurricane canopy, that's what  is fitted, you can see the straight lower edge, not curved as per the very early Hurricane only..

 A vac for the hasegawa or revell Mk.II is fine, and should fit. The Airfix is too high as the spine is too scale, but a vac, being thin, should fit, if not, a quick file.

Park's plane is a N**** series, (I'll search up the serial in a mo)  note the lack of rectangular hatch,  as per the Airfix kit,  this is only seen on the L**** and N**** batches, the first two.  (which was always a glitch on the Alleycat metal wing) 

 

Photo shows the DH prop blades, so the standard kit prop is fine.

http://www.kiwimodeller.com/index.php/forum/37-aviation-showcase/32874-1-72-hawker-hurricane-mk-i-air-vice-marshall-keith-park

 

has it as N2520, Air Britain list this as 213sq then Northolt. , and helpfully describes the emblem as Cerberus.  (which I can now see)

 

Does miss the 5 spoke wheels and another  L**** and N**** quirk.

They had 6 inch high serials,  as opposed to 8 inch which all other Hurricanes have....   

4 inch from 1/48th might work?  Not sure if there are 6 inch serials in 1/72.  .... actaully, as I'm looking at the images I posted below, I wonder if they are 4 inch....?   I read they were 6 inch, and that's what stuck.... Modeldecal do 4 inch in black...

 

these are a pair of N**** serials,  which show the windscreen with straight lower edge,  the 6 inch serial and the 5 spoke wheels

Hurricane_DH_Spinner_comparison.png

standard serial for comparison

Hurricane_Mk_I_P2728_parked_outside_a_ha

 

This also shows that rectangular hatch introduced with the P**** serials.  This was stationed at Gosport, a naval base, note Skua in background, and then went to 607 Sq.

Also, either very faded or faded and an example of Gloster using the bright pre war colours on the roundels, compare to the fresh fin flash.

 

5 hours ago, Andy G said:

Also, the wheels - should I be raiding the Arma Hobby kits for the wheels.

No.  L**** and N**** have the 5 spoke wheels.  If you have some about, Eduard Spitfire IX 5 spoke hubs can be used, just drill out the 4 spoke with a 1/6 inch drill (or 4 mm) and replace them.

 

Also, that front pouch on the breakout door is metal....so grey green (you can barely see it I know)  

 

Very neat work so far,  :goodjob:

 

HTH

 

PS if you want to use that leftover fabric wing.........

 

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12 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

That would have been on the center line. This is seriously offset.

The main upright is, but there is a cross member going inwards, then up.  I'll see if I can find the discussion, I think @Selwyn posted in this though.

 

EDIT

Has some images, posted by @dogsbody 

large_000000.jpg?_ga=2.230604824.5646272

 

This is P3886, so built with a reflector sight.   Also, on of the photographed late fabric wing planes, the main subject of the thread I linked above. 

Apologies for thread drift @Andy G

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Hello,

Mark, Chris, @alt-92 you're more than welcome to tag along, ask questions, point me in the right (or wrong :-)) direction.  Troy, many thanks for the input, very much appreciated.

I've got the DK Decals Hurricane Mk.1 Part 2 for the transfers.  These have the serial number as N2520, however, I measured them at 2.57mm which scales up to 7.3 inches.  I searched through the stash of decals and found some 6" 1:72 serial numbers from Avialogy.  I've also calculated that 4" 1:48 are the correct size for 6" 1:72, so I'll have a choice when I get around to the serials.  I'm just glad I'm not trying to make up the serial from the 1:72 4", they're tiny!

15 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

No.  L**** and N**** have the 5 spoke wheels.  If you have some about, Eduard Spitfire IX 5 spoke hubs can be used, just drill out the 4 spoke with a 1/6 inch drill (or 4 mm) and replace them.

I may have one or two (or 15!) stashed away.  I thought I'd read that the Airfix tyres were actually too large, but I can't find where it was.

Canopy - I've got replacement Arma Hobby canopies on their way so I had a play with the Arma canopies that I've currently got last night.  Both the open and closed versions sat too high, not reaching down to the rails, probably due to the thickness of the plastic.  I think I've got a spare of the new thin canopies coming so I'll see how that fits.  I also tried the canopy from a Revell Sea Hurricane which is quite thin, but it wouldn't go over the rails.  A crued comparison of the Rob Taurus vac moulding with the Arma Hobby showed it to be about 1mm taller.  Unfortunately the Big H is out of alternatives at the moment, so I may end up using the Taurus version.

 

I'll try and repaint the front pouch on the knockout panel when I touch up the rear bulkhead.  Like the Airfix Hurricane I built earlier in the year there is a small gap at shoulder height between the bulkhead and the starboard fuselage.  Having had the issue previously I watched for it this time and tried to find the cause but failed.  I've filled it with PPP, so hopefully it should be ready for touching up later today.

 

The fitting of the gunsight shows that the clip in the film with no guns is wrong, as expected.

 

Thanks for watching and joining in, hopefully have some more photos up later.

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32 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

This is P3886, so built with a reflector sight.   Also, on of the photographed late fabric wing planes, the main subject of the thread I linked above. 

Apologies for thread drift @Andy G

No worries Troy, all very useful and welcome info.  I read through the threads you linked to about P3886.  All very interesting and would certainly make a different model and another chance to have another go at realistically over doing the chipping.

I had been going to replicate that gunsight with a bit of 0.3 nickel silver, but it looks like it might need a bit more work than that.

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47 minutes ago, Andy G said:

but should the combing at the front be dark green or grey-green?

Dark Green.

Usually not clear in photos as under canopy. Note how the back armour just over the edge of the doghouse as well.

Gleed-portrait2-opt%5B1%5D.jpg

2 hours ago, Andy G said:

I thought I'd read that the Airfix tyres were actually too large, but I can't find where it was.

I've said it. Try fitting the tyres into the wheel well....they don't!

  the retracted set are slightly smaller as well.

2 hours ago, Andy G said:

Canopy - I've got replacement Arma Hobby canopies on their way so I had a play with the Arma canopies that I've currently got last night.  Both the open and closed versions sat too high, not reaching down to the rails, probably due to the thickness of the plastic.  I think I've got a spare of the new thin canopies coming so I'll see how that fits.  I also tried the canopy from a Revell Sea Hurricane which is quite thin, but it wouldn't go over the rails.  A crued comparison of the Rob Taurus vac moulding with the Arma Hobby showed it to be about 1mm taller.  Unfortunately the Big H is out of alternatives at the moment, so I may end up using the Taurus version.

If you get the right windscreen, the sliding part can be replaced later? 

 

2 hours ago, Andy G said:

I've also calculated that 4" 1:48 are the correct size for 6" 1:72

I know that 6 inch in 1/72 is 4 inch in 1/48th, but the stroke width can vary, so a 4 inch in 48th might have a chunky stoke width,  it was a caution to eyeball them carefully.

 

Glad the witter is of use :) 

 

cheers

T

 

 

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Troy, I disagree that the item on Park's Hurc is the vane sight seen on some Hurricanes. The vaned sights all appear to be mounted centrally on the cowling and farther forward than whatever that is on Park's.

 

large_000000.jpg?_ga=2.228716764.1131654

 

 

 

 

Chris

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Update on yesterday's progress.  The wing has been glued on with thick superglue with a 40 second cure time.  Not my favourite method of joining stuff and even with the forty seconds it all felt a bit rushed and pressured as the wing had to be carefully clamped front and rear by hand.  I always find that pegs and clamps slip off or move things so prefer to clamp by hand if possible.  Careful  scraping and filing of the wing and fuselage joint surfaces produced a pretty good joint.  This process was pretty much as it had been when making the rag wing earlier in the year.  Milliput black has been used to fill what little was needed around the wing and Mr Surfacer 1500 along the odd fuselage seam.  PPP has been used to a small extent on the joint between the lower fuselage and the sides.

There are a couple of small sink holes in the roots of the horizontal stabilisers which I'v also addressed with Mr Surfacer, but 500 this time.

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The gap below the vertical stabiliser has had a few applications of Mr Surfacer, perhaps it would have been better to use the Miliput.

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There is a tiny step at the rear of the wing but I think I'd make more of a mess addressing it than leaving it.

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I'm quite pleased with the seams and joints at this point.  The wing has gone ever so slightly to one side at the rear, but I've managed to address that with a little round file action and some more Mr.Surfacer.

Today I've sanded back some of the seams and touched up the cockpit paint - pouch inside and rear bulkhead grey-green and doghouse, front combing and top edges of the cockpit sides in dark green. Prior to the dark green I filled the hole at the front of the combing with Kristal Kleer to provide a surface to paint on.

 

I'm waiting for the cockpit touching up to be completed and dry before masking it and applying a quick waft of primer to see how good the joints really are. I usually have several iterations ad-nauseam of this stage.

 

Gun sight -  I think I'm with Troy on this.  The normal sight is a centrally placed 'stick'.  However the photo of P3886 clearly shows on offset upright with an arm across to a central vertical.  In the photo of Park's aircraft the offset upright can be seen and you can just make out a horizontal bar from the top of it.  This does seem a very strange arrangement though given the simplicity of the normal sight.

 

Wheels - I'm going to use the 5 spoke wheels from an Eduard Spitfire fitted into the drilled out tyres from an Arma Hobby Hurricane.  I had considered using the whole of the Arma undercarriage but comparison with the Airfix equivalents didn't show a marked difference so I'll stick with the Airfix and hopefully avoid too much butchery.

 

Right must be time for another coat of dark green on the cockpit.

 

Edit - forgot to mention that the photo of Park's Hurricane shows a line of what are possibly rivets between the cockpit and the 'gunsight' that are not present on the Airfix or Arma Hobby mouldings.

Edited by Andy G
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I've spent a fair portion of the late afternoon going through all my Hurricane references and cannot find anymore photos showing the wind vane forward sight. But, neither can I find any photos with anything sticking out of the forward fuselage that looks like whatever that is on Park's aircraft. The normal post sight is forward of this thing and is in the middle of the upper cowling. That thing on Park's doesn't look like the post for the vaned sight. It's different.

 

Now, I believe the vaned sight was used to let the pilot know if there was any side-slip while lining up on a target and to correct it. 

 

As for that open space in the forward cockpit opening, it's supposed to be there.

 

50108011093_028f29618d_b.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

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There's a photo of Bob Stanford Tuck a short way down this page - http://spitfirespares.co.uk/gunsites.html.  This shows the later gunsight but with a ring to its right.  Perhaps this is the reason for the excessive ofset?

 

Gap in front of the combing - thanks, damn!  At least it's only in with Kristal Klear so should be easy to remove.  The combing also appears to be much lighter than the outside - grey-green?

 

 

 

 

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Hi Andy - just picked up on this. A very interesting project and nice work so far. It had been vaguely in the back of my mind for a while about doing a model of Keith Park's Hurri especially after I finished reading his biography. He really was a quite remarkable chap. That and the fact I do like Hurricanes! Doubt if I will get around to it anytime soon though.

 

Picking up on the bit about the canopy and the thickness of the plastic. You may or may not have seen Arma are now advertising thinner canopies for their kits:

 

https://www.armahobby.com/hurricane-revised-clear-parts.html

 

Excellent work so far. Cheers, John

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47 minutes ago, J Sherratt said:

Picking up on the bit about the canopy and the thickness of the plastic. You may or may not have seen Arma are now advertising thinner canopies for their kits:

They have indeed, but you'd be very hard pressed to tell the difference with the naked eye, I measure the old style at 0.75mm vs new style at 0.65mm thick with a vernier, note that this includes the canopy framing which is thicker than the actual glazed part. This is commendably thin for an injection part (even the old style), but a vacform canopy should be able to reduce the thickness of the new style by at least half.

The problem isn't really the thickness of the canopy, it's with the design compromises the manufacturer has made with the doghouse area over which the canopy slides.

The latest Airfix kit (fabric wing versions) has modelled this area pretty true to scale, especially the area immediately behind the head rest/head armour, whilst Arma have made a significant compromise in this area giving it a significant recess under where the canopy lies in the closed position.

The implications of this is that the canopy on the Airfix kit doesn't sit correctly in the closed position due to the thickness of the canopy moulding over the to scale doghouse making it too high, whereas the Arma kit closed canopy fits into the compromise recess, giving an accurate external outline for the canopy and doghouse.

Unfortunately, the open canopy in both the kits is a compromise as it has to sit over the scale rear doghouse. The same Airfix canopy is again too high, and misses the change of geometry in plan view as the canopy opens, whilst the Arma canopy has the correct height but consequently won't now sit down onto the canopy rails over the scale doghouse. There has been an attempt to capture the geometry change, but this has been greatly exaggerated by the need for the canopy to fit over the scale doghouse. The width of the front of the open canopy should be the same as the width of the rear of the closed canopy but they're not - 8.9mm closed vs 10mm open.

The only way I can see to have an injection moulded open/closed canopy option with an accurate external profile is to have separate doghouse mouldings for open and closed positions suitably scaled to fit the internal canopy profile. 

In my opinion, the old style closed Arma canopy is fine, but the open one is a definite miss, it has the look of an ill fitting afterthought perched on top of the fuselage, and taking 0.1mm off the thickness for the new style isn't going to change that. The only option for a decent looking open canopy on either kit is a vacform replacement.

The new Arma canopies being sold separately might be a useful source of closed canopies for Airfix kits, but you're still stuck with fitting the later style windshield to the Airfix kit, or modifying the height of the Airfix windshields to match the Arma canopy.

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Evening All,

Thanks for the comments and contributions all very interesting.

 

On 10/19/2020 at 10:52 AM, J Sherratt said:

Picking up on the bit about the canopy and the thickness of the plastic. You may or may not have seen Arma are now advertising thinner canopies for their kits:

Hi John, I did indeed know about them and four arrived with the reinforcements from Poland yesterday.  Not had chance to offer them up to Airfix fuselage yet but they do appear notably thinner than the original Arma Hobby mouldings, though I note that @Dave Swindell states there's only a 0.1mm difference, so doubtful that they will fit.

I have spotted that Hannants have a Squadron replacement cockpit intended for the Airfix and Heller Hurricanes.  Presumably this is for the old Airfix moulding.  Anybody know if it will fit?

 

I've managed to make a little bit of progress and get a quick coating of primer on to check the seams and joints. There's still work to do.

This is an awkward joint to get at with files and sanding sticks

2020-10-21-21-07-21-001

What you probably can't see is that there is a dip at the front of the wing root that I've subsequently filled with Miliput.  I've also had an attempt at cleaning up the messy parts of the joint.

T'other side is messy too, but not quite as bad.

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I've tackled that as well.

The joint for vertical stabiliser needs further work as well.  This has had some more Mr Surfacer 1500 applied and is about to get sanded once I post this.

2020-10-21-21-08-13-003

 

Odd bits of the fuselage seams have been touched up with Mr Surfacer but they're pretty close to being done. 

 

Off to do some more sanding and primer wafting.

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Evening All,

A bit of progress over the weekend.  The filling, sanding, painting routine on the fuselage and wing joints has been on-going but looks to be about complete.  The dip in front of the port wing root was filled with Miliput and smoothed off with a damp cotton bud.

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This was allowed to dry before being primered

It still wasn't right so further work was undertaken.

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This was nearly there but still a little more Mr Surfacer was needed.  I'll spare you another photo of partly worn away primer!

I then turned attention to the horizontal stabilisers.  The starboard fitted quite well with just a little needing filing off the front of the tab in order to align the wing with the front of the root on the fuselage.  The port however was sloppy and rested too high.  Careful scraping and filing did eventually get it to an acceptable position and everything was jigged up before being glued and left overnight.  Apologies for the incorrectly focused photo - I'd switched to the point and shoot.

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The rudder was then prepared.  I could remember there being some issue with the previous Airfix Hurricane and offering the rudder up to the tail showed the same again - the rudder is slightly taller than the vertical stabiliser.  To address this a piece of 10 thou plasticard has been glued to the top of the fin and will be filed to shape once set.

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The air intake has been superglued to the underside.  The Airfix mounting holes have been replicated in the resin wing.  However, there was excess resin in the bottom of these holes.  This was easily addressed by drilling them out after which the intake fitted well.

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The wheels have been prepared having been robbed from elsewhere. The hubs came from an Eduard Spitfire IX kit and the wheels from an Arma Hobby kit that will be built wheels up in a tit for tat move of pinching the appropriate parts from the Airfix kit. The Arma Hobby wheels had the incorrect four spoke hub for this aircraft hence the use of the five spoke hubs from Eduard.  The four spoke hubs were removed from the wheels by initially drilling through the locating hole and then reaming out using progressively larger five sided tapered broaches until the Eduard parts just fitted.  The Eduard hub comes in two parts and at the moment they are a touch too wide so will need a gentle sand before being glued in place after painting.

2020-10-25-15-14-44-004

 

Yesterday I matched up the new Arma Hobby canopy sprues with the kits in the stash.  Whereas the kit that I'd got out to see if the canopy was a suitable donor for this project and to rob its wheels showed a significant apparent difference in the thickness of the canopy at least one of those in the stash didn't. So perhaps there is some variation in the moulding explaining why @Dave Swindell didn't find much difference but I had.  Once the current round of priming has dried I'll remove the masking from over the canopy and try to reach a decision as to which way to go with the canopy.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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