Well here goes another small update on the Dora. Seems I am coming down with a cold so it may be a bit before I can squeeze another one in. Been working on the internal wing structure. Eduard really put the detail in this area for sure!!
Also, since I didn't have any brass barrels for this build, I decided to make some from some brass tubing I had laying around. The kit barrels are a real drag on this one as they aren't slide molded at all. Began by hacking off the very end of the barrel and drilling a hole for a pin.
then the pin, made from some old broken pin vise drill bits.
then I slid the hollow brass barrel onto the pin and fixed it with some superglue.
Not bad if I do say so myself!!
Moving on to the wing MG bays. Since this kit will be closed up, you have to modify the opening to account for the closed hoods. Turning the wing over, you can see the area of thinner plastic that needs to be cut out. I just use a sharp blade and follow along the sides several times till the piece comes loose.
A little sanding and clean up of the cut and this is what you get.
A test fit of the hood reveals...
..not a bad fit at all. Any gaps visible now are easily filled with some Mr. Liquid Putty.
A test fit of all the components so far revealed a few areas that will need to be addressed later but by no means should pose any great problems. One area is the rear bulkhead behind the cowl mgs. As you can see in the pic, the pit spread this area out and the bulkhead is no longer a snug fit. I will have to break out the mg hood and do some test fitting to see if fuse sides will need to be trimmed or not. (The pit is still in primer by the way)
Also, a slight gap at the rear of the wing root. I found on my last build that a small spreader bar directly beneath the rear of the cockpit virtually eliminated any gap here so we will give it another shot on this one.
And one more gap that interestingly enough was not present at all on my Profipak build. This one should be easily managed with a strip styrene shim.
And that is that. One other note, and I didn't take any pictures, if you are building the wing root gun bays closed, do not use the base plates for the mg bays that the instructions call out. The weekend kit instructions omit the alternate part numbers if building these closed and I believe they are X3 and X10. They have a prominent 'tent' shaped hump on them which I believe helps keep the covers the proper height to match the wing surface. I'll try and get some pics next time I am at the bench.