Hey gang,
I had so much fun with the Mustang GB, I think I'd like to continue my modeling-mo with an entry into this GB!
I have Monogram's F-80 that I'd like to get in with.
The wife's been away, so I've had a bit of extra building time to myself. I went ahead and got started on this kit by gluing the rear fuselage halves to their forward partners. The kit's designed to have the rear end detach to show the engine. I didn't want to build it that way, so I glued the forward and rear pieces together.
It took some SERIOUS reinforcing and sanding to get the pieces to line up.
I also decided to close up the forward gun hatch. Um...more fit headaches...
So, since so much of the raised detail was destroyed while getting the parts to fit together, I decided to just bite the bullet and rescribe the whole darn thing.
Luckily, the panel lines on this kit are pretty simple. Good thing too, because dryfitting the wings to the fuse shows that there are MORE fit issues. So, more raised detail would've been lost to the sanding-filling-repeat process. This way, with the airframe rescribed, restoring detail during assembly won't be as big a deal.
Speaking of assembly, I was looking at which wingtip drop tank option I wanted to use, and in doing so, realized that the attachment for the tanks is fiddly at best. So, I had to engineer something that would be a bit more, um, robust.
First, I figured that the tiny attachment stubs on the tanks were not going to be good enough.
I drilled 'em out and decided to use some wire for attaching the tanks to the wing.
Then, looking at the attachment points, I came up with an idea. I'd take a piece of wire, bend it into a U-shape, and pass it through the wing from the inside.
Since the wingtips are so thin, this give me good solid attachment points extending from the wing into the tanks.
SOLID!
Finally, I cleaned up the tanks and added some tape for detail. No, it's not accurate, but I'm betting it'll look the part under some paint.
Anyway, that's where it's at as of now. I have a three day weekend, so I'm going to try to get some bench time on my day off and make some progress.
Thanks for lookin'! Feel free to drop your two cents in the bucket on the way out. I always appreciate the comments and criticisms.
Cheers!
-O