Hey gang,
I was looking over the kit I’m currently working on (1/32 Hellcat) and looking at some of the upgrade pieces I have and I came up with an idea to add some extra detail.
The kit has both gun maintenance hatches open and I have two PE gun hatch detail sets on the way. But I also have a spare hatch detail set that came with the cockpit upgrade. So I decided that I also want to add the ammo loading bay which sits right next to the gun bay. But on the kit, that hatch is just molded panel lines.
I have some ideas on how I should go about this (cut out the hatch and build the bay from sheet styrene), but I’m wondering if anyone knows of a site that might detail the process a bit more. Or if anyone knows of any pitfalls I should watch out for or has any tips for doing this, it would be greatly appreciated.
-Fred
Hi Gigatron,
The only thing that immediatly occurs to me is to thin the walls around any hatches etc you cut open to a scale thickness.
As to a dedicated site I dont know of any. I remember reading the Osprey books on the 109/190 and they had conversion & detailing chapters. Dont know if that helps
Regards Gary[8-]
great suggestion from gary to keep a level of accuracy in the build.
I would try that and cut out the panel and try to clean it up to use to save you from having to build another panel. You should look around on the net for that type of plane to see if you can see the actual details for that area.
Thanks for the ideas, guys.
I have the Hellcat walk around book which shows some really great detail of the ammo bay. Only thing I can’t guage is the depth of the bay. That may be where I end up guessing. But I’m waiting on the D&S book on the Hellcat before I make any major decisions.
Thanks,
Fred
what you should try to do to figure out dept is to measure the panel and according to its scale try to figure out the size of the panel on the real plane. And using the pictures that you have, try to make a good guess on its dept. Unless, someone knows the actual dept…thats probably the best you can do.