I bought a kit off ebay and it came in good shape. I’m most the way through building (no excuse here) when I notice that the tailwheel is broken off and not in the box. #$%@! Any suggestions on what to do now? I looked at the aftermarket details sets and they cost more then I paid for the kit. THanks,
first of all welcome to the forums, [#welcome] what kit is it and is it old ?, if not you could always get in touch with the manufactor for a replacement.
scratch building a tailwheel isn’t very hard or have you got a box full of kit bits, maybe you might have something that resembles it
…ian.
Gear up? battle damage?
Hey axeman
What kit is it. Many of us here have large stashes of extra parts. If I know what kit it is I might have something that will work for you. I should not cost much to mail a little tailwheel.
Soulcrusher
Thanks everybody. I should have said it’s a Fujimi/Testors D3A Val (so no gear up). I built 2 huge display cases with glass shelves and mirrors (those weren’t cheap) for backs that I put the models in. It seemed like a great idea at the time but it limits what I can do with the planes for display since a base blocks off the other shelves. If I used a base I could just put some grass to hide the tailwheel anyway.
I have an idea for scratch building the wheel that might work. I can slice off a big piece of sprue, heat it up and pound it the an approximate thickness. Then I can create a bracket to mount it and it should be close enough. What do you guys think of that method? Is there an easier way?
Thanks again,
Well, yes…
Get yourself some styrene rod, and some appropriately gaged wire, and make a tailwheel. You can section the wheel itself from a wooden dowel, or plastic rod of the appropriate diameter, and drill a hole on center, you can make an axle from wire or styrene rod. Bend wire for the mount etc…seems relatively simple. I wouldn’t count on being able to form sprue into a radius. Just use wire.
Steve
Even better idea. I have some dowel and it will be easier to work with then plastic, and wire is much easier too. Thanks!
hey i built a he111 and the tail was broken and could not be used. and i scratch built one…richard
I went with the dowel method. It turned out to be easy. I used a little wire from one of my wife’s bird feeders for the strut and I think it looks great, at least you don’t notice it. I finished the plane and want to share it with you, although I’m not sure how this picture will come through. I hope big enough to be seen. I’ve only shown my models to friends and family so far and they don’t appreciate the effort. My best comment on this one was “I like the red circles!” When I build a kit I usually have a technique I’ve read about that I want to try. I decided I would try preshading the panel lines, etc since this plane is all gray. That worked out except on the wings where I couldn’t get the paint even and got it too thick so I had to fall back to the chalk method. I’m modeling a Val around Pearl Harbor so I figure the crews would have gone all out to patch the paint and clean the plane up. I’m usually too heavy handed with weathering (which shows up well in pictures, but…) so I wanted to be subtle on this one. I think I did ok. I hope the picture comes through or I’ll feel like a moron and you guys can tell me how I’m supposed to get it up here. Thanks again for the help.
Sharp looking Val, you should be very proud of that one!
Picture is very nice and so is the Val. Thanks for sharing. By the way, now you are a scratch builder!
Yeah, but where’s the tail wheel? Just kidding…fine model.
Bondoman
…There is no tailwheel… …it is simply floating, though the miracle of… ANTIGRAVITY!!! oooOOOOOOoooooo!!!…
No, I’m really serious. That’s what it is.
I can tell.
I’m no scratchbuilder… Let’s just say it doesn’t detract from the model and you just don’t notice it when it’s sitting on the shelf (which is eye level when I’m sitting at my desk). Thanks for the nice remarks guys. Time for the next kit. Eduard’s Albatros D.V in 1/72- my first biplane. I may have been a bit over ambitiuos on choosing this one, or should have stuck to 1/48th maybe. We’ll see.