Why are my Machine Guns acting so funny....?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Building the Academy 1/32 Sopwith Camel and came time to decide what to do with the machine guns. One was loose in the packing bag, so I fished it out to test-fit, and thought: “Wow…what an inconvenient place to position a molding plug…right on top of the barrel.”

Then I found the one still on the sprue. WTF???

(You probably see where this is going.) Not molding plugs at all…they’re the attachment pegs.

Huh?

See?..it shows it right here in the instructions…

I’ve never seen anthing quite like that before. But then, I don’t get around much.

(I think I’ll eliminate the potential ‘ammuntion-feed issues’ and flip the guns ‘upside down’…)

2

I’d flip them into the garbage can.

There are plenty of really nice replacements available.

I can’t really afford them, but I would love to build a Wingnut Wings kit.

3

It’s probably from a mold release pin that malfunctioned…

but like my friend GM said, you can easily get some replacement parts. Toms Modelwirks makes a nice PE set that with a little scratch work will give you some very nice guns… all for a bit over $8

http://www.tomsmodelworks.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22_30&products_id=227

4

The whole thing is goofy. The stubbins or whatever are definitely on the tops of the guns. Hard to remove without rebuilding the jackets.

Then someone goes and draws it up with the pins on them and the guns upside down.

It has long been a truth that the folks who draw the plans are NOT the same ones who build the thing.

Thats a nice fret, Stik. And you get two Lewis guns as well.

5

Truth is, the molded detail on the guns themselves really isn’t that bad. And I should probably have noted that the etch set I’m using—the fairly elaborate one from Part in Poland—has a very nice set of jackets…though I also have several of the Tom’s sets in my p-e ‘goodie bag.’

The really weird thing is that before I started the project I dug up a number of online ‘build reviews’ for the Academy kit, none of which mentioned the oddity. This suggests either that it was ‘corrected’ in subsequent reissues (mine was a pretty old kit), or that we’re all so used to trashing the instructions from the start that no one noticed. (One wonders how many proudly-displayed Camel models the world over have the guns on upside-down…)

Also, it seems to me I saw that Italeri had reissued the kit fairly recently under their own label. I wonder if their 'elves" noticed & corrected the instructions accordingly (as I’m assuming no one would actually re-tool for such a ‘minor’ glitch).

Cheers

6

Wow that’s pretty amazing that that goof made it past all the QC checks from the factory. I mean doesn’t someone double check when the first revision is drawn up on the instructions?

7

Not once, but at least twice.

I found the Italeri instructions online, and they’re a direct copy— at least that part of it. I guess if you’ve never seen WW1 a/c, it all looks the same. [I confess, if it were, say, some part on a historical locomotive…I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Just not my area.]

8

Oh I agree and I would be the same way… but then again we aren’t trying to sell what we know as an “accurate” representation of the real thing.