SPA Modeler

Thanks guys!

Stikpusher wrote:Those silly engineers had to change the positions of everything...

Nice work on all the changes and upgrades.

I would never have noticed unless it was specifically called out in the drawings of the D-13 that I was looking at...


Since we are looking at those drawings, here are the cross-sections that indicate that the bulge was only evident along the top edge and not the bottom as depicted in the GM resin conversion...


I thinned the edges of the cowling flaps. Again, the D-13 is slightly different than the D-9 in that ALL of the cowling flaps are extendable. On the D-9, there is a fixed cowling flap on the starboard side.


I cut the fixed flap off and replaced it with a piece of brass sheet.



I COULD replace ALL of the flaps with brass sheeting but I elected not to. As long as the trailing edges are thinned, I think the plastic flaps look fine.




On my past D-9 builds, I erroneously assumed that the outline of the wing insert piece were along panel lines but this is incorrect.


So after I glued the insert pieces into place, I filled the non-panel line joints with black CA glue.

The wing insert panel has been dealt with. Looks a mess now but it should be work out nicely under a coat of paint.


Now I'm going to take a look at the Henri Daehne resin prop. This one is almost identical to the Ta152H prop that I just used except the prop mount is geared toward the Hasegawa D-9 kit. Surprisingly, there is a part missing... the backing washer that aligns the prop shaft from behind the radiator face is missing. Luckily, I have a bunch of HD D-9 props so I fished the missing part from one of those.


There is some removal of casting blocks to deal with but Mr. Daehne provides a fully detailed instruction sheets with exact dimensions which takes the guessing out of cleanup.



The rounded blade tips are the distinguishing feature between the D-13 and the Ta152H.


I double check the fit of the HD prop to the fuselage...



Finally jumping over what's normally the first step of any build... the cockpit! The Eagle Editions cockpit for the D-9 is molded in a light-colored resin. This is not a plug-n-play set and will require some removals and shaving of the fuselage insides to make it fit.




I have limited references on the D-13 cockpit and I'm not sure how accurate these references are. But I went ahead and made some changes based on the photos found in Mr. Crandall's Dora Volume 2.

The D-13 has a cannon firing through the spinner and the cannon breech supposedly intrudes into the cockpit between the rudder pedals. I've never seen a photo of this breech but I think the center section of the instrument panel will hide it. The Eagle Editions cockpit comes with a bomb-control panel that seems to sorta kinda of match the panel in the photo.


The starboard console looks very similar to the console in the Ta152H. Coincidentally, I have the kit pieces for both consoles from the Ta152H build since I used the RB Productions photo etch replacements. It's a pretty easy grafting job to put the Ta152H panel onto the D-9 cockpit.



The port console is close enough to keep as is.

Some really nice looking resin. I love seeing them HD props they are so well made. Hope adding the cockpit won't be to much of a headache since you have to modify the kit sidewalls.

It all looks fantastic John - superb detail work!

Thanks guys! The grafting of the side console shouldn't affect the overall fit of the cockpit since it will be encased by the sidewalls. After trimming the resin cockpit parts, I cobbled them together using tape. You can see the grafted console nested nicely in the cockpit.




Some surgery needs to be performed to accommodate the Eagle Editions cockpit. The easy part is sawing off the instrument panel hood and replacing it with the resin hood.


A fit check to make sure that all of the components, including the windscreen and canopy, go together without any issues.



Now comes the tedious part. The insides of the fuselage need to be thinned considerably. This work has begun but I'm nowhere near the recommended amount of thinning.

This looks to be progressing very smoothly with the cockpit work. How do plan to thin the fuselage sides? With a motor tool?

I scraped the raised details away with a knife and then went at it with coarse sand paper. I have a hard time maintaining a uniform surface when using the rotary tool that I have. Even at the lowest speed, the heat generated is enough to melt plastic.

Yes, it takes a very light touch to do that sort of work with a grinding bit on the motor tool. Do you use some sort of sanding block with the paper?

John, I am sure you know about this cache of photos of the D-13 restoration but I found these to be useful!

https://gosshawkunlimited.com/services/ ... 90d-13r11/

Apologies for jumping in outta the blue.

He makes it look too easy. Seriously, you are a master. I always enjoy watching all your builds come together from start to finish.