SPA Modeler

Thanks guys! That's a great drawing of the MDC cockpit tub, Bruce... it gives me more concrete ideas of how to approach this. I want to maintain the overall structure of the kit tub to reap the benefits of the good fit. And since the kit tub has separate side consoles, it would be fairly easy to replace those with the consoles removed from the resin tub. That's what gave me the idea.

I have three projects going and I find it hard to concentrate on any ONE. I may have to shelve the G-6 project for the time being and concentrate on two 1/32 builds. The 262 build is on-going on another site and it's a bit of slogging, slow-moving fight on that one. This one... well it hasn't really started but Doras are something that I love working on so I couldn't help but start looking at some of the new aftermarket stuff that I bought for this build, especially since the kit just arrived from Japan.

This is my third 1/32 Dora so I know, for the most part, how this thing is going to go together. Two of the few mysteries are the Quickboost radiator cowling and gun cowling, so we'll take a look at those first. The differences between the Quickboost radiator cowling and the kit cowling are pretty subtle but it'll probably be easier to see once we get the piece off of its casting block.



A saw made quick work of separating the cowling from its casting base. Make sure you where a mask when sawing resin to avoid breathing in the fine dust.



Can you see the difference between the two cowlings? The profile of the kit cowling is squarer while the QB cowling has more of a aerodynamic curve to its profile.



Comparing the two in size reveals the all too common problem with resin. The Quickboost cowling is noticeably smaller than the kit cowling in profile... perhaps by a couple millimeters.



Mounting it on the dry fit fuselage components shows the slight step around the entire cowling circumference that would have to be addressed if this were used in the build.



Compare that to the kit parts and how well they fit. Verdict? Undecided at this stage but work would be required to use the Quickboost cowling.



How about the Quickboost gun cowling? Unfortunately, the same issue is found here. The resin gun cowling is a hair smaller in every dimension than the kit cowling.



That leaves noticeable gaps at the back of the cowling, which is troubling, given that this also serves as the junction between the windscreen and fuselage.



It also leaves a gap at the front, shown here with the undersized resin radiator cowling.



Just for curiosity's sake, I pulled out the Eagle Editions gun cowling and tried it on for size. This one was nowhere close to fitting. I couldn't even seat it without major surgery on either the resin piece or the kit fuselage.



Hmmm... three gun cowling options and all of them need some sort of work. At this point, I'm inclined to go with the best-fitting which would be the kit gun cowling. I'll need to modify it as I have done previously on my last two Dora builds reduce the exaggerated valleys between the two gun bulges.

Back to the radiator cowling... based on the criteria I used for the gun cowling selection (fit), I would also choose the kit radiator cowling for this build. But is there any way to modify the kit part? I'm very leery about trying to impart a shape correction to a circular part uniformly... you'd need to spin it on a lathe to get acceptable results.

So I started thinking about this. Would there be a way to mount the cowling so that I could spin it on a drill or Dremel. The problem was that it's hard to mount a donut-shape since there is nothing in the middle of it.


The casting block for the resin radiator cowling suddenly came to mind.



I drilled a hole into the casting block as a mount for a Dremel bit. I have lots of assorted Dremel bit tools that I was able to scrounge as the bit for this mount.



I put my Dremel in a vise and checked the rotation... a bit off-center but I think this is going to work.



I glued the kit cowling onto the casting block using small dots of CA glue. Mounted in the vise, the first sanding attempt ended up with a smear of melted plastic so I stopped and simply held the Dremel in my left hand while my right hand could apply sandpaper with a lighter touch and avoid melting the plastic.




I slowly put more of a curvature to the kit radiator profile, constantly comparing my work to the Quickboost part. Here is the re-shaped part, still attached to the casting block.



The cowling was easily popped off the casting black and put back onto the fuselage for visual inspection.



Compared to the unmodified kit part...



And finally, compared to the undersized Quickboost part...



Based on these pics, I may give the kit cowling another go around on the Dremel but I have answered a couple of the questions that I had prior to this build. I will not be using either the Quickboost radiator cowling or the gun cowling on this build.

I see we have another D series fan here. Packing an aggressive look and the firepower and speed to back it all up, these are the true hot rods of the sky! Gonna go back to the start and catch up on this one.

mustang1989 wrote:I see we have another D series fan here. Packing an aggressive look and the firepower and speed to back it all up, these are the true hot rods of the sky! Gonna go back to the start and catch up on this one.

I don’t know much about these FW’s. But I like what John does with them, and I’m enjoying the hell out of this too.

KennyX wrote:

mustang1989 wrote:I see we have another D series fan here. Packing an aggressive look and the firepower and speed to back it all up, these are the true hot rods of the sky! Gonna go back to the start and catch up on this one.

I don’t know much about these FW’s. But I like what John does with them, and I’m enjoying the hell out of this too.

Man Kenny, you outta try one potna! They sure make for some nice display additions.

My interest is piqued, for sure!

Thank you gents! The Dora has been my favorite aircraft since childhood when I had the old Revell 1/32 Dora model hanging from my ceiling. I love the happenstance development that produced a superlative fighter, mating an inline bomber engine into an aircraft frame that had been painstakingy designed around a radial powerplant.

Having binned the Quickboost gun and radiator cowlings, I turned my attention to the Aires resin cockpit. As you recall, I was already thinking of grafting the details from the resin cockpit tub onto the kit cockpit, fearing that the undersized rear deck piece was indicative of more poor-fitting resin. The resin parts aren't THAT much more detailed than the kit parts so the grafting effort would be a lot of work for not too great a gain.


I decided to dry fit the Aires cockpit tub to see how badly it fit. I was surprised to find that the resin cockpit tub seemed to fit without much modification to the kit fuselage. Although the resin rear deck is smaller than the kit deck in length, you can push the rear deck all the way back into the recess along the top of the fuselage. That provided a definite location for the cockpit rear deck. I removed a couple of locator tabs and trimmed the deck mounting rails to allow the cockpit rear deck to poke up flush against the rear deck and voila, the cockpit tub slid into place nicely. No sidewall detail removal... no thinning of the fuselage side. I didn't even have to remove the casting block.






It's funny. Aires is often maligned by the modeling community as providing great detail but horrible fit. But my experience has shown otherwise. I've used a bunch of Aires stuff and never have I had to throw away or not use any of their stuff. Which is not the case with some other resin brands such as Quickboost, Eagle Editions, Alley Cat to name a few. The Aires instructions are usually horribly vague and you have to spend some time figuring things out with careful dry-fitting but there always seems to be some engineering to the parts that I've discovered (not documented in the instructions) that allow workable fit.

At this point, I am assuming that the Aires cockpit tub is good to go but I have to figure out how the instrument panel fits into the fuselage sides. Dry-fitting is tough because the panel simply rests on the front edge of the sidewalls. I've glued the IP using white glue, which I'll allow to dry. Hopefully, the bond will be strong enough to endure some more dry-fitting.