Thank you Bruce! And yes, that is the rough idea that I'm going with... the centered post being the rear-most engine piece closest to the firewall, which would be the intake pipe ring fitted with a magnet. The secondary insert would housed within the circular opening of the firewall and fitted with another magnet. I actually got this idea from surfing Youtube and finding a Razorback build by Doog in 2019 in which he used magnets to attach the engine/cowling and also the blast tubes for the wing guns. I have another idea for the wing guns but magnets for the engine made a lot of sense to me.speedgraflex wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 5:21 pm John, I was thinking in more conventional terms to add a centered post with a secondary insert but I checked online and looks like Doog built this kit in 2012. According to him, once the engine is fitted to the cowl there are no longer issues. He is not very specific - I find his build logs more fantasias on a theme and not a detailed guide so take his thoughts for what they are worth. Good luck! Aaaand also I just think your detail shots are beautiful, truly!
Thank you Joe! Yeah, the office space is quite spacious on this bird. Lots of room, as a modeler, to work with. I'm wanting to go a little beyond what I've normally done with cockpits with this build. I was inspired by a 1/18 P-47 build over at LSP and the modeler there (JayW) compared a photo of his cockpit with the real thing and I had to do a double take because the two were so close. I don't think I'll be able to achieve the same level of detail/completeness but it's a good bar to reach for. I'm poring over all of the documents at the AirCorps Library and found lots of interesting and useful detail that I hope to incorporate into this build. Mostly within the cockpit.mustang1989 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:14 am Coming along nicely on this one. The cockpits in these things are HUGE!!! You could dang near play a basketball game in there.
Going back to the magnet idea, I just received a set of 7/16" neodymium magnets in the mail today so I was able to start to test this idea of using magnets to provide a more secure attachment between the engine/cowling and fuselage/firewall. The rearmost engine component closest to the firewall is the intake pipe ring. The circular base of the intake pipe ring is about level with the opening in the firewall so I thought that this would be a natural connection point.
The magnet is almost the same size as the circular opening at the base of the intake ring. But knowing the strength of these magnets, I wanted a more secure glue base. So I cut a small piece of sheet plastic and glued it into the opening from the other side.
The magnet was attached using CA glue.
I cut a ring of thicker sheet plastic to serve as a spacer/mount for the other magnet to placed on the firewall opening.
The ring was glued into place using CA glue. Thin CA first and then a ring of black CA to reinforce the bond. The magnet in the engine seems to level with the spacer.
A disc of brass sheeting was used to cover the opening.
The second magnet is glued into place with CA glue. I actually mounted the engine assembly with the first magnet onto the firewall and used the magnets' irresistible urge to align themselves to locate the second magnet.
The big test now is to see if this idea will work. The engine components have been dry-fit into the cowling and I've taped the firewall onto the fuselage. The magnetic force is so strong that it pulled the engine out of the cowling and snapped into place.
I had to place the firewall onto the engine FIRST and then attach the firewall to the fuselage for this dry fit.
Preliminary tests look really good but we'll have to wait until the glue hits the plastic to see if this is a success or not. If it goes as well as I hope, I'm thinking of keeping the engine cowling removable.