Today is Independence Day here in the States. Hope my mates in the U.K. are not harboring any hard feelings. After all, you U.K. lads had to fight for your independence also, which is what this group build is all about. I figure you understand.
Anyway, I took the day off from my household “To Do” list and spent some time at the modeling bench working out a scratch built landing gear bay for my 1/32 Hawker Hurricane. No wizardry here, boys. Nor any special tools. Just a good mechanics ruler, the Mk.I eyeball, and measuring twice and cutting once. The best tool here is patience.
Using mostly plastic card, plastic rod, metal tubing and stretched sprue, I have completed most of the bulkheads for the landing gear bay. As most of this will not be seen once the Hurricane is sitting on its wheels, I am not going for 100% accuracy, just something a bit more reasonable than what the kit has to offer. I took a little artistic license and a bit of creative gizmology here and there but, overall it looks like a Hurricane wheel bay so far. This is the easy part, I still have to modify the kit landing gear and make sure everything lines up, then I will complete the roof and close her up but that will not be until much later on.
The hardest bits so far were creating the non-return valves and the air tank. Other than that, things went swimmingly.
17 attached images. Click to enlarge.