I didn't have much confidence in the kit's main landing gear from the start. Strengthwise the styrene design turned out to be no problem. However, the main struts being moulded as two separate halfs requires a nasty sanding job and in spite of high motivation to get it done properly, the result was just not satisfying.
I looked for a replacement in late summer 2016 and found it in Scale Aircraft Conversion's white metal set. SAC unfortunately did a mistake in building their front landing gear master and I guess so did many modellers out there whose aircraft stand a bit too high from the ground. Can't really blame them as the instructions are misleading at this point. I let the pictures tell the story.
Eventually AMK came out with their own white metal landing gear set. The quality of this product is magnificent and it solved all the above named problems.
As the build has proceeded in the meantime, the upper parts of the front landing gear had already been installed in the wheel well and I decided to stay with the styrene parts here.
For the main landing gear the white metal parts have been used. Preparing the parts and putting them together was great fun. I used Tamiya's epoxy cement for this for its good gap bridging capability compared to cyano. Brake lines were modelled with copper wire and brass tube as fittings. I used this technique for the first time and I will surely do again as it improves the handling of the fragile wires.
Final steps: base coating with Mr Surfacer, painting with Mr Paint (did I mention how well they work?) and some oil wash to make them look filthy.
19 attached images. Click to enlarge.
