Small Scale Military Headquarters

Is it possible to tighten the fit, for instance on the P-40 canopy? Will a heat gun work, it works fine on curved king tiger barrels, etc.

Will it break or is it plyable???????????????????????

Is anybody there?

Now, I feel guilty about not responding to posts read daily that I might have some useful input on!!

see what too much exitement will do for ya? kindly b...ch slapped back to reality and patience.

Dont heat or try to bend it. I wrecked a few this way. Somebody had a trick of glueing pieces of rubber band to the inside of the canopy where the track is. This did work and it was a good idea. Previous to finding out about that trick, I glued strips of styrene to the same spot so it would stay in the track. I did this on the P40 and the Corsair. Heating and bending will work about 10% of the time. The rest of the time you either melt it (using flame method) or snapping it (using the hot water method) in half. If you end up wrecking the canopy on the Corsair, you can buy vacuum formed 1:32 ones from Squadron. they are a little flimsy, but with some minor stiffening and adding tracks, they will work OK.

TJ

Yeah I can tell you that the clear canopy plastic breaks REAL easy.

I feel like mentioning it will be tantamount to heresy here, but I have superglued more than a few canopies closed on the Warhawk, Corsair and Mustang with the Malcolm hood.

I know, I know, all of you are gasping at this news. Just remember, superglue+canopies=no more problems.

if you're going to glue your canopy i would just use a dab of white glue, personally. Super glue can mar the clear plastic and is quite permanent. With a dab of white glue (allow to dry 24 hours before touching the canopy) you can always re-open the canopy some day if you want to, as the white glue will give with a bit of force and then you can pick it off fairly easily.

Well, ive got a technique, kinda risky, but it works. If you take a small pot of water and get it to a boil, then you drop the canopy in there for about 5 or 10 seconds, then the plastic is very maluble, so all you want to do is just take a pair of plyers, and pinch the canopy so it is tighter. That was my remody for loose canopies. Hope it works for you guys

For my P-40 and Corsair, I used a blow dryer, then gently pinched the canopies. Afterwards I stuck them in the freezer. It took a few attempts but it finally worked. This did not work at all for the malcolm hoods on the P-51B/C models. For those I used clear scotch tape.

Thanks Aferg, good idea.