1/32 21C Mustang landing gear correction
Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:06 pm
I'm getting tired of looking at my 21C P-51 Mustangs sitting on those stilts they have for landing gear, so I decided to try to shorten them to the proper length on my test subject, "Shangri-La".
I removed the wing section from the fuselage and measured how far the struts needed to be shortend so that the gear door would be just above the wheel hub. Using a small screwdriver, I separated the gear door from the lower part of the strut, but left it attached to the upper part. I then marked the strut and using a razor saw, cut out 5/16" of the lower section of the upper part of the strut. Tenax-7R liquid plastic cement was used to join the two strut pieces back together. After letting the glue set overnight, I then touched-up the joint with Testors silver. Total time was about 1-1/12 hours.
Before:

After:

I removed the wing section from the fuselage and measured how far the struts needed to be shortend so that the gear door would be just above the wheel hub. Using a small screwdriver, I separated the gear door from the lower part of the strut, but left it attached to the upper part. I then marked the strut and using a razor saw, cut out 5/16" of the lower section of the upper part of the strut. Tenax-7R liquid plastic cement was used to join the two strut pieces back together. After letting the glue set overnight, I then touched-up the joint with Testors silver. Total time was about 1-1/12 hours.
Before:

After:
