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Hasegawa 1/72 F9F Panther

Yes, why Eduard, why?
I do wonder if the door opened when hydraulics were turned off and the system pressure dropped. Like on the Mustang.
No sir, unfortunately not.

Well, I'll be closing that door up again.

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That is why I tend to do a lot of trolling for photos and info. I bought the Valiant book for the Me 410 (which cost more than the model I am building) BUT, I also have the HPH 1/32 Me 410 kit. I have also followed a couple of builds of that kit, one which went fairly good and one where the guy had a ton of trouble with it. After looking at my personal HPH kit, I suspect the guy was dealing with builder skill issues rather than kit issues though that kit IS going to be an outright CHALLENGE.
Anyway, fixing FUBARS is always a learning experience. Some are good, some are bad, some are a real pain in the pants seat. If you learn and increase your skill set, it is a win.

As to Bob's aversion to Eduard, I do get it, but have learned to do the research, then do the build plan.
 
Yeah Paul, hope everyone else do their due diligence and see how bad Eudard's customer service is like I did. They put in a box an Academy kit with their resin that didn't even fit and when I complained about it, the answer was "Yeah, we know. Sorry.".
Yeah that stinks to me Paul.
I don't mind challenges Paul, even ones I throw my hands up but as they say, don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.
 
Back at this one, finally. Part of it was just life but also I was waiting for an order of some brass that arrived incomplete anyways.

I got the cockpit put together. The directions for the photoetch would have you sawing the kit head rest off and adding it to the photoetch seat. I just couldn't see how that was going to work. So I used epoxy putty to make the headrest. It looks a bit lumpy in close up photos but at normal eye distances it looks alright. I also made a parachute? life raft? for the seat bottom, as per one of my references photos. I also used some of the brass that did show up to improvise a sheet metal brake and bend some brass reinforcement stringers for the back of the headrest.

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I couldn't get the completed cockpit to set right in the fuselage. It wouldn't stay where I wanted it and when it did, I saw it was sitting too low; the seat should sit higher out of the cockpit. So I used a brass strip to make a sort of spring to keep the seat shoved up closer to where I wanted it. Even so, it still sits lower than I think it should but it's the most I can do with it.

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I did some minor re-shaping of the PE armor plate as it was too squared off. Also, there's an inaccuracy somewhere in the dimensions because there should be more room between the seat and the armor plate that I was going to fill up with details using square tube that didn't arrive.

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So at least it looks like an airplane now. I'll add some detail to deck aft of the armor plate, and I managed to lose the neat little gunsight that was in the photoetch kit, so I'll have to put something together for that. After that, I can start priming, sanding, and painting.

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