wing machine guns

[serpente]

Hello ....Im finishing up my 1/8 scale spit Im missing guns and cockpit any Ideas where i can get them on line?please send links...Thanks in advance.
:confused:

[Campy]

Why not use some dowels for the wing machine guns ?

[serpente]

Thanks for the reply...I though of that but it does not look real enough...so what i did is use diferend diameter straws cut small square holes on the biger diameter put the smaller one inside looks pretty good.:D

[Aces High Tony]

hey there...just reading...i'm in the process of building a 1/7th scale P-40... I was suggested to use 3/16 or 1/8 size brass tubing for machine guns....(gives off a metalic look, and maybe give a light dusting of silver and black spray for powder burns...I think that would look most original...hope all goes well...

[Highflight]

I think you're all putting too much importance on the guns themselves. Anything small and round sticking out the front will work as long as it is sized to scale. Personally, I always choose whichever size wood dowel is closest and use a drill to put a hole at the end of it so it becomes a muzzle.

Where it REALLY counts is how, and how well you do the muzzle blast (powder residue) around and behind the guns. If you sit down with various pubs showing WWII aircraft and really study, you'll have many good examples to work with.

Hint: Less is sometimes more :D

Highflight

[Jedimaster65]

Hey serpente
On mine I achieved quite a good scale-look by using the red "canvas" squares and then sticking little black circular labels over them to represent the gun ports.
Crude but very effective...and doesn't screw up the aerodynamics ! ;)

[Jedimaster65]

Forgot to say...the Kyosho kit is based on the Spitfire Mk1, which had guns, not cannon, so nothing visible sticking out of the wing. :)

[The Blue Max]

Serpente

I take it that you mean the cannon barrells? On the versions with eight .303 machine guns there were no gun barrels protruding from the wing leading edge, only ports. On the cannon equipped models the only part of the cannon barrells that were visible were the muzzle, or the very end of the barrell. Most of what you see sticking out on the leading edge of the wing on the cannon equipped models were fairings that were tapered so that they were larger in diameter at the wing and got smaller towards the front. Therefore the wood dowel sanded to the proper shape with a small piece of aluminum tubing sticking out the end to represent the muzzle would be the most scale looking. A piece of tubing by itself or a couple of pieces of different size straws are not going to look very realistic.

[Capt G]

What works really well is two sizes of Carbon Fiber tubing (try your local Kite store) and CA one piece inside the other with some of the small one sticking out. Drill a hole and CA the whole unit into the wing leading edge (run the drill in reverse when drilling to avoid "hogging out" the hole. A dash of dry brush silver paint on the ends and Presto - guns.