¹⁄35

Henschel of the Eastern Front

Construction

Because the kit came with a resin cockpit and new unspatted landing gear, I began by making the modifications to the kit to accept the new cockpit and landing gear.  The instructions contain excellent photographs that clearly show the modifications that need to be made.  For the resin cockpit to fit, the supports for the kit cockpit on the sidewall of each fuselage half must be removed so the resin sidewalls will fit.  My motor tool with a rounded burr bit made quick work of the supports.  The same bit was used to begin the removal of the landing gear fairings from the lower wing.  Again, the instructions have great pictures on how much of the fairing to remove and how to shape the hole to accept the unspatted landing gear.  After using the burr to remove most of the fairing, a flat needle file removed the remaining plastic until the entire fairing was gone.  A round file was then used to shape the resulting hole to accept the new landing gear.  The use of needle files made this process very easy and I recommend every modeler have a set for tasks like this.  I picked up a set of ten for $5 at the local hobby store.

Once these modifications were complete, I began assembly of the cockpit.  The Blackbox detail set is very detailed and is vastly superior to the original kit cockpit.  Assembly was very easy but care needs to be taken after the sidewalls are attached to each fuselage half.  After the sidewalls are in place, make sure you dry-fit the fuselage halves before attempting to glue the two halves together as I had to do a little sanding near the bottom of each sidewall to get a good mating between the fuselage halves.  Painting of the cockpit is very straightforward and the instructions again do a great job in defining how it is to be done.  Modelmaster Acryl paints were used to paint the cockpit.