Has anyone replaced the plastic gun barrels with metal tubing on a 1/72 model aircraft?

I would like to do so on my P-39, but don’t know if the tubing is available thin enough or where I would get it.

Any advise?

Hi, I sometimes do that in 1/72 and in 1/144 but generally both are large calibers like 20mm,30mm. I think you can use an insuline injection needle fot .50cal in 1/72. Have a try. They are prety cheep, at least here in Turkey.

Hi
another idea is to use the application tubes from precision poly cement bottles such as Humbrol and Revell.
Not sure what scale they would be but I have used them before.

Also a good nodel shop may have brass tubing in small sizes. Usually kept with brass rod.

Hope it helps.

Cheers
Peter

Thanks Yalym and Peter! Some good ideas.

Hey Peter, great to see another aviation artist here

Indeed, tubes from cement bottles are useful. Pretty much the same steel as hypodermic needles I think, although I think that the needles might be better, since thinner ones are available, looking more to scale in 1:72.

Brass tube is another option, if you can find it thin enough. I haven't found smaller than 1mm diameter tube around here, but good luck looking. Brass would probably be easier to use, as it's softer than steel.
You know, cutting small lenghts, like a 3 mm long piece from a hypo needle for engine detailing (and this was a piece that couldn't be longer than necessary) is tricky if you don't have saw or a cutting disc in a motor tool. Cutting with side cutters squashes the tube so you need to file off the squeezed part until you reach a point where the tube is round again (or where you can insert some kind of a tool to reform it, but it's hard because steel is too). You really can't hold a half-a-centimeter long piece of tubing and file it, so I had to play around with tweezers.
But most of the time, you can insert a tube longer than necessary, so cutting and cleaning up is easier (and it makes the parts sturdier as well).

[Hey Peter, great to see another aviation artist here ]

Hi Alex
beautiful work.
Really like your style and technique.

I don't consider myself as an aviation artist, more a graphic designer that dabbles a bit.
But its both a pleasure and an honour to be thought of that way.

Cheers
Peter
::-H