This is me clamping the kit firewall to a piece of sheet styrene so I can fabricate a new firewall. The kit firewall has only raised detail and the oil reservoir (large tank) is of incorrect shape and size.
This is the new firewall after shaping it to size using the kit firewall as a pattern.
This is the firewall with rivet holes drilled and one piece of gear installed. The support plate for the cylinder is made from soda can.
This is the port elevator sandwhiched between two pieces of styrene and clamped together as a jig for drilling the hole where the actuator rod for the elevator trim tab exits the elevator. The hole is at about a 5 degree angle so I clamped the two pieces to the elevator to act as guides. The bottom piece is there so the clamp doesn't marr the surface of the elevator and the top piece is the actual guide. I placed the edge of the top piece where I wanted the hole to start and placed the drill bit right into the corner where the plastic and elevator meet. You can also see the pencil line I drew to act as a centerline reference for the trim tab. Using the top piece of plastic as a guide prevented the drill bit from skipping on the surface and allowed me to drill a hole at a very, very shallow angle.
This is the trim tab actuator after installing the actuating rod and the connector on the trim tab.
This is the new port elevator as compared to the stbd unaltered elevator. As you can see the kit came with the actuator as nothing more than a bump on the plastic and in the wrong places. On the SBD's, the elevator trim tab actuators weren't the same on port and stbd sides. The actuator on port was on top while the actuator on stbd was on the bottom. You can also see I've detached the elevator from the stablizer so appropriate detail can be added next.
