hi all,

has anyone found a way of "padding out" the photo etch struts that come with the dragom/dml kits? or do you just replace them with plastic stock?

i'm working on the 1/48 D.VIII

many thanks

paul

Greetings Ludwig,

Most modelers that have worked with the Dragon stainless steel struts either hate them or love the. To bring some thicker cross section to them just sand the surfaces to give it some tooth. This means holding the fret on a flat surfaceand push your heavy grit sand paper one direction til the whole surface is scored. Then take some Evergreen or Construct plastic strips .030 X .040 Thou. and glue it (expoxy or cyano) to the scored faces of the strut and then I use a "Flex File" to get the uniform edges. Use the front and rear edges of the metal strut as your guide to keep exposed. Then just round down your surfaces to make the oval cross section.

By the way even though Aeroclub "STRUTZ" are no longer available Contrail plastic strut stock is still available from Roll Models.com.

greetings mr lawson !

thanks for the tip, i'd also thought about coating them with mr surfacer and gently profiling that, it would be a shame not to use the etch stuts as they are alot stiffer than plastic struts.

many thanks paul

Once you roughen the struts a bit you could always super glue plastic stock to them and profile that....

Another option is two use fine brass tubing witha wire passing through so it sticks out a few mm on both ends and then flatten this in a vice . Sand to shape or file which ever works best for you . Now you have a strut with excellent strength with pins already in place .

Using the half round stock from Evergreen will also work and be less sanding in the end . You can get this in a wide range of sizes which will suit this need very well .


Terri

Just sand & apply several coats of Cyano, the type in the bottle with a brush is ideal, Do this over a period so each coat drys nice and hard and sand any anomolies out as you go.

I recall the instructions on their Dr.I kit also recommended using white glue progressively as Kieth recommends with cyano. This technique did not turn out as well as expected and, if I did it again, I would avoid it. The results are "O.K.'" in 1/48 but cyano or the addition of styrene sanded and shaped would be my next choice.

Cheers,
Lance.