Revell 1/32 Spitfire MK IIa - Landing gear question

[Mikey_W_1980]

Afternoon all!

I've been asked to build the 1/32 scale Revell Spitfire MK IIa for a project they are doing.

What I would like to try and achieve is fabricating a mechanism to raise and lower the landing gear.

As I've never done anything like this before, and advise on scratch building such a mechanism would be superb!


The other option would be to source a second set of landing gear and figure out a way of interchanging from raised to lowered.

As always, any advice to most welcomed.

Mike

 

[Junkie]

The other option would be to source a second set of landing gear and figure out a way of interchanging from raised to lowered.

There's no doubt in my mind that this would be 1000X easier. As cool? Likely not.

 

[JMac]

The old 1:24 Airfix Spitfire had landing gear that could be positioned up or down. Really just a pivot at the top where the landing gear attach into the wing - the landing gear would "snap" into the down position. Not very accurate to the real mechanism, but workable. I currently have a 1:24 spitfire kit open and on the bench, I could take a picture of the parts, if it's of interest.

Jason

 

[Mikey_W_1980]

Thanks for the tips guys,

And yes please Jason, if you can that would be great. Will give me an idea of what could possibly be done and how to go about it

 

[JMac]

And yes please Jason, if you can that would be great. Will give me an idea of what could possibly be done and how to go about it

Here you go. Hope this helps. When I get started on this kit I think I'll glue the landing gear in the down position and forget about the snap lock...

Jason

 

[Quaralane]

Reminds me of a similar mechanism on an old 1/48 Spit that I built as a kid

 

[Mikey_W_1980]

Thanks Jason, these pics are a huge help This will give me a good idea as to what can be done.

I'll need to inspect the landing gear in detail when I get the kit (should arrive some point this week) and see if it is feasible.

My thinking may be some 1mm styrene tubing and 1mm brass rod, some careful drilling and gluing to create a hing like this in the landing gear housing.