SPA Modeler

The Cutting Edge Circa 1999

Oh hey now in a very smart move on Copper State Models’ design part, they created their photo etch from nickel-silver. You can sand and polish this. Here you’re looking at two of ten parts per gun, in this case the barrel wrap (aye, that was hard to do) and the barrel end is on but not visible in the photos (harder to do). The resin receivers were deemed too brittle so I’m refining the kit parts. I’ll be adding cocking handles and levers to the Revell parts. Lastly, you’re looking at side by side comparison with the kit part.

Oh, very nice comparisons. What a difference it makes. Bravo! This slowly makes me want to build my 1/32 scale Sopwith Camel this year.

Following this with earnest...

Now you’re cookin’!!! Good idea to use the kit parts as the basis for the upgrades. Resin can be a pain to work with due to the brittleness that you mentioned.

WOW Bruce - that's a huge improvement over the kit parts!

speedgraflex wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 12:04 pm

Stikpusher wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 10:52 am Now you’re cookin’!!! Good idea to use the kit parts as the basis for the upgrades. Resin can be a pain to work with due to the brittleness that you mentioned.

Time for some Crisco! It took 40 minutes to whittle down the kit part to sleeve the metal over it but that was worth the pain. Thanks, Carlos!

Cooking with Crisco! One of the Blackhats (instructors) for my platoon in jump school used to use that phrase when were were hustling and everything was moving fast and smooth… he had a voice like Robert Blake… “We’re cookin’ with Crisco now!”
Glad to hear that the effort was worth the hardship… and that is where the inner satisfaction comes from on a project.

I’ve heard that by first heating PE, and then allowing it to cool off, prior to attempting to fold or bend the PE makes it more malleable. I’ve never used the method myself, but I don’t work much with PE either.

WOW, this is some real fine detail work