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F-14 inflight wheel bay plugs


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I'm starting a new line of Steel Beach products and wanted to show what I'm going after. I know many of you build inflight and getting the doors closed can be a hassle. I'm going to do a variety of plugs that simply fit in the gear bay and you're essentially done. On some of them you'll need to put the doors on if the doors fit well and have a thin edge. On kits where the doors don't fit or have multiple, complex doors, they will already be molded in. I'm going to try and do most of them with the doors already molded on. Here's one of the first sets I'll be releasing. It's for the 1/48 scale Hasegawa F-14. Excuse the gouge by the front gear doors. It was an errant slip of the X-Acto!

I'm also thinking of making plugs that have specific diameter holes so all you would have to do is drill a whole the size of the rod you're going to use, glue the plug over the hole, and then simply slide the rod into the plug and you're good to go. I'd love some feedback on that before I get started. If you have other ideas, please let me know.

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Looks great!!

Though the front gear doors are reversed. The ECM bulge is on the gun vent side ... And if you're doing a D, the antenna hole should be filled in. It has an oval plate covering that area...

Okay, that's really weird. I've built B's and D's dozens of times. I used the kit doors, so I'm not even sure how they got reversed, because they fit perfectly. But there's no way they could have fit. I'm really confused. Thankfully it's an easy fix. This is why it's good to have a second set of eyes check things. Whew! That was close.

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Maybe a similar product for air brakes could work? Some kits have separate air brakes which fit poorly when closed, and a brake that fits nicely leaving just the correct amount of panel line would be appreciated.

/E

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I'll buy them. All I ever do is in-flight builds. I have a stash of HB and HAS F-14s to build up and this is always one of the things that makes me grumpy.

I hope to see these for the Academy 1/48 F-4 phamily as well.

I'll be doing them for both the Hasegawa and Academy families of F-4's.

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