Inspired by The Big Gimper's
Gloster Peregrine PR.I, I decided to try my hand at modifying the ancient (but nicely fitting) 1/72 Gloster E.28/39. My kit is an anonymous, ancient Russian boxing of the old Frog/Novo kit. It even comes with a tub of glue! The box says it was imported by Rusland Imports of Winnipeg, CA.
I couldn't find the wings for my Hasegawa 1/72 T-33, so I decided to extend the wings by adding the wings from a Heller 1/144 E-2 Hawkeye. Not impressed:
I've already made the cockpit and added a nose gear bay.
Instead of using these wings, I scanned in the kit's wing root and designed slightly swept wings. Here they are, fresh out of the printer, in white ABS:
I should have put the straight sections of the wings together - it would have saved about 30 minutes in print time. The smaller tabs are the wing attachment tabs that slot right into the wings. The flaps and ailerons fused to the wing, so I'll have to reprint them. I kept the Pioneer's bulbous main gear bay, just made it slightly rounder/aerodynamic.
This is what it looks like, pressed together. The wingtip tanks are from the Hasegawa 1/72 T-33 - I found many parts of that kit except for the wings!
I'll reprint them tomorrow and separate the ailerons and flaps. I'm not sure if I'll keep the straight trailing edge. Swapping the wings and placing the straight edge forward looked pretty nice, too. The shiny area on the starboard wing is Rub N' Buff; I wanted to see how bad the printing artifacts looked. Other than some slight vibration marks, it looks good. A few minutes in Acetone vapor should smooth the wings nicely.
Since this kit is slightly overscale (1/70 or so), I compared it to my 1/72 resin Nene engine. The Nene would fit nicely! I trimmed the exhaust pipe; I'll add a small extension to match the Nene's exhaust.
I'm thinking of a backstory, but the plane's name should be a hint.