Here’s another of those handy little add-ons to save a model from the “shelf of not quite right models”. In this case, it’s a replacement for that pitot tube which got broken off (or was never there) on a current project or a long-finished model.

In this case, I asked for the Master Model pitot for my Revell Lightning F.6, which I finished a few years ago. When I looked on the shelf, I found it didn’t have a pitot tube.

Master’s instruction says to take the pitot assembly and remove the plastic pitot tube from the mount. Well, the mount was gone too, since it’s all one part on the Revell kit. So I scratch built a new mount. This is not a huge project. It’s very, very tiny, in fact. I started out by stretching a piece of sprue. As the stretch cooled, I bent one end to get a sort of L shape, only not a sharp angle. Almost a j.

Then began the fun part. I cut the sprue at the angle and cut the part down until it looked like it might fit on the Lightning nose. I then sanded one side with a sanding stick to get the angle right. Then I drilled the tiny hole in the end and was ready to insert the replacement pitot tube.

Yeah, right. I must have dropped the pitot mount at least a dozen times while trying to sand it. It’s about 1/8 inch (.317 mm) wide and ¼ inch long (.635 mm). I use a “jeweler’s apron” when working on small parts, and this was invaluable in keeping control of the dropped part. I sanded a flat spot on the front of the pitot mount and drilled the hole. I’m not perfectly sure, but I think the drill I used was about .2 mm because the .3mm drill Master suggests would have been as big as the part. The pitot fits fine into this hole.

I put a bit of gel-type CA in the hole and inserted the pitot. I had a few seconds to get the pitot straight, then applied accelerator. After a couple of minutes to let the CA really set, I filed a flat spot on the bottom of the Lightning nose, and put the pitot on with another bit of CA.

A few minutes later I got out my bottle of Testors silver, in the little square bottle, and painted the pitot, the mount, and the spot on the fuselage where I filed it flat.

The whole operation took about a half hour.

Overall Evaluation

Highly Recommended. These Master pitots are finely done turned brass, and they stand up to handling so much better than plastic parts. And in case there’s no pitot on the model, the Master Model parts are far better than anything I could manufacture.

Thanks to Master Model for the review item, and IPMS USA for allowing me to repair my Lightning.