Thank you very much for the insight and constructive criticism [USER=5198]ConvergenceProp[/USER]. Your builds exude a heightened (perhaps almost like 'enlightened') attention to detail and so I sincerely appreciate your comments, respect your stance and welcome any/all attempts to help me develop and sharpen my skills in this arena.
Overall, I can definitely see where the general intention was to drill the holes inline with one another. Based upon that fact alone, this whole venture could be perceived as superfluous by some - but yet I still find myself intrigued. I could also totally buy-in to the stunt saber theory for why they are there in the first place.
As for the scaling, angles and orientation of the drawings overlaying the photos, you are 100% correct that there are deviations between them. Although Im sure that a lot of it could be due to the limitations of my skillset, experience, etc., the weakest link at this point is in my assurance of my MPP design's conformity to an actual part. For example, the only benchmark I have for the MPP tube's metal thickness is 2mm thick. When trying to align off of holes' dimensions from both an interior and exterior profile perspective means that the material thickness becomes an important factor. For the life of me I can't make a 2mm thick tube with holes placed as measured fit to photo constraints.
Short of an actual MPP in-hand, what I would really love is to have someone provide a digital caliper reading of actual MPP's material thickness and diameter - as well as a scanned old-school-style pencil-rubbing on paper of an actual MPP's port holes and engraving. My design program could then take that flat pattern and roll it up to the appropriate tube dimensions - and extrude the profile to the appropriate thickness. Any chance you (or someone else) may be willing to help with that??? =)
