The cockpit starts with the Dynamic Balsa kit.  The materials of construction are mostly styrene (floors, panels, dash, etc.) and resin (guns, bottles, canteens, etc.).  For an accurate representation of the cockpit, the book SBD Dauntless in Detail & Scale by Bert Kinzey was used.  With the exception of the Gunner's left and right panels, all other panels are made to be removable.  This makes getting at the interior of the fuse so much easier for maintenance and setup.

The Dash is comprised of a styrene face.  Behind the face is a card with the gauges printed on it.  The card is laminated with heavy plastic before gluing to the back of the dash front.  This layering provides a great 3D look to the dash.   The card provided with the Dynamic Balsa kit wasn't of a useable resolution.  So using pictures of the cockpit, I created a card that includes the appropriate gauges in the proper locations.  The card was then printed on a laser printed using a high resolution setting on the printer to capture the details of the gauges. 

The gun sight included with the kit was a telescopic gun sight.  The SBD-5 used a reflex gun sight.  Cutting up the telescopic resin parts, I made a reflex gun sight to fit in the dash.  In the top of the gun sight I installed the LED for the ignition system for my gas engine. 

The pilot's 50 cal guns are molded into the dash that comes with the cockpit kit.  I cut these out, and made individual receivers for each gun, attached the charging handles and attached them to the dash.  This gives a better, more scale look to the dash.

Weathering was done by dry brushing aluminum paint. 

The right side panel and floor are shown here.  The levers and knobs are made from pins and aluminum tape.  The circuit breaker panel uses electrical solder cut in small lengths, flattened, and glued to the panel.  Also shown in the side panel is the Pilot's step for entering the fuselage.

Similar to the right panel, knobs and levers in the throttle quadrant are pins and aluminum tape.  The red lever in the trim panel is a tee pin, filled with solder to make the handle solid.

The Gunner's Left and Right panels.  The mounts attached to the bulkhead (two 4-40 blind nuts are used in each mount) is used to attach the Gunner/Gunner chair.

The rear panel is screwed into a fuse former.  Imbedded in the former are rare earth magnets.  The ammo box also has matching rare earth magnets.  So the ammo box is just held in place with magnets.  The functional gun hatch can be seen above the rear panel for stowing the guns.

Pilot figures are from Best Pilots, by Lyle Vasser.  The Pilot was made from Lyle's "Pappy Boyington" figure.  But the faces are 3D prints of myself (Pilot) and my wife (Gunner).  Lyle painted both figures, the Pilot in a khaki flight suit and the Gunner in blue dungarees.  The gunner was then mounted in the gunner's chair.

To display the detail of the cockpit, a sliding canopy is preferred.  When flying, however, I prefer a closed canopy to protect the cockpit from wind, etc.  To avoid the weight penalty of making a functional sliding canopy, two canopies were made.  One in the open position, one closed.  The bottom rails of each side of the canopy has a keyhole cut out to go over the 4-40 capscrews shown above.  The rail/canopy is then slide forward where the rare earth magnets holds the front of the canopy in place.  This setup is fine for the open canopy, since it will not fly.  But the closed canopy needs something more than magnets to secure the front.  So tabs were attached to the front that will engage the pilots windscreen.

Putting it all together