Thanks guys,
Was going to stick with the plastic retraction arm and springs for the undercarriage even used my fine saw to cut the spring profile one by one,with the extra time I have made one small improvement.......have now removed the plastic spring and replaced it with copper wire wound around some short lengths of .9 x.45 brass tube, then inserted some .45 brass wire through the tube to create the attachment points representing the end of the springs, looks better and provides a stronger fixing point.
So now painted these and applied a tiny bit of wash to finish it off...