They're the right length, and they have a squared off neck where I've attached the gun mounts, which helps hold the guns in position (at least on 1 axis). My solution was to mount the canopy on old robot arms. Why did Jerac build it this way? I think because the cockpit's top, front and bottom dishes wrap around the quarter domes and they need to fit snugly to approximate a sphere, so the space available to mount the canopy and guns is incredibly tight. It's fiddly and fragile, and leaves extraneous T-pieces sticking out the front. I was also dissatisfied with the canopy/guns/controls assembly, which is a precarious stack of rods and clips.

I added 1x1 plates to the top and bottom corners to fill another gap. The result not only looks better, but holds the spokes in place more securely. They're easy enough to fill with 1x4 tiles, if you remove a plate from the base of the horizontal spokes. I always found the holes in the wings very distracting. I wanted to say that clearly at the start, before getting into the nit-picking! Here's what I changed: I've seen a lot of TIE MOCs since, and Jerac's is probably still my favourite. This was the first MOC I bought and built, and I remain very impressed by the strength, elegance, and ingenuity of the design. I built TIE Fighter a couple years ago, and I've been tinkering with it off and on ever since. I've made a lot of special modifications myself. LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools