Academy 1/48 P-38 Lightning

[Willem]

I've been looking forward to this SIG for quite a while, slight feeling of trepidation though as I intend to go old skool and use Alclads.

Here is the kit box art.



Plastic all bagged up.









Several versions can be made from this kit so there is quite a few sprues. Detailed sprue shots to follow.

Instruction leaflet.











Some marking options and the kit decals.



Aftermarket I'll be using on this build. Just a mask set and a Kagero decal book so far. I may opt for resin wheels if there are any available.



Marking options that I'm considering. I seem to have developed an affinity for nose art.







The latter two are L variants so I'll have to do a little bit of research to find out the main differences between the J and L models.

Aiming to start this next week as I have another project that is nearing completion. I also need to rearrange and tidy round in the man cave so as to keep dust to an absolute minimum.

[Cymru]

Great choice, good luck

[Willem]

Great choice, good luck

Cheers mate.

Sprue shots. Quite a lot of plastic in the box as several versions can be built:

[wookiee76]

Nice, i have dragons version in 1:72 flavour which I'm planning to be be a second entry after the mig 21.

[rodrant]

Great Entry Will ! And nice set of decals ...love the Pin ups in the aircrafts ! Real Great and one to follow Buddy ! Good luck with your build !

[shortCummins]

I'm in the market for a P-38 so I'll be watching this with interest

[Willem]

Cheers lads.

I'm in the market for a P-38 so I'll be watching this with interest

You might want to look away for some of this build

So I've made a start on this. Cockpit came together fairly quickly. I used gloss interior green then followed by dry-brushing, adding an oil-wash, harnesses, bit of random chipping with a silver pencil then all brought together with a flat coat.









Not a huge amount of detail in this kit so far.

The boom undercarriage bays were partially assembled ready for paint. There is a little bit of plumbing to add but, again, not overly detailed and some ejector pin marks to deal with.



The wings and cockpit pod come in two halves so I went ahead and fitted the cockpit. Instructions were a little bit vague but a little bit of trial and error got me to here:





So I went ahead and dry-fitted the upper wing section. As you can see from the photos the cockpit pod parts don't line up too well and the top of the sidewalls splay out a bit.





Further dry-fitting revealed that the fit of the parts for the nose are going to be about as tight as a clown's pocket.



I've made a start on rectifying this by using strips of Evergreen plastic card to brace the cockpit sidewalls together.





Of course, this means there will be a seam along both sides that doesn't correspond with a panel-line, so a bit of filling and sanding to do here (not ideal when one is aiming for a NMF finish).

There you have it for now. Next job is sorting the nose out. There are no locating tabs for the two sections that need to be added so I will be using more Evergreen to hold everything in place. Here's hoping I don't forget the nose weight. Instructions call for 20g but I'll be doubling that to be on the safe side.

Thanks for having a look.

[Cymru]

Coming together nicely sir

[Avgas]

Nice pit given the plastic you had to work with.

[Lysus]

I've heard P-38s are notoriously finicky, glad to see you're winning the battle so far.

[Willem]

I've heard P-38s are notoriously finicky, glad to see you're winning the battle so far.

Cheers Lysus. It is a bit temperamental but my last two builds were an Eduard Hellcat and a Tamiya Thunderbolt so I've been a bit spoilt. Time for me to man up.

Right surgery on the nose is coming on. Strips of evergreen and the nose weight added.







A nice, big thumb print to polish out later.



Cockpit coaming held tight by a 'borrowed' hair band.



She won't want it back after I've done with it.

About half a pint of canopy glue and two more weights. No such thing as overkill.







This took a few days to go off so I got on with putting the undercarriage and booms together. A coat of zinc chromate yellow in the wheel wells.







Nose cone and gun cover added and, because the nose weight keeps wanting to impersonate the Concorde droop, I've stuck the airframe in a bit of foam to hold it vertical.





Bit of a gap where the nose meets the undercarriage bay so a bit of Evergreen card will be used to pack this out.



Bit of an overhang this side but not much I can do about it.



Still a round of filling and sanding to do before fitting the booms. Have dry-fitted them and they look ok though definitely not a click fit.

More soon. Thanks for looking.

[Willem]

Quick update on where I am with this now.

I didn't take as many pictures this week as I kind of got carried away.

I've tidied up the nose a bit but all the filling, sanding and polishing was getting a bit tedious so I turned to the tail booms.

Despite adding 3 pieces of shot to the nose I decided to play ultra safe and add a shot apiece just behind the engine fronts. Again, I secured this with PVA and decided to blank off the engines as there are a few openings in the engine cowlings. For this I used some black card stock found in a local railway model shop.



Trial and dry-fitting to cut to shape gave me this.



It's not the tidiest job but it will do. I traced the first piece on to another bit of plastic card and reversed it to roughly fit the other cowl.





These then had extra thin run around the edges.

As I was getting a bit bogged down I tidied the nose up further and tried another dry fit of the booms. It became clear that while neither were a drop in, the starboard boom looked the trickiest to line up.



I decided to glue in stages and started with the engine cowling secured with that hair band again and worked my way to the back.



After leaving this to dry for a bit I was fiddling with the horizontal stabiliser and the port boom when everything seemed to click and line up. I quickly ran some extra thin into the joins and taped her up.





Perhaps not the proper way to do it but everything seems pretty straight and in line. Will leave her over the weekend as I'm away and the glue can go off properly. There are still a few ropey seams and I can foresee some sanding and filling work to do on the tail but that's cool now that the basic airframe is in shape.

I went ahead and bought some resin wheels and while I was shopping some other little goodies got slipped into the basket too. More of that next time.

Thanks for looking.

[Willem]

So. Times ticking on this SIG now. A small but significant step forward on this build.

Finishing up the last pieces of the airframe.



Checking everything is straight. Don't know why as I last worked on this at the end of April.





Moving swiftly on.

Decided that this level of detail was insufficient.



Hence this.



I'm a bit of an aftermarket tart so I picked up this set to upgrade the superchargers. Trouble is, I'm not the most patient when it comes to PE and resin, with all the palaver attached.



Still, these brass plates were inexpertly bent to shape and I have attempted to blend it in with CA as a filler and a metal file.





Lots of intakes to add but here I've opted for the two part kit items as I've made a mess of the resin replacements.



Was shopping with the other half in Hobbycraft a few weeks ago (she makes jewellery and sells it ) when I saw this. Bargain at whatever I paid for it. Can't remember.



I have a perfectly good razor saw but thought I'd try this to take off the casting blocks on the superchargers themselves.

So this happened.......



and this.........



As a modeller I really enjoy the building side but I am a clumsy muppet. So, instead of sanding my own fingerprints off I decided to break out my long neglected cheapo motor tool.



Bearing in mind that sanding resin is nasty I took precautions and wore mask and goggles, sanded over a damp piece of kitchen towel.

So. This happened.....





Somehow I've managed to get to here.





A triumph of luck.

I have a feeling that there is much more scribing and filling to do but I'm going to put a layer of primer down in order to "let the dog see the rabbit" so that I know where to focus on cleaning this thing up.

More soon.

[Lysus]

I'm not laughing AT you...but... Glad you have humor about it all, I'd be speaking in my native tongue, drunken sailor. I'm impressed that after all the mishaps you're turning out a great plane. I'm also glad you shared them, makes me feel less alone when I glue my hand to my face.

[Sturm]

Interesting nose art...

[Willem]

I'm not laughing AT you...but... Glad you have humor about it all, I'd be speaking in my native tongue, drunken sailor. I'm impressed that after all the mishaps you're turning out a great plane. I'm also glad you shared them, makes me feel less alone when I glue my hand to my face.

Never alone mate. Take it from the idiot that shook a bottle of primer without checking the lid was screwed on. Absolute chaos and a haircut and redecorating job later.

[Lysus]

I'm not laughing AT you...but... Glad you have humor about it all, I'd be speaking in my native tongue, drunken sailor. I'm impressed that after all the mishaps you're turning out a great plane. I'm also glad you shared them, makes me feel less alone when I glue my hand to my face.

Never alone mate. Take it from the idiot that shook a bottle of primer without checking the lid was screwed on. Absolute chaos and a haircut and redecorating job later.

Ok, I for reals... I think my office mate is starting to wonder if I'm working or not.

[Willem]

Another quick update on the build.

I wanted to get a coat of primer on for a couple of reasons:
A) To give me more of a visual idea of seams and untidy areas to sort out.
B) I've developed an irrational dislike of the colour of Academy's plastic. It's kind of a sickly greenish grey.



There were a few areas that needed some further work.



Then on with some Alclad black primer. This thing looks cool in all black and I was tempted to stick the small bits on and call it a Bat plane.



Think I'm subconsciously putting off the Alclad session.

Edit. Forgot this pic.



Spent most of an afternoon polishing the airframe with 3 different grits of micro-mesh and finally an old tee shirt.

Alclad day tomorrow (or later today). Wish me luck.

[Willem]

I'm happy to report that this happened..........





Big moment for me as the last time I tried using Alclads was a disaster and cost me a binned model.

Cleaned up some resin wheels whilst the NMF was drying.



I've spotted the bubble in the nose wheel but a dab of CA glue will sort it.

Sorry for another short update but the next one should be fairly big as I need to dull that shine down a tad for a hard-worked P-38.

Next update I shall be experimenting with these assorted objects:-



(I just need to remember to put my slide spray bottle back in my trombone case).

[Lysus]

Exciting things are happening for the 38 I see...looks excellent! And yeah, don't forget your bottle. Or put CA glue in the case by accident.

[Willem]

Exciting things are happening for the 38 I see...looks excellent! And yeah, don't forget your bottle. Or put CA glue in the case by accident.

You're going to give me nightmares.

[Lysus]

Exciting things are happening for the 38 I see...looks excellent! And yeah, don't forget your bottle. Or put CA glue in the case by accident.

You're going to give me nightmares.

Bet you'll triple check that bottle next gig, though...

[Stokesy44]

That is looking superb. The NMF is really showing off the P38's shapely lines. Shows how worthwhile all the work you did on the joins was. First class stuff.

[TommyKillander]

It looks awesome sofar, the paintjob is top-notch!

Keep up the good work!


Tommy

[Willem]

Many thanks Stokesy and Tommy. I have the feeling that I may have been a bit over ambitious though.

Was on holiday over Easter and picked up a magazine to read. In it was an article on an NMF P-47 where the author had used a salt technique to vary the finish. I thought this looked great and decided to give it a try.

Firstly, I've wet the surface with water using an atomiser and sprinkled sea salt over the surface.





Once the water has dried (I went in with a hair dryer) I've sprayed a different Alclad shade over the top.



That gave me this.





I then repeated the procedure using another different Aluminium shade.





And so I ended up here.





Couple of things. This is a stupendously messy process. I'm not at all happy with the result. I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew here and this may take some further experimentation on another build. I've tried to knock it back a bit by over spraying in various shades but it's not going away. I may end up weathering the underside of this aircraft rather more heavily than originally intended.

Still. We live and learn.

Thankfully, I had only done this to the underside. I added another shade on various panels on the top surfaces although it is quite hard to see in these pics.





And, in an attempt to get this thing closer to the finish line, I've masked and sprayed olive drab on the anti-glare areas.





So, another lesson learned which is all good. I'm happy that I'm close to getting my first NMF done but, if I'm honest, some of my enthusiasm for this build is starting to wane and I'm looking forward to starting something new.

[Willem]

Right. Pushing on. I wanted to get some markings on. Meanwhile, as I'd painted the inner cowling anti-glare too low, I took most of it off using cotton buds (Q-tips) and X-20 thinner. I've decided that I've had enough of painting, masking, touch-ups, re-masking, more touch-ups......etc and so I've opted for a less busy scheme but one that still has a bit of nose art, although not of the female form.



I had this set from Sky decals in my decal dungeon.

Inner cowlings redone with some extra (mostly unintentional) weathering and chipping.





I'm ok with this though.

The nose art on this build. To me, this is the real attraction with US subjects. (Nose art SIG next year anyone)?



Strangely, these side codes seem to be much more suited to 1/32 so I raided some serial decals.





Not particularly accurate but I'm past caring.

There are no stencils in my aftermarket sets so I was forced to use the Academy decals for the fuel-filler points. Nice to see that Academy decals perform as advertised. This is after scoring with a blade and being blasted with X-20 thinner.



How can some companies get decals so wrong?

So here she is all decaled up.



Still need to add odds and sods and some light weathering. I'm not going to go nuts with the weathering on this build. I'm coming round to this build again. The lower surfaces just don't look right and I can't change that without a strip-down which is out of the question at the moment. Still, she looks ok if you squint a bit...turn the lamp off....retreat to about 3 yards.

[Lysus]

She's looking sweet, dude. You're doing a great job of turning misery to success.

(Nose art SIG next year anyone)?

Yes, a thousand times, yes. Propose it when it comes time and I'll be right there to second it

[Willem]

Cheers Bud. I should have kept it simpler but it is what it is.

Think somebody suggested a nose art SIG for this year. Might have been John aka Shortcomings (apologies if I'm wrong). Will lobby for it when the time comes.

[Joesdad]

Good enough for me Will
Don't be too down-hearted with the salty experiment love, you'd be lucky to get it right first time. That finish might not be quite right for what you wanted but I bet you can use it on something else...
Well done Will

[Willem]

Ta me old ducky egg.

[Willem]

Right. Sorry that I'm having to do this but the build is on hold for now. Had a nightmare with undercarriage linkages breaking. I've managed to break two sets of linkage for the nosegear as I had a different version of the Academy kit in the stash. After that I looked at using the linkage from a Hasegawa kit I recently bought but I'm not going to cannibalise two kits to finish one that I'm not enjoying anymore. I also thought about scratch building some form of replacement but it's a bit beyond my skill level given the time frame.

My next idea was a white-metal replacement set but again, I'm getting reluctant to throw any more cash at replacement parts.

Then I cracked a canopy part and that was the final straw for me.

So, given the time frame, it's going on the shelf of doom for now. I have learned a lot about how to (and how not to) achieve a good NMF on this project so not all is lost. Thanks to all that have followed and commented and apologies for not getting it over the finish line. I'll definitely have another crack at a shiny plane but I fancy a rest from it at the moment.

[Lysus]

Bummer. But hey, as you said you learned something and if you're not having fun it isn't worth doing. I doubt a hate build would look good on your shelf

On to the next one!