Loving this build! I have an Accademy P38F waiting in the stash plus goodies including an Eduard cockpit, which I am going to build as one of the RAAF aircraft using the Red Roo conversion, and I am sure I will end up using details from this build to improve mine

I was dry fitting the fuselage together and noticed that something is missing from the wheelwells. The engines are in front of the wheel well and the radiators are behind the wheel well. A steel pipe is located in the wheel well that connects the engines to the radiators. The pipe is a prominent detail and is missing from this kit.

This is a page from the "P-38 bible". It shows a blue coolent pipe located in the wheel well. Also note that the wheel wells are painted chromate yello primer for anti-corrosion. Just something else to think about.

Johnny, keep in mind that some of these photos are from refirbs and not always actual wartime aircraft. Some times updated parts will come in different colors or what not and may not accurately reflect what was on the bird you're building. Just an FYI. 

Bvallot,

You are correct. Paint colors can vary. I am going to finish this model in Bare Metal Foil. The yellow wheel wells and blue pipe will be a nice contrast to the silver finish.

Based on the few photos that I could find, I drilled three holes in the nose of the cowling to represent round ducts.

Next I glued some mesh ribbon to the inside of the cowling. I think the final result is a reasonable representation of the real thing.

A couple of days ago I glued up the two bombs. I wanted the painted finish to look rough in texture, so I used rattle cans. The nice things about rattle cans is that if you slightly push on the nozzel, the paint will sputter. I held the can about three feet from the bombs. The sputtering paint provided a rough texture to the bomb. First  sputtered flat black, then I sputtered olive drab. Lastly, a sputtering of silver from five feet away.

Next I used a new set of acrylic washes that I just purchased. These washes can be reactivared with water after they have dried and they are supposed to dry dead flat. They are the consistancy of ketchup so they should last a long time. I have never used these, so let's see what happens. First I tried something similar to a pin wash. I didn't like the results so I removed the wash with water and a rag.

Next, I barely touched the tip of the brush to the wash and dabbed it on the bomb. Using a damp brush I smeared the wash around. I liked the results. The two bombs look nice and dirty.

I'm enjoying this thread a lot!

I'm very anxious to see some pictures illustrating your progress with the bare metal foil. I have some BMF but am just too chicken to try it yet. It'll be broken out when I get to my Tamiya 1/48 P-47M. I hope to learn something about the process by following your WIP.

I'm glad that you are enjoying this thread.

The cockpit has been assembled and painted. I plan on assembling the fuselage today and filling and sanding the seams this weekend. If things go good, I'll start foiling Monday.

JohnnyK

 

 

Before I go on, I need to mention that this document is the real bible for anyone building a model of a P-38. It describes the differences between the different versiions of the plane, the correct colors of the cockpit and wheel wells. It talks about the cooling systems, the guns, just about everything. You can find it on-line here: https://www.scribd.com/document/220399447/Walk-Around-P-38-Lightning-No-30

 

 

 

I love the walk around series.  I always felt they were directed specifically at model builders.  Either the authors/editors were modelers themselves, or else did a good survey of what modelers were looking for in reference materials.

Don,

The Walk Around series offer an amazing amount of detailed information. Lots of detailed photos and documentation. It would take hours of time looking at the internet to duplicate the information in the Walk Around.

The wheel wells were painted Testors' chromate yellow which were given a light wash of black and rust. The two copper wires were painted blue and glued in place with epoxy. 

Weights need to be added to the nose to prevent the plane from sitting on its tail. I added a plastic bag filled with fishing sinkers on the bottom of the fuselage and solid weights to the top of the fuselage. I always write the word "weights" inside of the model so I don't forget to add weights. The cockpit was painted with Tamya cockpit green and Testors' flat black with silver highlights. The seatbelts are from Eduard.

Lots of clamps were used to hold the two parts of the fuselage together while the glue dried.

I took the clamps off and the airframe is straight as can be Everything looks to be in proper alaignment.

Nice tight seams. The two halves of the airframe slid a little out of alaignment at the right boom and to the left  of the cockpit.  Additional alaignment pins would have prevented this. A little putty and sanding will fix this. Overall, the two sides of the airframe went together really well.

I should have spent more time reading . Early P-38's had their cockpits painted Interior Green. Later versions had their cockpits painted Chromate Yellow Primer. The photos below are of a "J" versiion.

My model is a P-38LO and I painted its cockpit green. Oooops! It should have been painted yellow. Better luck next time.  

The "P-38 Walk Around" document also mentioned that factory specifications required that the interior of the airframe was painted CYP, including the interior of the wheel wells. Well, I got that one correct. Most restored P-38's have the wheel wells painted aluminum or silver. 

The filling and sanding of the seam between th two fuselage parts went pretty fast. The anti-glare panel was painted flat black. Eventually I'll do some weathering to it. I like the look of the PE seatbelts. Next up is adding the Bare Metal Foil.

Now comes the tedious part of this build, applying Bare Metal Foil. The foil needs to be applied to each panel separately. The result will be a relistic looking panel joint that does not need to be highlighted. A detailed look at how I apply foli can be found here:  http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/13/t/179536.aspx

Before applying tha foil I taped over the cockpit and the painted nose so that they would not be damaged during the foiling process. I also painted the wingtips because it is difficult wrapping foil around curved surfaces. I may foil those anyway.

The foiling process started at the tail. After the foil was applied, it was given a single stroke with steel wool. Rivets were aded to complete the task. I have a feeling that it is going to take a long time to foil this model. There are numerous, small, odd shaped panels on the fuselage, especially around the main wings and engine nacelles. 

Very cool. Looking forward to seeing how your foil turns out. I’ve often wanted to try it myself but never knew if they’re were varying qualities of it....which ones might work better depending on your subject. 

There are a number of companies that make adhesive backed metal foil. The only one that really works for foiling airplanes is Bare Metal Foil. The other brands are just too thick and have too much of a shine. Some modelers make thair own foil by applying "foil adhesive" onto aluminum foil. I have never had much luck doing that. The most economical way to purchase Bare Metal Foil is to buy it directly from the company. 

I'm not sure of the correct colour of the cockpit but what you've got looks pretty  fine to me! 

And nice to see how well everything lined up. Good luck with the foil, I think it's probably the best looking NM finish but I always chicken out and just use Alclad II... 

Gamera

I'm not sure of the correct colour of the cockpit but what you've got looks pretty  fine to me! 

And nice to see how well everything lined up. Good luck with the foil, I think it's probably the best looking NM finish but I always chicken out and just use Alclad II... 

 

I've always been happy with how Alclad looks on my stuff. I've had problems before but it's always the undercoat, not the Alclad itself- the undercoat has to be perfect or any blemishes stick out like a sore thumb.

On the other hand nothing looks more like metal than real metal, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the foil works for you. 

I started adding foil to the booms. Not too difficult and not too exciting. In fact, kind of boring. Adding foil to the wings should be more fun.

Cool, seems to me the fuse and booms would be the hardest part to foil considering the complex curves as opposed to the flat surface of the wings and tail planes. 

I think that the nacelles are going to be the most difficult parts to foil, especially around the wings. I guess that we shall see.

Looking good so far

Okay, I'm finally making some progress. The foil on the top of one wing is finished.

After I applied the foil I used a round toothpick to enhance each rivet and the seams at the panel lines. One of the things that I like about foil is that the molded-in details remain crisp. Sometimes paint softenes the edges of the details.

I used my rivet tool to add additional rivets.

Oh wow, that looks fantastic!!!

Thats coming along nicely Johnny. =] 

Very encouraging!

Thanks for following my build. It is unfortunate that this build is taking so long to complete. Applying foil is a long process.