80 Years of the Mighty 8th GB

I took advantage of my last couple of days of vacation and a couple of subsequent sick days and put in some quality bench time.

I've been able to make some solid progress on my Lightning. I got the booms squared away. As I mentioned in a previous post, the inserts for the various variants didn't fit very well. I was able to get them to a point that I was happy with. 

After some shaping, filling, sanding and rescribing, here are the finished products:

I was also able to get the central "pod" assembled. The instructions have the booms assembled to the upper wing before adding the cockpit/lower pod assembly. During dry fit, that didn't make sense to me. Seems to me that's where other builders' alignment problems came from. So I assembled the central section first, then will assemble the booms and lower wing sections later. Anyway, I was able to get a very good fit and good alignment, however, it seems that as the glue was setting, the parts shifted a bit which resulted in a step along the forward fuselasge sides. I'll have to deal with that.

You'll notice that I also got the nose cone installed. Like other parts in this kit, it doesn't fit well. It's too big. I ended up with a step at the bottom, but you can see I was able to wrestle that into submission. Nothing some more shaping, filling, sanding and rescribing couldn't handle. 

Oh, and of course, I couldn't resist posing the main assemblies together for something that resembles a Lightning...

Anyway...more later. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-O

Will do Andy.

Great work so far everyone!

Bish, I'd like to add Hasegawa's 1/32 P-47D bubbletop to the list. This one jumped ahead of the B-17. I'm not sure yet about the markings but I'm going to have my first go at skinning it in bare metal (aluminum foil in this case) so we will see how that goes

Nice work on those PJ. Those fine drill bits come in very handy, i get mine off e-bay in packs of 10 which is useful.

cbaltrin

 

 

plasticjunkie

Made some progress last night drilling out the guns

 

 

Holy Smokes PJ. You must have nerves of steel. How did you get those holes dead center? Nice work.

 

Thanks cb. I used my pin vise with a sharp pin to punch a pilot hole on the center then use my mini carbide  bits from Habor Freight that work great. I can get some tiny holes drilled out with them but they will break very easily.

plasticjunkie

Made some progress last night drilling out the guns

Holy Smokes PJ. You must have nerves of steel. How did you get those holes dead center? Nice work.

Looking good O. 

Made some progress last night drilling out the guns

And the exhaust pipes, before

And after

Nice looking pit O, and you got those intakes well sorted.

Looking good, Ortiz!

Gary

Didn't get much done today, but any progress, not matter how small, is still progress...

Today I focused on the booms. I've read that this kit isn't Hasegawa's best fitting boxing, and I saw that first hand today. I'm guessing, as Hase is prone to do, it uses a modular base kit with the bits and pieces to make the variants included in each particular box. Well, I saw today that the coolers on the booms and the intakes under the nacelles had parts that were undersized. 

Here you can see that gaps in the cooler doors...

And the lip on the cooler intake...

It wasn't difficult but after some filling, sanding, shaping, and rescribing...

I was able to get things looking decent...

Next I'll assemble the booms, attack the intakes, and get everything cleaned up. 

Thanks for lookin'! Of course comments, questions, and criticisms are always welcome.

Cheers!

-O

GAF

 I thought about buying an aftermarket tail with fillet too for the early model, but decided to wait for the late version.

I waited a bit but got  anxious and got the resin tail anyway. The fillets started I believe on 10NA frames and the others got field mods. The IPs changed slightly I believe on 20NA frames. I read about some gap issues on the belly area so we will see once the build progresses. I'm kind of stuck till I can paint in the garage again. We are still putting away Christmas things so hopefully I will reclaim my painting area soon so I can get colors on the pit .

PJ,

I'll follow along with your build as mine is pretty much the same.  I thought about buying an aftermarket tail with fillet too for the early model, but decided to wait for the late version.

As promised, here's some shots of the sprues and decals for the P-51D-15.

This comprises most of the pit.

Fuselage and wings.

This is wing tanks, bombs and rockets.  Three canopies, probably of different types.

And Barracudal decals.  The reason I bought the 1/32 scale P-51D.

Next up is to give the sprues a bath.

Gary

It's officially the first, I'm sitting at home with a cold (No, it's NOT Covid!) so figured today would be a good day to start my contribution to this mighty GB. I'm in with a Hasegawa (sorry, NOT Tamiya) P-38F that will also be a crossover for the Lockheed Martin GB.

I have some resin wheels, an aftermarket decal sheet, and am considering using some turned barrels, but otherwise this will be OOB.

This kit has some pretty nicely molded detail in the cockpit. The only thing I added was some belts made of paper. 

My builds are usually built with the cockpit's closed up, so I don't spend a lot of time detailing the office. (That and I'm not that good at cockpit painting and/or detailing.)

I like to build more than one kit at a time, so this one will share bench-space with a AMT's 1/48 F7F-3 Tigercat for the Animalistic GB. Stay tuned!

Good luck with your builds everyone. I'm looking forward to finishing more than 3 in 2022!

-O

Someones off to a quick start. Looking forward to more.

I hope you all had a safe New Year celebration. Wishing all a safe and prosperous 2022.

I bought this Revell 1/32 Mustang when it first came out a while back. I was hoping to find colorful markings for a NMF non filleted tail scheme but was unable to find one I liked. There is a huge selection for the filleted Mustangs so I opted to get a resin filleted tail from a company in the UK called  Aircraft Models. 

I superglued the resin parts to the fuselage sides late last night before going to bed.

The resin parts are on solid and have good fit on the fuselage sides.

Preliminary dry fitting this morning revealed a small gap on the fillet spine. Once the sides go together, I will use thick CA and baking soda as a filler on the resin allowing sanding the area to a thin sharp edge along the spine.

4 minutes into the new year here in Central Florida and the resin am tail is on and ready for super glue

Well, still 3:15 to go here is California and I'm looking at the B-24 instructions, but I have this stupid (imagine Calvin and Hobbes here)Italeri B-26K still to finish before I start the B-24.  At least it's almost ready for paint.  I can't even remember what GB I entered it in, but I know there was one somewhere.

GAF

With this I can finally build the "Alabama Rammer Jammer" flown by Lt. Arthur C. Cundy.

Nice markings choice!

GAF

Happy New Year!  My entry arrived a couple of days ago.

With this I can finally build the "Alabama Rammer Jammer" flown by Lt. Arthur C. Cundy.

Pictures of sprues and decals later.

Gary

 

NOW THAT I'M EXCITED TO SEE!

Happy New Year!  My entry arrived a couple of days ago.

With this I can finally build the "Alabama Rammer Jammer" flown by Lt. Arthur C. Cundy.

Pictures of sprues and decals later.

Gary

Happy new year Bish. We got less than 4 hours to go here across the pond.

Well then happy new year Bish 

Happy new year & happy modeling!

Bish

As its now Jan 1st 2022 here in Blighty, i declare the GB open.

 

As its now Jan 1st 2022 here in Blighty, i declare the GB open.

F-82 corrected, cheers guys.

The Monogram kit builds up pretty nice.  Hobbycraft copied that kit and it isn't as good as the Monogram plastic.  I built the Monogram kit a while back. 

I have two of the Modelcraft kits, maybe someday I will be silly enough to try one.  Right after a Model USA O-1!

Here's mine.  Black can hide a lot of sins, but it doesn't have too many.  I did use vac canopies, the ones in the kit are a little thick.

jeaton01

Martin, Frank's F-82 entry is the 1/72 Monogram kit, not 1/48.  I wish Monogram had done it in 1/48, instead of Modelcraft, although there is a new 1/48 kit soon to be here that sounds pretty nice, but pricey as all the new kits seem to be.

 

Thanks, Jeaton. Yep, the ancient Monogram 1/72 scale F-82 kit is my entry. It will be the third F-82 I've built since I returned to the hobby. I thought about the new Modelsvit F-82 kit but the kit retails around $90+ and I can't justify that expense. I have too many kits in the stash that need to be built anyway.

Martin, Frank's F-82 entry is the 1/72 Monogram kit, not 1/48.  I wish Monogram had done it in 1/48, instead of Modelcraft, although there is a new 1/48 kit soon to be here that sounds pretty nice, but pricey as all the new kits seem to be.

Yea, I did not think this would be a very popular subject.. 

TheMongoose

Wow has the list grown. We're going to see some serious building going on here!

 

Wow has the list grown. We're going to see some serious building going on here!