Secret Santa- WWII Aviation GB

Thanks for the comments guy's, I have had a few problems with the C-47 but most of them were my fault and I must admit that the overall fit and engineering of this one is pretty good. That's why I was shocked with the wing to fuselage joint being so way off. The largest gap I have ever seen. Heck, that was probably my fault too.

For nose weights I use a spent .45 cal round for 1/48 with a little CA.

Steve

Thanks for all the advice on the weights gentlemen.

Well, I started to mask off the red that I had already sprayed and I gotta tell you, the paint just isn't sticking very well to the plastic, soooo..... I pulled the plug and just gave the thing a good coat of primer.  Hopefully that will give it enough tooth for the silver, red and olive drab to stick. 

The fit of the canopy, nose and gun covers leaves a lot to be desired.  I highly recommend to anyone building this kit to go with an aftermarket canopy set.  I chose to slog onwards so I can get this thing done.  It would be a miracle if I could ever get a GB done on time. 

Here is a quick shot of the underside right after I sprayed the BMF underside. 

Almost finished.  The OD has been painted on the upper cowling and inside upper surfaces of the engine nacelles.  Tomorrow I touch up the red and get the decals on! 

Great progress espins1 and sidure! Looking forward to see your planes done.

Managed to make some progress despite my other businesses. Clear coated the bird and applied the decals. Following steps will be final weathering, dull coating and adding chipped paint ("adding chipped paint" sure sounds strange: how can you add something that has been removed!).

Now the pics:

Looking good Avus!  Now that's not a plane you see everyday! 

I'm just about ready to put the decals on.  Everything has been painted, just need to do a little touch up on the landing gear and install the prop assemblies. 

As you can see, I finally got the weights installed.  I used two each of the biggest cone shaped weights in my weight stash, and secured them with CA glue.  My wife spent about 4 hours in my den with me while I was working on my kits Saturday.  She totally organized my den and modelling areas, found all kinds of stuff that I'd been looking for (including the weights), and put all my aftermarket parts together in a shoe box.  She even organized all my reference material, magazines etc. and got them all on my book shelves.  It looks great!  I have so much more room, and far less clutter.  I'm a lucky guy!  She's the best! 

Here are two quick shots right after I pealed all the masking off. 

Great progress Scott and Avus. Those builds are really looking great and looks like they will be finished up soon. Cant wait to see the completed models. Great job guy's.

Steve

Thanks everyone! Hope to be able to make some more progress next weekend.

Indeed it's not a common aircraft, none the less it's a nice one. Some refer to it as the ancestor of the A-10.

The build and painting stage of the P-38J is finished.  Next up, decals! 

Stick a fork in me, I'm done!!! 

Here are the final photos of my 1/48 Revell P-38J (vintage 1964 ) right before I put it into the display case.  There are some major fit issues with the kit, but if you're patient and have seam filling skills you'll be good to go.  There is no way on God's green earth though that you can get all the canopy parts to fit properly, they're just not shaped correctly for that to happen. 

Thank you Jon for hosting this build, it was a lot of fun! 

Way to go Scott. She is a beauty that you should be proud of. I know of the diffucelties of this kit and you overcame and turned out a great model. You did it justice. Great work.

Steve

Way to go Espins1.  She looks great.  Hope my 1/32 scale looks just a good as yours. 

Very nice work Scott!
All the trouble you encoutered during the assembly can no longer be seen.

I made some progress but no pictures !
All I need are the final assemblies: rear gear, bombs and some other details.

Will post pics in the next days.

Thanks Avus.  I got a little lazy towards the end and didn't feel like dealing with the gaps on around the gun bay doors.

You know, it's funny.  Looking at my display case from the couch in the family room.... from that distance the P-38J is the most stunning thing in my case!     I'm sure that's due to the BMF and the contrast as most of the other aircraft have dark camo schemes.  It really stands out and looks great! 

The invasion stripes are finally on now. The wings were simple and the fuselage was a bear to deal with. I ended up eyeballing some of it to get them to look uniformed. I still have some touch up to do on the fuselage to straighten them up but overall I am pleased with the result. Next up is decals and weathering. Any advise on weathering would be appreciated. I bought some yellow decal sheet for the aircraft numbers as the kit decals were for after D-Day and they are grey. I will probably paint the controle surfaces a lighter shade to show fading.

Thanks for looking and any comments welcome

Steve

Nice work Steve!

As for weathering I'd go for the standard paneling, smoke on the exhausts and paint chipping. Latter concentrated onthe cargo door frame where the jump ropes scrubbed the paint away.

I made no progress on my "Panzerknacker" since I was busy with a 1:1 scale livingroom!

Looks nice Steve.

Avus, the nice thing about those 1:1 projects is the scrath built detail are easier to handle

wing_nut wrote:

Avus, the nice thing about those 1:1 projects is the scrath built detail are easier to handle

... actually I did use my Dremel to fix some detail
... just like with one of my models
... one could say I was "big-scale-modelling"!

Hey Guy's, I am still plugging away on my build and I think the end is nearly in sight. I have gloss coated and decaled it and might get some stains and weathering tonight. So now for the difficulties, while putting the front window in I pushed too hard and it went in too far. All my fault. Second was the decals. To my horror, they all shattered to hundreds of pieces so I spent hours pushing pieces around with a toothpick. The yellow decals I had to make myself to properly represent a D-Day mission bird so that was fun.

Here is the mess I made of the windshield.

Another dissapointment was that the decals over the invasion stripes are translusent. Thanks for looking and all comments welcome.

Steve

Thanks Scott, I can see the light at the end of the tunnell now. I put some of the detail fiddly bits and landing gear on this weekend and a little wash to the panels, but there was not many to do. Should be finished up this week and will post final photos.

Steve

Great progress Steve; now let's see some 101 jumping out! 

Me, no progress ... me, moving to new apartment!