P-38 GB

I am more armor than air but I would like to play along.

DML 1/72 scale P 38 droop snoot bomber 

Finally some progress worth posting. I have the basic colors layed down but I still have a long way to go to achive thwe finish I desire. Sill it feels great to have reached the stage where you can actually see some progress. i stil have alot of post shading to do and of corse all of the fiddly bits need to be glued on but i can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

                                                                        Soulcrusher

Soulcrusher, that looks specTACULAR! The flat black is really sharp next to the NMF.

I missed it when you first started, but what manufacturer's kit are you using? 

Thanks Harv I really appreciate the compliment. I think I will try to fade out the top side of the black panels with some Model Masters dullcoat straight out of the bottle. I have noticed it tends to lighten any color you overspray it with. Then i will try to add some paint chipping as these panel should have seen some abuse being removed constanly for matinence. I used Tamiya Nato black which already has that nice faded look to it. All of the black panels definetly make the NMF much easier to pull off. I still have alot of work to do with shading panels and weathering but I finnally feel like I am getting somewhere with this kit after 6 months. Give here a try there Harv. I am no expert at NMF but this is no beauty queen and it is not important to achive that shiny NMF found on show planes. The Tamiya XF16  is a great representation of weathered NMF plane. A couple of panel washes and some stains and I think she will look great.

Thanks Dupes also for the positive input. The kit I am building is the Trumpeter 1/32 L model. She is not for the faint of heart but if you do not mind spending a good six months on an OOB build she does look impresive when you finally get some paint on it and it is starting to come together. Hope to have some time to apply some washes tonight.

                                                                                 Soulcrusher

Soulcrusher, that is a fine looking project! And it looks like a beast of a kit. How much weight did you have to put in the nose, a pound?

I've wondered how the Tamiya XF-16 would look for a NMF plane and now I know. Being a Trumpter kit I'll bet the control surfaces use that captured hinge/wire/PITA set up? I noticed that your ailerons are deflected in the same direction but if they move that could explain it. 

Keep up the great work.

Thanks hkshooter. Beast is a good word to describe her. I am very happy with the Tamiya flat aluminum. With some washes and more tweeking she should look great. I read all of the reviews about the crappy pin and hinge system and I trash then straight away. Right now the cotrol surfaces ae just stuck in place. I want to reference some more pics of parked P-38's before I glue them in place. I did not weigh the final total of lead in the nose but it is jammed in almost every open space not taken up by the guns and it still barely sits on its nosa wheel. It also has the extra weight of brass gun barrels to help oot. The kit barrells were pretty lame and needed to be replaced. I hope to add the decals tommorow then I can start with several different washes and see what effects I can pull off.

                                                                                    Soulcrusher

The gun barrels are homemade. I just cut of the plastic barrells and glue brass rod onto the base of the machine gun. One of the rules for this group build was no aftermarket parts or decals to try and keep it simple and a short group build. It does not look like it worked though. Even though my P-38 is 99.9% OOB it has still taken six months to reach this point so far. As far as the overall fit the kit has two bad areas. the tail assembly fits great but the wing to boom fit is off and not the same shape on top. The cooler housings sit out to prominetly on the booms. I tried to thin them as far as I could but they still do not fit flush agianst the booms. The inside under wing to boom joint is the worst. Fortunatly it can only be seen if the model is viewed from underneath so i did not spent to much time tryiing to fix it. Still in all just the size of the kit makes it pretty cool I think.

                                                                                         Soulcrusher

Dostacos,

     We would be happy to have you play along with us. As you can see, this is not the fastest thread on the forum. So pick up your 38 and jump right in.

Soulcrusher,

    Your 38 looks great!! I must say it makes the green headed man pop up knowing you've gotten this far. Did you have to do any rescribing?

NucMedTech do not get to jelious she is still a long way from done. I still have to pull off a realistic fading of the black panels and seal the decals without losing the color of the aluminum. Then of course all off the litlle fiddly bits when that is done. I do have to admite seeing it this close to being done really does inspire me to finish it. She is so darn big! I did not go crazy rescribing all of the panel lines lost during the reshaping of the upper engine covers. These panels are all painted black so the panel lines would barely be visible anyway. I will probally try to represent these lines with some paint chipping giving the illusion of a panel line. Only time wil tell if this effect looks good.

                                                                                   Soulcrusher

Well I am very unhappy with my weathered NMF on my bird so I have decided to put it on the back burned and work on my model 14. I overdid the weathering and she now looks like she has been through world war one two and three. I tried to tone it down by overspraying with some straight aluminum but some areas already have decals on them. Oh well you live and you learn.

                                                                                       Soulcrusher

Sorry to hear of your troubles Soulcrusher, I've put mine on the back burner too. I was getting burned out on this one project so I'm currently working on something else. Hopefully I'll be ready to pick it back up soon. I do hope you will get yours fixed, it was looking so good!

-Stephen

I know what you mean there NucMedTech. it just seems like no matter how much work you do on this kit you never seem any closer to finishing it. It like it is sucking the life out you. I have to say out of the hundreds of kits i have built over the past thirty years this is one that I have received no enjoyment building any part of it. I will finish it because it is in my nature but it is nowhere near the kit i had hope it would be when i was done with it. I will have to find a way to make the best of it and move on.

                                                                                  Soulcrusher

Well I'm done finally! I can honestly say in all of the models that I have build I enjoyed this one the least out of all of them. I am not saying it is a horrible kit but it sheer size high part count and horrible boom to wing fit "X2 remember" really bring down the enjoyment level. It looks ok in the photos but to me I beleive it is a step backwards in the build quality I have set for myself. We here she is. You are going to have to cut me some slack on tihs one but I promise the next one will be better!

                                                                                  Soulcrusher

                                                                              Soulcrusher

Thanks NucMedTech. I guess just finishing this beast is an acompishment. Not my proudest moment but then agian how many poeple out there have finished one of these bad boys, show winner or not? I guess that means something. Keep on truckin, there NucMed Tech!

                                                                                    Soulcrusher

SC: I know how you feel, my friend. Regardless of how nice it looks in the pics...and it does look phenominal...I know what you mean about the enjoyment level. Building the same kit, it tends to draw out over a long time and really diminishes what should be a fun build. Having said that, I can already tell that yours is much nice than whatever I run out with mine. My hat is off to you, sir.

Thanks for the kind words ther mucker. It is so true. There are alot of things that I just let go because of the sheer number of hours this model was eating up. In the end somethings i left as good enough when I knew in my heart I could do better. My heart just was not ini it anymore as it had sucked the life out of me. I consider it a victory just having finished it. My respect to anyone else who manages to finish this one also. Hope to see some post from you soon. I bet it is better than you think.

                                                                                       Soulcrusher

Hey guys!  I have been just lurking around looking at your progress eversince I joined the build.  Right now I think that I would welcome a sucking the life out of me though.  I hope to finish my "unofficial" Nite Lightning entry and post a pic or two before I get started on the official one.

Quick question for you guys.  So I took the darn thing to work so I could fiddle with it during lunch.  I was running late so it got left in the truck and things got busy so it stayed there until quittin' time.  The gun barrels bent in the heat, so I got the QuickBoost set to put in there but I have to get the old ones out.  My first though is to nip them off and use a drill bit to clean out the hole.  Then I figure to use some styrene tube to slip the new barrel in and glue it in.  Any thoughts on this?

Hey Soulcrusher, I know what you are saying about the difference between the pics and what you see in person as the builder.  I do have to say though that you did a fantastic job with what seems to be a bit of a beast of a kit.

Wow, soulcrusher, that is a sweet looking bird. I wouldn't get to down on myself for that. If I had half that talent I woudl be ecstatic. Sorry I haven't been around much. I'm finishing up school and just havent been doing much modeling. I also have a move coming up-Florida to Maryland- so Im not going to be starting anything new until we move sometime during June. After that, I'll hope to finish my Lightning in time for the GB. But seriously, that is a REALLY nice model soulcrusher.

David

Thanks David. She fought me all the way but I would not let her win. Although the overall finish would never win any awards the sheer size of this beast when done does look pretty cool. I just do'nt get real close to it when I look at it so i do not see all of the imperfections! Now round two finishing my Classic Airframes Model 14!

                                                                              Soulcrusher

O.K.  The warm-up is finally done.  Since it is a P-38 that was completed during, if not started, during the P-38 GB, I will at least let you see what has held me up for so long.  It is no masterpiece.  It is in my son's room (he's 2) and my daughter (6) was the creative consultant.

Now, on to Glacier Girl!

Look here.  1/32 P-38M conversion

It is a review of a conversion for the Trumpeter kit and has some suggestions for markings that are worth considering. 

Harv,

It looks like some kind of custom work may be required for 1/32 decals.  I looked for some kind of generic sheet for the buzz #'s but havn't really found anything useful yet.  I did come across some useful reference material though.

Reference page

Academy P-38M

Right nose

Also, search on 418th, 419th, and 421st NFS.  All three squadrons used the P-38.  Many references don't actually list the M as operational with these sqn's; however, I know that the 421st did fly the P-38M.

I finally got started on my Academy P-38F.  The camera is on the fritz, so I don't have any pics to share right now.

The cockpit went together pretty well, no real issues there.  The booms were pretty toruble free as well aside from a little warping at the front of both.  I did goof a little and had to sand out a step along the main seam.  The biggest problem was the carburetor intakes.  This is a separate piece like the Has kit to facilitate early and late models.  The intake piece was a little wider than the front of the boom and I had to decide on the lesser of two evils and do a little filling and sanding to get the joint smooth on the inboard side.

All in all, a good kit so far.

Building will have to be suspended for the next few weeks thanks to annual training.  It kind of blows but Wisconsin beats FT Stewart any day.