KevinCG

G'day Peter, Your work is superb. Congratulations With respect to your your seat belts I feel a word of caution maybe required as I have noted that there can be problems over the longer term using lead where it comes into contact with some other metals due to presumably differences in galavanic index. The lead or other metal simply disintegrates over time, the metal with the lower index (ie more -ve) dissolves or goes to powder. This happened to me many years ago on a 1/24 scale Me 109, where the belts just disintegrated after 10 or so years. I have subsequently eschewed lead. I have seen similar issues with white metal on older models in museums etc. This may not be an issue in your case as I do not know what from what metal you have etched your buckles and clasps but it maybe worth checking. Any difference greater than 0.25mV is likely to cause an issue. According to Wikepedia Lead has an index of -0.70, brass -0.4, Copper 0.35 and nickel -0.3. It gets a bit more complicated when alloys are involved. I hope this doesn't apply but it's worth knowing for the future. Cheers Kevin

G'Day folks, First of all many thanks for the kind comments, they're very much appreciated. Its been a long while since the last posting (a lot of work with travel commitments) but some more progress, albeit rather glacial. This time attaching the fuselage to the wing assembly and finishing the plating on the lower fuselage. Due to the way the fuselage is split by the wings I decided to do the entire canopy as a separate section and attach at a later date - next post hopefully. The fuselage was glued and pinned to the wing cutout as shown in the pic. The dark coloured dots are where pins were inserted and glued into the wing rib for added support. The fuselage is quite heavy and if picked up or held toward the nose there is considerable leverage on any joint with the wing. Once set the model could be inverted and the underside covered with lithoplate. This again took some time due to several discards and also corroborating with photos the correct disposition of skin panels. The next image shows the final result as well as the holes for the identification lights which will be glazed at a later date. At this stage a master pattern and subsequent mould was built for the canopy structure and then a resin copy cast from epoxy polished and used to form the final canopy from clear sheet. A pattern was also made for the cockpit area so that the fuselage and canopy would form a snug fit. These two stages are illustrated in the next two photos. This pic shows the polished resin canopy in the foreground and a second pattern placed on the fuselage to obtain correct fuselage canopy profile and plan view. Why was this not incorporated in the first pattern i hear people ask? Good question and the only answer is that it was not thought through properly - i.e. stupidity. The next photo is of a plan view of the same area. Once the area has been fared into the fuselage the canopy will be able to be cut out and in to sections so that the area aft of the mainspar can be affixed to the wing uppersurface after the radio boxes etc have been built and placed on their racks. Hopefully it will be not so long until the next post when some more fuselage progress including canopy can be shown..

G'day Everyone, I thought it had been awhile since an update but was somewhat surprised to see how long ago. As one can gather it is a slow process, work, looking after the property,the garden and of course its summer with heaps of produce to harvest etc. First of all many thanks for the kind comments it is much appreciated. If I recall correctly I had attached the rear empennage and drilled out the holes for the zillions of tiny rivets. It took a while to get back to that for a whole heap of reasons mostly indecision. With such a complex model it has taken a lot of thought as to when to attach the various elements to the model in order that they do not get damaged with subsequent work or alternatively have been left too late and thus are a pain in A*** to attach. In the meantime I tackled the exterior of the fuselage and covered the areas, that can be plated before it is attached the wings. As with the rest of the panelling on this model a great deal of time was spent researching the actual panel placement and shape. I started at the nose and fairings for the armament a painful and very slow process requiring multiple annealing and also destroying several pieces in the process. The pic below shows the first part of the the process At this stage the nose undercarriage was affixed at this stage and tucked into the well, so that I could plate over the access and location holes. I had left this area unfinished until now as there were two pieces of rod that needed to be threaded across the fuselage as on the original The next pic shows the area in question before sealing off. After the area was sealed and smoothed to the fuselage contour the rest of the fuselage could be plated and detailed At this point there was no delaying the simulated screws on the nacelles any longer. Actually it was not as bad as thought and only took about eight hours. Drilling the holes was the worst and I managed to go through a number of 0.45 mm bits. The heads of the rivets were 0.6mm which in 1/24 scale equates to a full size bolt of slightly larger than 14mm which was very close to what I had measured on the actual aircraft. The next pic is of half way through the process. Lastly I made the wing landing light lens, cover plate and transparency so i could prime the leading edge as per the original. The lamp reflector is bit of highly polished litho, with a bulb of turned perspex and the glass from vacformed PEG. Sorry about Cr***y pic but I do not have a macro. After the leading edges are primed I can attach the fuselage to the wing section. Thankyou again to those who commented and hopefully it will not be so long before next post.

Thanks very much Peter, your efforts aren't too shabby either Time for another update. The previous post showed the plan behind re-attaching the fins and tailplane in order to obtain a strong joint. I am happy to report it worked. One of the advantages of using metal is that it is possible to get good fits and handling does not erode initial slots and gaps as can happen with plastic. The tailplane was first attached as per the post above and then after many checks that they were vertical the fins were permanently fixed in place the slots filled in with epoxy putty and the last panel which had been pre-cut affixed into place. The next task was to fit the fairings around the fins. This was another task to which I was not particularly enthused. I had made spare vacformed fuselages so cut pieces off the end and used these to fit around the fin and tailplane as per white inserts in the picture below. These were done in two parts, upper and lower. Once glued in place they were faired in with epoxy putty and primer taking care to mask off the previously applied lithoplate. For this task i got out my trusty lazy susan. This was a product I bought from an Aldi special buy some years ago. I think it cost about $12. it is glass so I then made a silicon rubber 'plate' that sits on top which stops models from sliding about and also protects their finish. It greatly aids modelling when painting and also where one has to continually move the model about to obtain different orientations in order to get the best access. The next step was to make the lithoplate fairing that covers these. Fortunately on the real aircraft they are in four pieces. these were shaped over the plastic using annealed lithoplate. The initial shape was derived from sticking masking tape onto the model and then drawing on masking tape around the existing outline of the lithoplate already attached to the model. Although a complex shape the method of using tape to provide the initial two dimensional cut on lithoplate worked well. Nonetheless each piece took about 1hr on average to fit accurately. The beauty of it was that as the piece fitted snugly it was relatively easy to ensure it fitted correctly in place when it came to gluing. lucky as one mistake meant starting all over again. I only had to do this once fortunately. Once in place they looked like rather smart if I may so myself. The slightly larger gap between this fairing element and the other one on the boom is intentional as this was also the case on the original due to changes made to empennage incidence after the first set of jigs were made. This was to help avoid issues relating to compressibility and pulling out of high speed dives. On the same note the mass balances were also made using Aluminium rod. The mass weights were turned up on a lathe The support strut was also filed out of rod and the pieces assembled as per below. For strength a 0.7mm hole was drilled into both the mass weight and end of the strut into which brass rod was inserted ensuring that the weight and strut remain united. These will be attached once the model is almost finished. I don't want to push my luck too much with the attachment rods! The next step will be inserting approximately 2-300 rivets around the empennage/boom join as per the actual aircraft and then joy oh joy I can move onto the fuselage pod. Thank you for looking. Cheers kevin

Thanks very much to all those who posted it is much appreciated. This post as promised will cover the rear empennage. As those who have followed this post will know both fins broke off the model due to my clumsiness and the fact that they have a thin and hence frail attachment to the booms. The boom at attachment is less than 10mm deep and the fins and tailplane are both only 4mm thick at their thickest point. Consequently when I dropped the model at one stage they both broke off. The result being inevitable especially considering the weight of lead inside the nacelles to prevent it being a tail sitter. This necessitated constructing new fins and tailplane that would withstand my hamfistedness when at the desk ie accidental knocks etc. To do this I constructed the tailplane in two halves split horizontally and with brass tube inserted to provide horizontal strength but also into which a vertical piece could be inserted so that the fins would be both vertical and also rigid enough to with stand the odd knock. The top and bottom halves of the tailplane were affixed together using double sided sellotape and sanded to the correct aerofoil shape. A span wise channel was cut into which the brass tube was inserted to provide rigidity and also an attachment for the square tube shown in the following pic. This tube will act as the key attachment point for both the booms and also the fins Hopefully the pic that shows the tailplane and the brass square tube into which the vertical piece will be inserted and also how this same tube serves as the attachment into the booms. The next pic hopefully conveys what I mean. It shows a similar slot for a vertical tube in the fins. The tricky bit is that all this has to be built so that it can be attached to the model after I have plated the fins and tailplane and added rivet fastener detail etc. It being very difficult to do this on the aircraft once assembled. I also have to leave the space for the fairings around the fins once it is fixed in place. Further more it also has to fit prefectly so that the empennage is both correct in the horizontal and vertical plane. Note also the annoying lockheed trailing edge which requires a thin piece of metal sheet onto which the skins are attached. On the real aircraft the skins were riveted onto this peice. The fins were made in the same manner as the tailplane being composites of layered styrene shaped to the correct aerofoil. Both the fins and tailplane were covered in lithoplate and to shape the leading edge piece for the fins a blank was made that would be able to withstand some strenuous pressure as it has quite a difficult compound curve. Several 'annealings' were required to get the piece correct. The next pic shows the blank and the fin element. The slot for the fin to fit over the leading part of the tailplane can also be seen. The entire tailplane and fin were plated except the area with the arrow on it which will be attached once the fin and tailplane are in place on the model. This was a somewhat tedious task as each fin has 25 individual panels and took approximately 6 hours to skin. I'm not sorry its finished especially as I had already done this once before!! It is unfortunately true that for scratchbuilders such as myself we only have one completed model to show for our efforts as generally speaking with the number of parts constructed that don't quite live up to expectations we have probably constructed the equivalent of 2-3 models by the time we are finished. The next picture shows the pieces skinned and polished ready for detailing. The pre-cut panels for attaching after assembly to the booms are also illustrated.

Thanks for the positive comments and likes guys. Much appreciated.

G'day again Large scalers, Its been a reasonable interval since my last post. This does not reflect a lack of time at the bench but rather the complex bast that is scratchbuilding. If you ever hear anyone suggest that they should build a large scale P-38 and then skin in it in Al sheet, suggest that they should perhaps have a clinical test for madness! Not only is it complex but 2x so because of the twin booms. Anyway on with the build. This post covers the fairings between the wings and booms and the supercharger intakes. This took many hours to do not only because of the complex shapes but also in scouring hundreds of photos and drawings in order to ascertain the correct layout of the skins.This was particularly difficult for the inner fairings as there were very few pics available and certainly nothing of any accuracy from drawings. As it transpired they were comprised of many pieces of which the tiny trailing edge fairing at the boom/wing joint was th emost difficult. For each of these 4 pieces I probably made 5-6 to get the correct one, and this despite multiple annealing to shape the piece. The following pic shows this The gap that is not skinned will be completed once the u/c is fitted. This has been omitted at this stage for ease of handling. There is still the panel beneath the engine to add- the area under the green padded tape. Again this has been omitted until after the u/c has been added, to prevent damage. Once these fairings were completed it was on to the supercharger intakes. To make these a plastic pattern was made from formers and epoxy putty. Once shaped this pattern was used to cast a mould. Th efinal pieces were then vast in epoxy resin. The rationale here was that an epoxy component would be stronger than plastic when it came to forming the metal skin. The picture shows the component and the skin shell that was shaped over the epoxy piece. Th epic below shows the reverse side. The dark colour of the al is from the annealing process The actual intakes were comprised of 4 skin elements; upper, lower, front rim and inside fairing. The rim was turned from Al tube. To make the elliptical fairings that sit between the intake and booms another pattern had to be made. This was then glued to the original fuselage master and Al sheet shaped accordingly. The next pic should illustrate what I am trying to convey. Th efinal result for the two intakes is shown next. I must apologise for the camera work. I only have an iphone so the depth of field etc is not the best. I hope however that the gist of what I'm trying to convey is reasonably clear. If not please ask. My next post will cover the top of the booms and the fitting of suprechargers and the various vents inlets etc. Until then all the best Kevin

G'day Again - Its been awhile and I haven't died just had a lot on, harvest, preserving, firewood collecting and splitting, painting, some consulting work and of course some modelling. The last post back in January saw the booms and wings joined and the skinning covered with protective paper. The next task involved recreating the area on top of the booms and the one area that I had been mulling over for a long time - the superchargers. This area needed to be completed so that the aluminium and stainless steel skin could be finished around the wing boom area. To make the top of the nacelles around the supercharger area a channel was first constructed into which the supercharger and its ducting could be installed. This was constructed from 1mm plastic card and affixed to the upper wing surface The picture also shows the area for the actual supercharger marked out for removal. Once this channel was in place was in place on both booms the external skin could be added. This was cut from the piece that was removed from the original vacform of the booms and shaped to fit. It was trhen glued into place and fared into the upper boom contour using epoxy putty. The forward end of the channel for the exhaust duct and heater is flared so a pattern was created out of 2mm card wrapped in cling wrap and then pushed into some epoxy putty to create the correct shape in plan view. Once set the cling wrap peels easily away from the epoxy putty. (I find this a very useful to create male/female patterns that need to be mated together to form a snug fit.) The next step was to create the supercharger itself. A couple of spare wheels from the spare box served as the basis for the turbine area, however the duct surrounding the blades is helical and not of constant cross-section. This required a bit of filler and offsetting the centre of the turbine using the lathe to create to the space into which the blade structure would be fitted. The blades for the bucket wheel are very fine and for this purpose a number of identical photo-etched pieces were produced for me by Adrian Prassler from Custom Photo Etch in Melbourne. These pieces are shown below together with the cooling cap which sits on top of the bucket wheel. To make the bucket wheel and give it some depth three individual pieces were laminated together taking care to ensure they were completely aligned. These were then inserted into brass rings cut from brass tube, which were inserted into a second close fitting brass ring that sits on top of the actual supercharger. The cooling cap was also a test of patience and was made in two halves from fine brass tube filed in half lengthwise and plastic that were joined together onto a slightly oversize silhouette cut from Lithoplate. This mimicked the actual structure on the real thing. The two halves were then cemented together to produce the piece shown in the picture above. To produce the second piece which is on a horizontal plane and disappears into the side of the channel 2 pieces of lithoplate was formed around wire to make both sides. They were then cut out and joined together. To make the slightly domed cap on top of the bucket wheel on which the cooling cap sits. To make the exhaust duct thick aluminium tube was annealed and then placed between a vice to create an oval cross-section. The tube was then bent to the correct shape and the three steps filed into it to create the impression of a sleeved joint. The forward end was bifurcated to recreate the two exhaust inlets and a slot cut for the intake for the heater intake at the very front. The waste gate was made from aluminium tube and connected to the supercharger after a hole was drilled to fit the valve. The almost finished piece is shown located in-situ below. it only remains to fit the various clamps around the exhaust and waste gate and the valve. The former have been turned from Aluminium tube and again flattened to the sale cross section as the duct itself. I am reasonably pleased with result which is good because it hits you right in the eye when you look at a P-38. Once the skin is applied it should look reasonably smink.

G'day Juraj, In my experience there are two options: Don't worry about it and use the printed side for adhesive - which is what i do or Remove the print with wet and dry paper and steel wool which is time consuming and i don't think necessary. Hope this helps Cheers Kevin

The big day After four years of working on individual components the day has arrived to join the booms to the wings. I am hoping I haven't forgotten anything that would be easier to do or worse still, can only be done, on the components when they are separate as there is no turning back once epoxy resin etc has been applied. Last task to do before mating of parts was to apply some fine surface detail on the boom intakes. For this I used my beading tool taking great care not to push too hard so as not to over distort the panels. With some imagination aforesaid details can just be seen in the photo below of the upper and lower surfaces respectively. The next stage was to screw the wing back to the booms and recheck the alignment before the glue is applied. Fitting showed only minor work was required - mostly removing lithoplate which had overlapped with the area where the wing roots will fit and thus not allowing the wing to sit correctly in its allotted space. All parts were then covered with tape to protect them from damage and any glue spills. Epoxy resin was applied to one boom and then it was affixed in place using the screws which had been fitted earlier to hold it in place- again checking before glue sets that it is still correctly aligned and sitting. Once set the procedure was repeated for the other boom. The model will now be left to sit for the glue to cure before the next phase; which will be building the top surface of the wings, further reinforcing the wing/boom joints (the booms are quite heavy due to the vast quantity of lead required to prevent tail sitting) and building the supercharger trays and units. Once again many thanks for the compliments and likes, and hopefully no "clocks" or other typos this time. Cheers Kevin

Yes although unfortunately I've since learnt that clocks make very poor polishing cloths and may well explain why it takes me so long to finish a project. A case of many hands makes more work perhaps.🤔😊

Doh! Cloth Wing and boom Details As this will be a large model and difficult to handle without knocking bits on it once assembled I am making as many parts as possible prior to assembly. I have already knocked the fins off the booms which required some extensive rebuilding in order to fit them at a later date. Many areas will also be difficult to access once finished due to the aircraft's configuration. Unfortunately this requires a fair bit of self-control as the temptation to push on with assembly of the major components is great. It is always a boost to see an aeroplane rather than a series of bits. However the time is approaching when I can fix the booms to the wing but I want to finish all the details which are attached to these main components before final assembly. The past month I have been painting the wheel wells and making the various doors/gates for the forward booms and the radiators, the supercharger intake; as well as the fuel pump covers and dive brakes for the wing undersurface. The first pic shows the completed main wheel bay finished in neutral grey which is about the best around for wheel well interiors on the L-model. The next pic shows the various details mentioned above, constructed mostly from litho plate although the supercharger intakes are yet to be covered. I made a pattern of one and then cast two copies in resin. The lip was turned from Aluminum tube. The fuel pump covers were formed over a male pattern and then filled with ferropre to give them some rigidity. Parts are numbered for re-assembly at a later date. The next task was to prime the area around the intakes on the boom using an etch primer. This area along with the wing leading edge was finished in silver paint on the actual aircraft. This shows the lower portion of the intakes as primed. Etch priming is essential when painting lithoplate otherwise paint will easily lift. I also find that this primer which is quite thick acts as a filler of small surface imperfections and is an awful lot cheaper than using compounds such as Mr Surfacer. The primer I use is thinned with lacquer thinners and is available from paint suppliers in Australia as NoRust and is made by Norglass Laboratories limited. It is suitable for a range of metal substrates. Thanks for looking and wishing everyone a great 2018 Kevin

Sorry about delay in replying Craig, been a bit preoccupied with other activities over the past month. The hinge for the aileron is 0.04 mm nickel silver tube engraved every 1 mm to represent ~1" hinge segments as per the original. The piece was then rubbed with a clock containing some black paint that darkened my etching to produce the effect as seen. To fit it to the wing I routed a small 0.3 mm half-round section in the plastic wing surface and then set the tube in place before attaching the litho plate skin. I hope this make sense. Cheers Kevin

Thanks Guy for comments (Gazza also). I used the RB productions riveting tool with a very light touch so that the rivets can be seen but only just. I also use a needle held in a pin vice where i want a slightly deeper impression, however this is at times fraught as one does not want to puncture the Aluminum skin. Cheers Kevin

Skinning Continued With the exception of the wing tip the wing could be covered with unannealed sheet which made the task quicker and also meant less sanding to get an acceptable finish. To finish the lithoplate wet sand with approx 300 grade wet'n'dry and then work down through the grades until i get an acceptable finish. Fine Steel wool used with soap and water also is employed. One side of the finished wing is shown below. With skinning was complete I then embarked upon rivet/panel fastener detail. I agonised over this for some time as to whether or not tom incorporate rivet detail. Over zealous representation of rivets as small divets or holes in the surface spoils many a model. They do not look like this on real aircraft and neither should they be so on models. After studying every photo i could of natural metal machines and examining some in person i decided to 'bite the bullet' and go for a restrained riveting using a radub rivet wheel. The panel fasteners were represented with a beading tool. The result on a small section of the wing is shown below. Note the piano hinge for the aileron. I will let others be the judge as to whether the effect looks OK The circular aperture is for the fuel filler cap of which there are 4 on the P-38 each approximately 5mm in diameter. They were made from Al sheet and the indentations formed in a female pattern. These will be cleaned up and applied once the model is almost complete. Once again thanks for looking Kevin