ironman1945 Posted June 17, 2008 Author Share Posted June 17, 2008 Its just occured to me that I didnt include an overall shot of the whole airframe itself. Here is on pick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironman1945 Posted June 17, 2008 Author Share Posted June 17, 2008 And a final shot. I'll post more as I progress. Take care all, have a good week, and happy modelling! Dave/Ironman1945 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrintense Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Hey Dave, It's amazing looking at your photos. It's like looking at my own model. I have similar pictures. It's rather hard to fit it all in the picture frame isn't it? I see the same white styrene filling the same gaps I had on my kit. Like you, I have a real desire to build this aircraft. Many many, manny years ago I helped a friend build the Revell kit while I was building the Revell P-47. We both entered in a local model contest and his won first place. I wanted to build one for myself and tried back in the 80's but life got in the way. So this has been a labor of love, and I'm determined to finish it. I've started the rescribing and polishing now and maybe by the end of the next month I'll be ready to start painting. Good luck with your project as well. Looking forward to seeing more in progress shots. I'll try to get some of my own as soon as I can get a chance. Cheers Carl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Dollar Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Great shots. I'm still in the middle of fiddling with the cockpit. The bent landing gear remarks might make me rethink the plastic legs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironman1945 Posted June 17, 2008 Author Share Posted June 17, 2008 Silver Dollar I would highly recommend replacing the landing gear., or perhaps as someone else recommended, you could drill out the kit legs and reinforce them with metal pins. As a 16 year old kid, it was extremely dissapointing to see my Revell P-38s slowly sink down like squashed bugs. Although in the end (because I'm still traumitized by what happened all those years ago!) I fabricated my own landing gear from brass and aluminum, I believe the Scale Aviation Conversions white metal gear would still be a lot better then the plastic ones in the kit. Dave/Ironman1945 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Dollar Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Sounds like a good idea, Dave. I'll have to get working on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcauchi Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 Awesome work Dave. Looking forward to seeing her painted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spads57 Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 Dave, Great work,I'm looking forward to seeing your P-38 completed.My twenty plus year old Revell P-38 suffered the same faith as yours did with squashed landing gear.One of these days I'll have to pull it out of storage and do something with the landing gear.I've seen metal gear for the Trumpeter kit ,I wonder if it's usable with the old Revell kit ? Regards, Gregory Jouette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironman1945 Posted June 18, 2008 Author Share Posted June 18, 2008 Thanks again everyone for the nice comments. I am toying with a number of options on how to do the natural metal colour scheme... more on this later. For Gregory, I do believe that the metal gear from Scale Aviation Conversions can indeed be utlilized with the Revell kit. You would need to measure down the port and starboard sides of the gear bay to find a suitable distance to drill holes for the metal gear to be insterted into (the metal gear have pins that form an "axle", so to speak, that is insterted into holes on the bay walls); I dont think that would normally be a huge problem, but with a kit that is already assembled, I am not so sure. If you like, I could send you the Trumpeter plastic gear that I have not used, and you could use them as a sort of "test" to see what is possible; they are pretty much the same size as the plastic gear. You could also have a go at trying to drill them out and reinforcing them with metal pins. Dave/Ironman1945 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Dollar Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 The only other idea I can think of to help avoid the plastic landing gear collapse is to put the P38 into some kind of dio situation like when they bore-site the guns or change the tires. The aircraft sits on some kind of scaffolding where the wheels are off the ground. I've seen that kind of thing with a few tail draggers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrintense Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 The only other idea I can think of to help avoid the plastic landing gear collapse is to put the P38 into some kind of dio situation like when they bore-site the guns or change the tires. The aircraft sits on some kind of scaffolding where the wheels are off the ground. I've seen that kind of thing with a few tail draggers. I'm building mine in flight just after take off so the weight will be on the support stand rather than the struts. Putting a model this big in an inflight dio presents challenges and it's probably the only one I'll ever do this way. I enjoy seeing models in flight so I had to try it out on this aircraft (one of my favorites). The only thing I'm not doing is simulating the spinning props because I just think the P-38 props look so cool and I wanted them to be seen. Carl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcauchi Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 If you think that the undercarriage legs will fail, drill them right through and insert a metal rod so that the weight will be on that and not on the plastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironman1945 Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 Brian My apologies, when I mentioned earlier about drilling the kit's plastic gear out and inserting metal pins, I couldnt remember who it was that first recommended it... it was (I believe) in fact you, and if memory serves it was on Carl's P-38 build. A good idea, that, one I did not think of. I will have to give it a try someday. I would like to say that, though it may seem complicated to build landing gear out of metal tubing like I did, it isnt really that hard. In fact this is only the second time I have ever used metal tubing to do this, the first time was about 7 or 8 years ago, for my second build since getting back into the hobby (not that I ever really left, just had no time or space to build). I was modifying Revells old 109 to an F model, one of Adolph Galland's specially modified aircraft that had 2-20mm cannon added to the wings (same installation as a 109E). I also modified Verlinden's solid resin engine block (meant for the 109E) and added it as well, but after 1 year, the weight of all of the resin bowed out the original kits gear. So I experimented with metal tubing, came up with something I thought looked okay, took a deep breath and snipped off the original landing gear with some cutters. Here is a photo of that old Revell kit with the metal gear (of course, soon after I finished this Hasegawa came out with thier line of 109s... thats how it always goes!). I really believe that if I can do this, so can everyone else, it just make take a few tries... I've gone through a fair bit of tubing myself....but in the end its extremely satisfying! Dave/Ironman1945 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironman1945 Posted July 7, 2008 Author Share Posted July 7, 2008 Hi all I've been working on adding the required weight to the front end. Instructions state to add 60 grams to the nose... thats the equivalent of 25 Canadian pennies. I taped up some pennies to verify this, and it is indeed what is required. I ended up using a combination of lead fishing weights and flat lead sections used by model railroaders. If one were to build this kit with both engines and the full nose armament (I have neither engine installed and decieded earlier on not to model the interior of the gun bay), for the life of me I dont know where one would add the required 60 grams... maybe if one were to use gold or depleted uranium.... Building the landing gear out of brass and aluminum tubing was time consuming, but I am extremey happy now that I did. Hope everyone has a great summer. Dave/Ironman1945 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Hi all I ended up using a combination of lead fishing weights and flat lead sections used by model railroaders. If one were to build this kit with both engines and the full nose armament (I have neither engine installed and decieded earlier on not to model the interior of the gun bay), for the life of me I dont know where one would add the required 60 grams... maybe if one were to use gold or depleted uranium.... Hi Dave, you're doing a great job, i know, because it is indeed a bit of a fiddle to get some weight into the nose and engine bay areas, but with my M version i beforehand decided to fill the engines itself with lead before installing them into the booms, and the same goes with the nose AND the open gunbay, because when filling them up it is possible by doing it invisibly more or less. Anyhow, it was sufficient to keep the nose down AND not even use reinforcements on the gearlegs, at least it has been on its legs uptill now, and that is about 4 months after it was completed. J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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