Special Hobby P-39 build

[stevegallacci 308]

I started the kit when it first came out, in part to compare it to the aborted Craftworks resin kit. I'd been tagged with doing an accuracy check and general dress-up of the preliminary masters that hand been started some time before. Argh, the wings were in the wrong place, so it would take some substaintial rework. Then the Special Hobby kit showed up and the project was side-lined.

I got the SH kit and did a quick check of it and found the rear fuselage to be notably short, about 1/4inch/5+mm and started to do some slice and dice. Other, more interesting/distracting (!Squirrel!) projects came up and I only now got back to dust it off and do some new noodling on it (of course while neglecting other projects)

 

The too short rear fuselage hasn't seemed to come up (at least nothing I've heard) and I wondered if anyone here has anything to say?

[stevegallacci 308]

Steve,

When I eyeballed my SH P-39 kits I THOUGHT they looked a little short but never did any measuring to check it out. It would be nice to have a drawing/diagram showing the needed "stretch" AND a after-market plug to correct the problem.

John

 

Yeah, it seems as though much aft the engine proper has been squished forward. Likely the whole rear fuselage would have to be done to get it right. I'll do some art to show where and by how much it is. Early on, when I was going through various references, the short section was very common in an awful lot of published sources. The Warbird Tech book has a drawing of the fuselage with station points called out that gave me the first hint about the correct dimensions and the old Detail in Scale drawings appear to be at least approximately correct as well as the old Paul Matt drawings(need to recheck). However, the more recent European sources that Ive seen so far all have the short fuselage error. It is a lot like trying to find reliable P-40 drawings (no pub'ed one I've found so far get it all correct)

 

My current data is from direct measurements of a P-39 rather than chance published sources.

Edited November 21, 2011 by stevegallacci

[TimW 1,292]

I have a few of these in the stash (the P-39 and P-39 RAAF boxing).

 

I guess I wasn't too worried about the shortness issue, but that's just me.

 

Regards,

 

Tim W.

[stevegallacci 308]

I mention it as much for a FYI as much as anything. To me, especially after doing some accuracy research, it just jumps out, so I can't ignore it. This could be a kind of gauge as to how intense the affection/mania to some subjects exist. A 1mm or so miss-step on a '109 provokes running flame wars over years, while the P-39's goof is more substantial, but pretty much unmentioned. Perhaps everyone was more grateful than fussy that the kit came out at all(?)

Modeling madness.

[stevegallacci 308]

Here is some art to illustrate the shortfall.

http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p282/sagallacci/?action=view&current=P-39correction.jpg

[mahernandez 81]

Steve,

 

I know people have mentioned that the kit looked short but AFAIK noone did any dimensional checking as you have. I always felt that something didn't look right about the length of the kit. Glad you're doing this and showing what the issue is.

 

Mark H.

[DougN 522]

So in the end, how many mm's is the kit too short? Looks to be about 4mm or 5mm in the tail based on your drawing? So one could just cut and stick a plug in and everything looks good.

 

Doug

[stevegallacci 308]

So in the end, how many mm's is the kit too short? Looks to be about 4mm or 5mm in the tail based on your drawing? So one could just cut and stick a plug in and everything looks good.

 

Doug

 

Yeah, pretty much. Though the actual math'ed out distance is 6.6mm, so the fuselage taper and profile will need some work too. I did mine in two splices in order to have less step at once.

[LSP_Mike 3,790]

Steve, at the point where the panel line is "fractionally off" would a resin plug be suitable to move the tail aft?

[stevegallacci 308]

Steve, at the point where the panel line is "fractionally off" would a resin plug be suitable to move the tail aft?

 

I suppose, though you'd also have to redo the end of the wing fillet along with it at that point. Not a major detail to deal with. Ideally, an enterprising soul could go a step further and make a whole new rear fuselage, to both deal with the length, taper, profile, and rescribing issues as well as reworking the fat fin and tailplane fillets. That later point has actually been more of a chore than the stretch.

[stevegallacci 308]

I rechecked my data, looking at overall length this time and found that the kit is off differently than orginally explained. I'll get new art done shortly. Short form answer is that the rear fuselage is still short, but less than before, but the forward fuselage is also short by that same amount. Just no winning. And the new MMP book on the P-39 is good for photo refs but the drawings are a tad off.

[Bill Cross 4,328]

Is the P-39Q the same shorty?

[thierry laurent 4,186]

Is the P-39Q the same shorty?

 

Sprues are the same in all kits.

[LSP_Mike 3,790]

OK, so we wait for the new data.

Steve??

[Bill Cross 4,328]

Hmmm, I guess that's the best kit, though, right?