1/32 P-38L "Kicked Up A Notch". Jan 15/16: FINISHED!

[Anthony in NZ]

Chuck, that is exceptional mate!

 

I like the panel line wash you used (which one did you use, Tamiya or home made?) as it helps see what you have achieved.  Lovely crisp work, just beautiful.

 

Thanks for the update...loving this.

 

I have one of those beading tools as well for rivets and fasteners, it really is needed in large scale, especially on my 24th Mossie. Wouldn't be without it

 

Cheers

Anthony

Edited January 13, 2015 by Anthony in NZ

[dodgem37]

Good show, Chuck.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Budman]

I am glad your foot surgery well. Hope your recovery does as well.

I am really anxious to see how you do the panel line scribing as my "method" yields results that look like my favorite tool is a chainsaw.

As always, your work is awe inspiring. Take care of that foot!

Bud

[skiner]

It reminds me mine.... http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=42062&page=4 great venture!!!! very nice work with  your kit!

Edited January 13, 2015 by skiner

[airscale]

beautiful...

 

it's a real pleasure to tune in to this stunning build - learning loads of things and watching a master at work

 

great stuff

 

Peter

[chuck540z3]

I am glad your foot surgery well. Hope your recovery does as well.

I am really anxious to see how you do the panel line scribing as my "method" yields results that look like my favorite tool is a chainsaw.

As always, your work is awe inspiring. Take care of that foot!

Bud

 

 

Well Bud, maybe I have just the thing you need below!

 

 

January 14/15

 

 

Thank  you Gents very much!  

 

Well, after scribing and riveting all day, I'm really, really bored.  I've had a few questions concerning how I go about re-scribing panel lines and making those Dzus fasteners in the last few days, so I thought, why not, let's do ANOTHER TUTORIAL!  I love taking pictures and if I can combine making some more progress on this build with posting something useful to others, I can get two things done at once and not go crazy string at tiny rivets.  Here goes.

 

Scribing and Riveting Tutorial

 

 

Let's start with an inner boom on the left hand side that I'm about to work on.  Here it is OOB, with a little clean-up of flash and other major imperfections.  The rivets don't look too bad, but the Dzus fasteners at the front (right) need help and those panel lines are fairly wide and shallow.  That circular access panel in the middle you can hardly see, so after some sanding and paint, it might disappear altogether.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first order of business is to get a new or fairly new sharp scriber and some Dymo tape to be used as a straight edge.  Dymo tape has been used for years by modelers to scribe straight lines, but this “classic tape†is becoming very rare since nobody uses the old Dymo labelers any more.  I found some on the ‘net so I bought a bunch of it that will last me for many years, so I suggest you do the same before it's all gone.

 

Using the tape as a guide along the central panel line, I scratched a very shallow and narrow line within the wide panel line that you can barely see in this photo.  Start off REAL LIGHT with the scriber, so that you can hardly tell you are cutting into the plastic.  Once through with one swipe, do it again- and again with light strokes until you can tell you've made a good mark along the entire panel line.  The purpose at this early stage is to provide another, wider scriber a line to grab onto and cut a wider swath through the plastic, assuming that's what you want.  For some extra thin panel lines, this will be enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, use a wider scriber, which is usually just an older and duller scriber, over the same panel line.  You may still need the Dymo tape and you may not, but if you cut each time lightly, going over the edge of the panel line and  scratching plastic on either side will not be a catastrophe.  Here's a close-up pic of the panel line after the wider scriber was used.  Note that I missed a bit a few times on the left, but also extended the panel line according to references all the way down to the bottom.  Since each cut was light, the misses can easily be sanded off.  If you use lots of pressure to just get it over with, you might be using CA glue later to heal a big wound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Normally I would do all the panel lines and then sand the plastic with 1000 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches, but for this demo I just sanded the one new panel line to show you what it looks like.  The dust from the sanding fills the panel line and rivets, giving you a good look at what you've achieved and what still needs more sanding or scribing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After doing the other panel lines, sanding has revealed some more of those surface pock marks I mentioned earlier due to plastic features on the other side, in this case the brackets that hold the landing gear well in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After further sanding with 1000 grit sandpaper, they are now gone.  Next is a shallow and  tricky circular access panel that needs a different scribing tool, in this case a “needle†made of carbide steel that is super hard.  After cutting panel lines the usual way on the box around the circle, I used this needle tool to scratch a very light circle within what little surface detail is still available.  Again, go very light with the tool and if you miss, no big deal because you can sand the blemish off later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you cut more and more circles, the panel line gets deeper and you can get a bit more aggressive without fear of slipping out of the groove.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After some more sanding, not too bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sanding is dust is easily removed by just running your scribing tool through the groove again.  To get it all off, I use a rag with a little varsol or solvent to grab all the fine bits of dust.  Next up is new rivets, to deepen the existing ones and to also add some new ones.  For fine rivets I use an ordinary sewing needle in a pin vice.  This pin has a quickly changing taper, so I can control the width of the rivet by how deep I push the needle into the plastic.  It's easy to see in this pic which rivets I have re-punched and which ones I haven't.  To punch an new rivet hole, push the needle into the location of the rivet and give it a half turn, which smooth's out the sides of the new hole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides a few new small panel lines, this side of the boom needs a few more rivets at the locations indicated.  The top ones were created with the pin vice and the Hasegawa metal template, which has the rivet spacing I'm looking for.  The purpose of the template is to locate where the new rivets should go, so go very light the first time with the template in place.  Once the rivets have been marked into the plastic, go over them all again with just the pin vice, where you can deepen them and even re-locate some rivets that may have gone astray.  By pushing the needle into the plastic beside an existing rivet you don't want, the plastic will actually “flow†into the old rivet by compression, leaving only the new rivet.  Some rivets, like the tiny V-shaped reinforcement rivets at the bottom, have to be done freehand.  This takes lots of time and practise to do neatly, but over time you will get better and better at it.

 

 

 

 

[chuck540z3]

There are lots of templates available to create rivets in a variety of widths and patterns.  There's even rivet wheels with different sized wheels to work with, but I never use these on my models because they (or more likely I) lack control and I sometimes wind up making a real mess.  I will use them on pieces of styrene and aluminum where I am scratch building parts that need a lot of rivets, so that if I screw up, I can just make another (and another and another…..).










The circular panel needs bigger fasteners than the needle and the Dzus fasteners need an even bigger impression in the plastic, so I use the “Mega Tool†which has 23 different sized heads.  I bought this set from UMM Master Models, one of my favorite cyber hobby shops.









Here is how the new fasteners look with this tool.  To use the tool, center the face over the rivet point, then gently touch the plastic with it.  When you are happy with the location, rotate the tool around the center to make a circular impression in every direction.  Note the contrast between the new Dzus fasteners on the left and the untouched ones on the right, next to that circular opening.









And finally, the central area of this boom is done with more pronounced rivets, fasteners and corrected panel lines that will now cling to weathering washes near the end of the build.



One more time, BEFORE









And now AFTER









Here's one more example that's a bit more complicated on my F-4E build a few years ago.  These Phantoms have slatted wings and the outboard wings, provided by the Cutting Edge kit, had totally wrong panel lines and rivet detail, so I filled it all in with CA glue and started over.  








Almost every panel line and every rivet was done by hand according to references, which you rarely see on any other F-4E in 1/32 scale, using the above methods.  It doesn't look perfectly symmetrical in this side by side shot, but when they are placed 11 inches away from each other on the model, you'd never notice the differences.









If you have any questions, just fire away.  I'll be very happy to answer them and get away from making more of these damn rivets!

Edited January 15, 2015 by chuck540z3

[LSP_Kevin]

Excellent tutorial as always Chuck!

 

 

 

I have this exact same set! I can't remember where I bought it from though, but it was someone in the US (of eBay I think). Anyway, it's a very handy tool indeed!

 

Kev

[zak]

Love these tutorials, your builds are always a great resource for hints and tipsthanks for sharing

Edited January 15, 2015 by zak

[Starfighter]

Great job so far, Chuck! Do you have an item number of your rivet tool? I've tried searching for 'Mega Too Switzerland' but couldn't find anything useful so far. I'd like to order a set in Europe as it doesn't really make sense for me to order a swiss tool in the US and then have it shipped to Belgium...

[Hubert Boillot]

Great job so far, Chuck! Do you have an item number of your rivet tool? I've tried searching for 'Mega Too Switzerland' but couldn't find anything useful so far. I'd like to order a set in Europe as it doesn't really make sense for me to order a swiss tool in the US and then have it shipped to Belgium...

You should look for a beading tool from jewellers' supplies stores or sites. This is after all what this tool is.

 

Hubert

 

In French : " perloir "

[ghatherly]

Hey Chuck,

 

 Great tutorial!!!   I too like the trumpeter scribing tools, as they just seem to fit my hands well and they are not very expensive, at least compared to the Hasegawa tools which are similar.  I cannot tell you how much I have learned from your tutorials in your builds.  I for one and very grateful for all the work that goes into your presentations.

 

 For everyone else out there watching this, it is worth your time to look at Chucks other builds, as he has a real talent for presenting the topic material in a clear, concise, and understand way.  

 

Have great day and keep up the great work,

 

Gary

[Budman]

Thanks for a great tutorial Chuck. No wonder I was having trouble!

[dodgem37]

'Do you have an item number of your rivet tool?'

http://umm-usa.com/onlinestore/index.php?cPath=21_145

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[chuck540z3]

Thank you everyone for the kind feedback. It's nice to know that these tutorials are not a waste of time, although I'm sure some modelers out there are rolling their eyes!

 

 

As for the Mega Tool, Hubert is absolutely correct.  I just found out that this is really a "Beading Tool" made for jewellers and not for guys making impressions in plastic, although it works great for both. Google "Swiss Beading Tool" and you will come up with all sorts of options at very attractive prices!

Edited January 15, 2015 by chuck540z3