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

[FunkyZeit]

Sharp Chuck, hope to see it at Nanton!

 

Justin

[JayW]

Chuck - I posted an article on my Trumpy P-38 quite a few years ago, and wondered aloud why so few folks were building the kit.  It seems it has been discovered.  Your work on this project is making a good kit a great kit.  Looking forward to what you do with the LG and wheel wells too!

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys.

 

July 28/15


Assembly of the wing halves continues.  As shown earlier, the frame around the taxiing/landing light on the left wing is raised quite high, but in reality it isn't raised at all.  Note also how the plastic finish is a bit rough and the rivet detail is inconsistent.







After sanding the frame down on the wing, top and bottom, it looks a bit better, but the lens of the light is very thick, rough and has a big tab at the top of it that shows.










The lower tab on the clear lens doesn't show and can still be a good anchor, so I cut off the top tab.









It looks much better now inserted into the wing.









But the front-on view of the frame is still offset by quite a bit.








The first step to fix this problem is to fully assemble the wing halves first- and I offer another build tip.

 After using conventional Tamiya thin cement and letting it dry for 2 days, I sanded down the front join, which results in a nice, clean and ALMOST flaw free join.  No matter how much glue you use and how careful you are, there will ALWAYS be a slight gap here and there, some of which you can't see until the first coat of paint.  Having experienced this common modeling phenomenon many times, I now routinely apply a coat of thin CA glue to any join that I want to disappear, let it dry for 10 minutes, then sand it down.  For those of you who aren't familiar with CA glue properties, this cement can easily be sanded in the first hour or so, but it becomes harder than the plastic after a day of drying, so you must sand it down early to avoid any problems later.  Further, using CA glue accelerator can make the glue bubble, leaving air pockets and flaws underneath, so you're better off letting the glue dry on its own for 10 minutes, hit it with accelerator to make sure everything is dry, then sand away.  Using this method, I now rarely have any join blemishes after a coat of paint that need to be repaired.










Since the light frame will never join cleanly and is still too high anyway, I sanded it off, but I also sanded the lens which will now be too high without the raised frame.










The lens frame was re-scribed, then I painted the inside of the wing black to avoid any unwanted reflections from within.







Getting a landing light behind the lens is tricky, because the lens is so thick it doesn't allow for much clearance and I want the light/lens assembly to be easily inserted into the wing at the end of the build after painting.  The light on a real P-38 is forward facing and quite large, which would interfere with the lens, so I went with a hybrid “good enough†solution, by placing a spare light almost flush against the lower lens surface.  The rear of the clear light was first painted chrome silver, followed by gloss lacquer black.  After the lens was cleaned up with Tamiya polishing compounds, I dipped it in Future and stuck the lens to the back of the lens, using the Future as a clear adhesive.








Here is the front before drying, showing the chrome paint.  Those little contact ridges of Future at the bottom of the pic (top of the lens) shrunk and disappeared after drying.

[chuck540z3]

Dry fitted into the wing it almost looks the part.  This fit is so snug I won't need any glue later, but I'll lay in a little Future to fill any small gaps and seal it in.









Especially towards the bottom where you can see the light better.  With the aircraft tilted backwards while parked, this light won't be pointing down as much and will look more natural.








With the light now complete, I made sure that the rest of the wing was smooth and gap free, adding rivet detail across the front surface where it is obvious in pics.









Next came the bottom fuselage assembly, which requires a lot of dry fitting and tweaking to get it to fit properly.  One area of concern was the boarding ladder on the bottom half and the handle on the top wing, which don't fit into the grooves of their respective parts.  These grooves need to be widened in order for the parts to fit flush and allow the ladder to swing freely, which is really hard to do cleanly with a #11 knife.  Fortunately I have a set of dental-like burrs and other attachments for my Dremel tool that did the trick.







The boarding ladder and upper handle were primed with gloss black lacquer, for ease of painting later.








Which leads to another tip.  Buy a set of these Dremel attachments for future projects!  They have tiny bits of diamond attached to the bits as an abrasive, but they were cheap- only about $30 for the entire set.  I bought mine at my local hobby store (PM Hobbycraft), but they are readily available on the ‘net.










With the bottom fuselage glued to the upper wing, things are really coming together now.  Although the gaps shown below should be eliminated using Tamiya cement and CA glue, the seam on the collar that goes around the front of the wing is real, so you need to somehow retain it.  This is very hard to do with soft plastic after using Tamiya cement, so I recommend that you let it dry a week before re-scribing the thin line.  I again applied a black wash to make any flaws pop out, like cracks and roughly sanded plastic.










The upper wing half does not fit the lower half very well at the top, creating a bulge.  To fix this problem, I sanded the upper wing flush with the lower half, fixed the gap with CA glue, then also applied a nice glob of CA glue to the inside to make sure this join is strong and won't crack in the future.










Here's another tip.  When you are fumbling with seam lines and glue, the rest of the wing assembly takes a beating as you flip it over and over.  Sensitive areas are the wing tips, which have a very fine lip discussed earlier in this thread, so I covered them with cardboard, while the superchargers were covered with tape.  The boarding ladder and upper handle were also masked off to prevent them from popping out.

The cockpit area won't be masked off until I get the canopy and windscreen installed, so I made a crude box over the top of it to help prevent breakage.  Meanwhile, I need to keep the front landing gear exposed to help with wheel alignment when I attach the booms, so for that area I just need to be careful









The wing flaps were always dropping down and getting in the way, so I taped them shut, which brings up a major decision point.  For all the work I've done so far to make the flaps work, do I really need them to work at all?  I don't see showing this model with the flaps down ever, partly because I don't think they would look accurate anyway.  I don't believe the flaps can just drop as I have them installed and would only be accurate if I used the hinge extensions, dropping the flaps behind the wings, rather than just under the wings.  Is this true??  In any case, it would sure make painting this bird easier if I just glued the flaps shut.  Good move, or will I regret it later?  Thanks for any input you can provide.


Cheers,

Chuck

[Shawn M]

you're correct, the flaps are of the "fowler" type which have tracks to extend them past AND down the trailing edge.

 

 

Picture Credit UTS Hobby on Flickr

Edited July 28, 2015 by Shawn M

[Mal_Belford]

WOW.....that is improvement Chukcs Way....Damn...i love that lamp....now it passes youre quality Control to continue the build.....

 

 

/Mal

[ClumsyDude]

Great stuff Chuck ... I really like the idea of using CA to seal the seam before sanding. And, just generally, this is a really entertaining thread to watch - very informative and also just brilliant work.

 

Cheers

Jim

[BiggTim]

I don't believe the flaps can just drop as I have them installed and would only be accurate if I used the hinge extensions, dropping the flaps behind the wings, rather than just under the wings.  Is this true??  In any case, it would sure make painting this bird easier if I just glued the flaps shut.  Good move, or will I regret it later?  Thanks for any input you can provide.

 

Darn good question, I was wondering that as well.

[chuck540z3]

WOW.....that is improvement Chukcs Way....Damn...i love that lamp....now it passes youre quality Control to continue the build.....

 

 

/Mal

 

 

Thanks Mal!

 

 

Great stuff Chuck ... I really like the idea of using CA to seal the seam before sanding. And, just generally, this is a really entertaining thread to watch - very informative and also just brilliant work.

 

Cheers

Jim

 

Thanks Jim.  To clarify, I glue and sand down the wing seam as usual first, then I add CA glue and sand that down as well. It sure eliminates most of the seam gremlins that always seem to show up later.

 

 

Darn good question, I was wondering that as well.

 

 

To reiterate the question, if the rear flaps never drop under the wing without retraction to the rear of the wing on the real deal, why would anybody want them to do so on a model?  If this is true, I may as well glue them closed and save myself a LOT of work trying to paint all the detail inside the flaps.

[LSP_Ron]

They are fowler flaps,  they couldn't drop down without extending back. Very much like most modern airliners.  I'd glue them up as have them drop down wouldn't look right. I also don't recall seeing any picks of them on the ground with flaps down. I suspect they were raised as soon they landed, much like the Spitfire.

 

[chuck540z3]

They are fowler flaps,  they couldn't drop down without extending back. Very much like most modern airliners.  I'd glue them up as have them drop down wouldn't look right. I also don't recall seeing any picks of them on the ground with flaps down. I suspect they were raised as soon they landed, much like the Spitfire.

 

 

Thanks a lot Ron, you just saved me a LOT of work, but then again, I spent many hours getting the detail under the flaps just right for nothing.  Oh well, that's what these WIP threads are all about.  Live and learn from others!

[LSP_Ron]

No problem,  I think they were raised before exiting the cockpit. The pilot would have to step over them when exiting.  They would have made it very hard to get in and out of the plane using the drop down latter

[Loic]

Great stuff

[BiggTim]

I'm glad you guys cleared that up before I spent any time on it. I'm gluing mine up as well!

[JayW]

Yeah - I agree that flaps should be up.  I have studied the flap track configuration to a certain extent. It is a very interesting and ingenious set-up (Lockheed had some talented folks working for them - that's for sure).  It would be exceedingly hard to model accurately, even at 1/18 scale (my P-38 build is this scale), as spanwise clearances are super tight.  And as Ron says - the flaps were typically up with the aircraft sitting on the ground.

 

Another time saver - do not bother with the wire aerial antenna.  I know in Europe the radio which uses that antenna (the Detrola) was not used and the equipment removed.  That was true for the P-47 and P-51 as well (and maybe all USAAF aircraft).  Not sure about the Pacific, but suspect same.