P-39 Airacobra, by Kitty Hawk

[Dpgsbody55]

23 hours ago, MikeC said:

Coming along nicely.  I'm also of the opinion that the model looks fine without modifying the length, and I didn't bother when I did mine.

 

What I did do was remove the bottom of the oxygen bottles.  This gives you a bit more room to add some nose weight.  I'm using the adhesive stuff RC modellers use for ballast.

 

 

 

 

 

I found about 15g and a little extra for luck proved sufficient, although you may need to file the odd corner off to fit the nose panels.

 

I've done basically the same, but I've used a tyre weight, flattened with a hammer.  I've added a strip in the same places as you, but also added some inside the gun magazines and prop reduction gear.  Testing seems to indicate I'll have no trouble with it sitting properly on all wheels.

 

I've been studying some drawings and comparing to the model, and I'm now tending towards the fuselage not needing any modification.  It's a hard one, but I now think it's fine as is.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Azgaron]

Progressing very nicely Michael!

 

Håkan

 

[Dennis7423]

On 2/10/2020 at 1:07 AM, quang said:

Hello Michael,
Great start for an ambitious project! 
As for the lengthening of the fuselage, you might be interested to know how I did it in this WIP here. 
The thread dates back from a few years ago when I was still using the #@“!& Ph*tobucket as an image host, so I’m sorry for the quality of my photos. Nevertheless I hope you will find the text helpful.

 

Quang

 

Quang, can you tell me how much to ended up lengthening the fuselage by? I am getting ready to start one of these in the near future, and I scoured your thread looking for it. I feel like I missed it somewhere. Where you did your fuselage cuts does indeed seem to be the most logical place to make the cuts. Thanks for that!

 

- Dennis S.

  Thornton, CO USA

 

 

[quang]

 

Dennis,

The P-39 build was 4 years ago – a loong time by my modelling standard – I had to re-read my own log to recall how I did it.

I did not note the exact length of the mod but I thought the pics accompanying the thread were self-explanatory.

Now that was before the Photob*cket fiasco. You guys may not be able to see the pictures the way I do.

 

What I can do is to make screen shots of the photos and put them together in a new thread to explain how I did it.

Just give me some time to detach my eyes and fingers from the new P.11c 

 

Cheers,

Quang

[Dennis7423]

18 minutes ago, quang said:

 

Dennis,

The P-39 build was 4 years ago – a loong time by my modelling standard – I had to re-read my own log to recall how I did it.

I did not note the exact length of the mod but I thought the pics accompanying the thread were self-explanatory.

Now that was before the Photob*cket fiasco. You guys may not be able to see the pictures the way I do.

 

What I can do is to make screen shots of the photos and put them together in a new thread to explain how I did it.

Just give me some time to detach my eyes and fingers from the new P.11c 

 

Cheers,

Quang

 

Quang-

 

Yes, unfortunately, we see the dreaded Photobucket watermark and the blurred out photo on our end.

 

Not that I want to be hijacking thhis thread, because this build is coming along nicely! Looking forward to seeing the end result :-)

 

- Dennis S.

  Thornton, CO USA

 

 

[Dpgsbody55]

17 hours ago, Dennis7423 said:

 

Quang-

 

Yes, unfortunately, we see the dreaded Photobucket watermark and the blurred out photo on our end.

 

Not that I want to be hijacking thhis thread, because this build is coming along nicely! Looking forward to seeing the end result :-)

 

- Dennis S.

  Thornton, CO USA

 

 

 

As long as it's Airacobra related, I'm OK with hijacking .  I've looked at Quang's build many times, and there's one picture there that is simply no longer available.  Perhaps that is where the missing information lies.

 

A few more steps closer to completion.  I've finished pfilling and pfiling and have spent a little time stuffing foam into the wheel wells.  Construction before painting is finished, which includes making a pitot as the kit doesn't provide one.  Size and placement was done after studying pictures and diagrams.  I've also started painting, but only got as far as the stripes on the fin.  The overspray will be removed with a little acetone.   I will be painting the undersides first in neutral grey, then the top in olive green/drab, whatever colour that is.  There seems to be so many variations on the OD theme. 

 

Here's the latest pic.  I am also going to mask off that gap below the exhausts before I paint.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[quang]

42 minutes ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

 

As long as it's Airacobra related, I'm OK with hijacking .  I've looked at Quang's build many times, and there's one picture there that is simply no longer available.  Perhaps that is where the missing information lies.

A few weeks ago, the pics were fuzzy with the dreaded watermark. When I opened the thread yesterday, the pics were clear although smaller than I remember. Go figure!

Quang

[Dpgsbody55]

And speaking of photo hosting sites, when I log into my Imageshack account, all I get is blank squares.  We seem to be having trouble with the wide world of web in our area, so hopefully it's just that.  I have some more pictures ready to post and as soon as I can, I'll post an update.  In the mean time, work continues.  The model is painted now, including the redwing walk stripes, and I've done a little weathering.

 

I had a short break this week as I went to Melbourne for my 65th birthday thinking I'll treat myself.  As part of that, I thought I'd rent a Merc for a day trip down the Mornington Peninsula and booked a tour of the MCG.  As soon as we got to Melbourne, the MCG tour got canned thanks to what I now call Groaner Virus (I'm sick of hearing about it, and all the panic caused by the media and all the other two-heads ), and the Merc got stolen by the previous renter .   So I got lumbered with a Camry instead, which is not quite the same but being a hybrid, it cost me nix in petrol which is something.  And we did score a river trip which was nice, plus I raided Metro Hobbies for my birthday pressie and brought back an ICM I-16, which you'll see getting built here, one day.  All in all, we had a good time despite the set backs and you can't ask for more than that.

 

Stay safe and well, everyone.

Cheers,

Michael

[Dpgsbody55]

Our interweb crapped out again shortly after I wrote the above so we went out.  Later this afternoon, SWMBO rang the provider who checked everything out and couldn't find a thing wrong, but I can get at my pictures now.  Computers, hey .

 

So as I said above, it's all painted, and here are the latest shots.  It's painted in standard USAAF olive drab and neutral grey, but this particular plane has unit colours on the tail fin tip.

 

 

Just as I pointed the camera at the other side, the gun cover fell off.  Of course!!

 

 

 

After this, I painted on the black wing walk strips, as well as the red wing walk stripes.  The latter are provided as a decal in the kit, but as they're one piece each, I see difficulties getting them in the proper place in one piece, so I thought it easier to paint them on with masking tape.  Here's the results.

 

 

Tonight I've finished the gloss coat, so tomorrow I'll begin applying the decals, then the final coat of flat varnish.  More pictures then.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Lothar]

The P-39 is such an epic aircraft and you've done it justice, excellent progress!!!

Lothar

[Gazzas]

Great progress!

[Alain Gadbois]

Looks great!

 

Alain

[Dpgsbody55]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your kind comments.  I'm hoping the finished job will do the plane justice, but I'm already noticing things I should have done better.  I received a belated birthday present from my daughter yesterday, so perhaps the next P-39 will be better!!  Lots of pictures , and it looks like a good read.

 

 

I presently continuing with the decal process.  It might look like I've finished that process, but looks are deceptive in this case.

 

 

 

All the main decals are on, but I'm presently adding on all the little warnings and ground crew stencils.  The fuselage is done, and now I'll start on the stencils for the wings, of which there are plenty more.  The biggest problem I'm finding with this is that often the stencils won't move into the proper place or get tangled hopelessly, so the job continues slowly. Hopefully this won't be too evident in the finished job.

 

Next update will be after the final flat coat has been applied.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Shawn M]

looks sharp!

[Dpgsbody55]

The last of the decals have gone on and it's now been flat coated, though I mixed a small amount of gloss in with the flat.  I've used Humbrol on this and by flat, I mean flat.    I also had a lot of trouble with the decals as too often, once they were on, they wouldn't move at all.  This is why the "Inspection" decals are not lined up properly.  Perhaps they weren't lined up at the factory too.   I think it's because of the gloss coat being too glossy causing any water on the model to just run off, but (of course ) towards the end I found I could get them to move by using the wet decal paper to adjust them.  Here's the lower side shots.

 

 

 

One thing I have been wondering about now is the location of the main undercarriage mounts.  Have KH repeated the same mistake as on their Texan model and located the main wheel legs a little too far inboard??

 

 

What do you think??  At present, I'm inclined to leave it alone and see how it looks with the main wheels in place, as the time to fix this would have been before the wheel wells were assembled.

 

And here's the top sides.  Most of masking has been removed, except the piece I put inside the cockpit as there's a small gap between the door and the canopy which may have allowed some splatter on the inside of the canopy during airbrushing.  I haven't opened the doors yet as I don't want them flapping about during final assembly.  For the same reason, I also haven't removed the masking over the exhausts.

 

 

 

 

So now I move on to final assembly.  I'll be starting with the lights, of which this thing seems to have as many as a Christmas tree.  Then on with the undercarriage and a little more weathering and it should then be complete.

 

Cheers all, and stay well.

Michael

Edited March 29, 2020 by Dpgsbody55