P-38G Lightning: Operation Vengeance - FINISHED

[nmayhew]

On 3/18/2021 at 4:28 PM, Dukie99 said:

It MRP Mr. Filler, liquid putty rather than liquid plastic. I guess I am calling it liquid plastic because it very much sand like styrene (and smells like it). I like this stuff. It is a bit thicker than Mr. Surfacer 500 and it dries quickly (and it shrinks quite a bit)

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

thanks

 

i guess i was excited there for a minute that a company was finally selling some sort of sprue goo

 

i have this and it is so-so... shrinks a lot; sands pretty well but still prone to pitting I have found (been using it for a few years now)

[nmayhew]

23 hours ago, Dukie99 said:

The adhesion of the silver primer is excellent on well washed resin (I give the resin a bath of diluted bleach), but it is very thin, so you see all imperfection on the plastic or resin. Not sure I will be able (or have the patience) to get the surface perfect so I may resort to Alclad primer and microfiller.

 

Hi David,

 

thank you (again)

 

this is the only MRP primer i have not used; i am intrigued as to whether it would faciliate skipping a step when hairspray chipping (yes I am super lazy, super impatient)

 

i have found the others good, but maybe not quite as smooth as Mr Surfacer 1500 thinned (heavily) with Mr Levelling Thinner - it combines great adhesion and levelling along with near instant drying in a way that nothing else out there can in my view

 

i would throw the Alclad stuff away, but that's just me 

 

Nick

[Dukie99]

6 minutes ago, nmayhew said:

 

Hi David,

 

thank you (again)

 

this is the only MRP primer i have not used; i am intrigued as to whether it would faciliate skipping a step when hairspray chipping (yes I am super lazy, super impatient)

 

i have found the others good, but maybe not quite as smooth as Mr Surfacer 1500 thinned (heavily) with Mr Levelling Thinner - it combines great adhesion and levelling along with near instant drying in a way that nothing else out there can in my view

 

i would throw the Alclad stuff away, but that's just me 

 

Nick

Hi Nick,

 

The Alclad is not bad but you need to sand it smooth after application otherwise you get a pebbly result. It takes a bit of time but once sanded it is tough as nail and smooth as baby’s butt. 
 

Cheers,

 

David

[Dukie99]

Quick update today, nothing spectacular, but progress notheless

bamboo chopsticks expoxied in the wings to ensure that the wings do not sag.

pennies and dimes in the gun bay to ensure I have no tail sitter. Fortunately with the SOW landing gear, the added weight will not be an issue.

 

Hopefully more progess soon.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[MikeMaben]

[brahman104]

Great work so far David!

 

I've got this conversion too somewhere and will be following with interest

 

Craig

[Dukie99]

A bit more progress. This is another step where I deviated from the instructions from Grey Matter Figures. The cover of the turbocharger is different in the G than in the L so you get these lovely resin replacement in the GMF conversion:

The problem is that in the trumpeter kit the aft portion of the cover is integral to the top wing and will be glued to the tailboom as you can see in this picture

 

If you cut the kit to insert the GMF part, aft connection of the main wing with the tail boom will be to the resin cover which would have a rather flimsy connection to the main wing. So I decided to use only the forward portion of the resin cover and cut the necessary portion from the kit leaving the aft part alone to ensure a strong plastic to plastic between the wing and the boom (an area where the fit is actually excellent). In the above picture you can see that I am halfway through the cut, to get to this:

I glue styrene tabs to hold the resin cover aft and forward and after some trimming and fitting I got to this

Not perfect but nothing that a little expoxy, putty and sanding cannot fix. The cover is simply dry fitted here.

Today I actually glued the painted Turbochargers and the cover. This was expoxied from the back of the wing. The seams were filled with epoxy and the inside of the wing was painted matt black as you can see a little bit of the inside between the cover the Turbochargers. It actually looks worse than it is because the transition from the cover to the wing is already very smooth: the blacklines are actually transparent epoxy painted black inside the wing. I need to mask the Turbocharges and give the whole area a coat of Aluminum primer to see where work is still needed.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[brahman104]

Nice fix! That's good to know you can recycle the back ends of the cutouts. 

 

Craig

[Hawkwrench]

On 3/18/2021 at 12:43 PM, Out2gtcha said:

Thanks!  Might have to try that. I like MS500, but sometimes even that is too thin.

Agreed. I use MS and Vallejo putty,  but I'm gonna give this stuff a try.

 

Tim

[Dukie99]

Progress. I am inching how so slowly to the point where I can rescribe the lost details on the booms (my least favorite part of kit building).

I have now glued the resin airscoops I started with the original resin part of the GMF conversion, i.e four half boom portions, such as this one:

Then I hacked the boom part away from the scoop

Then careful sanding to remove the aft part of the scoop

Then fitting on the boom

glued with epoxy and after many sessions of wet sanding, putty and primer, it is done and looks reasonable to the naked eye

 

Obviously this would not be good enough for a NMF finish but the P-38Gs of Operation Vengeance were in OD so I think I can get away with it.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Dukie99]

I have now rescribed the left boom. I found in my stash Alliance Model Works screw head and I thought I would use them on the engine cowl as they are indeed prominent on the real thing. I got a little carried away and the problem is, I did have only enough for one boom. I tried to order more from AMW but they are out of stock... I will have to wait.

Cheers,

 

David

[R Palimaka]

A lot of excellent and careful work going on here! Not exactly "drop in" replacement parts, but you're taming it nicely. 

 

Those screw heads look amazing! Didn't even know they existed, thanks for posting that...and I hope you're able to get some for the other boom soon!

 

Richard

[Dukie99]

Time for an update. I have continued working on this kit over the last weeks but progress has been fairly slow. I have not been able to find new sets of the AMW screws (and my e-mail to AMW went unanswered) so I had the choice of shelving this build until I would be able to find another set or use the rest of my screw heads set. I had used all the flat 0.8mm flat head screw but had a bunch of 0.8mm cruciform head screw and a bunch of 0.65mm flat head screw left so this is what I used. The cruciform head screw may not be accurate for the P-38 and they are now of different size but without a magnifyglass the difference between 0.8 and 0.65 is not too noticeable from a distance. Anyway I finished adding all the head screws to the two booms, then the booms got a coat of Alclad gloss black, a coat of Alcald airframe aluminum and finally a coat of Alclad Acqua Gloss. This will serve as a solid base for the masks for the roundels, tail code, nose code and a simple nose art (Miss Virginia), the final colors and chipping (using mostly masking fluid applied with a sponge). Pictures to follow.

 

I have also finished the cockpit in anticipation of glueing the vac form front glass before taping it all for painting. For the cockpit I used the Trumpy parts dressed up with Eduard Etch and made a few changes inspired by the Tamiya kit as there are not parts provided in the GMF conversion for the cockpit. I rearranged the radio racks behind the pilot and opened up the radio tray and added some wiring for business. Crude effort by the standard of some of you guys but good enough for my purpose. There is some kind of handbrake right to the pilot seat which is prominent if the Tamya kit but completely missing in the Trumpy kit, so I scratched built it. 

I also scratched the flying wheel to make it look like the one provided in the Tamiya kit. I then attempted to copy the IP layout using airscale etch and decals mounted on Eduard etch base. The end product does not ressemble the Tamiya IP so it is a fail but it looks OK (if inaccurate). I also used some of Anyz toggles and switch with I found really easy to use (with a good pair of twizzer). Belts are HGW and they look great although I am not sure if I like the color of the belts too much, but that train has passed. Anyway, some pictures to show where I currently stand.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Dukie99]

Getting close to the finish line. This is where I stand after decaling my P-38G, so everything is glossy. Actually the only decals are the Foxbot stencils and the kill marks, everything else has been done using homemade masks on my Silouhette. Paints are MRP, still a bit to do in terms of weathering but I am really happy with the look of that bird.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[crobinsonh]

Great progress.