Backdating the Trumpeter P-38J to a P-38G - Paint me like one of your French planes, Jack.

[brahman104]

Looks great! Some heavy surgery there which is always fun to see . Keeping notes for the day when I tackle this beast too.

 

Craig

[LSP_Kevin]

Great work, Chuck! Sorry to hear about your job situation. I had a 20-year IT career before taking up KLP Publishing full-time in 2021, and don't miss it at all!

 

Kev

[ChuckD]

On 3/11/2023 at 3:58 PM, brahman104 said:

Looks great! Some heavy surgery there which is always fun to see . Keeping notes for the day when I tackle this beast too.

 

Craig

 

Thanks, Craig.  Maybe I can return just a little bit of the inspiration your B-17 build has given me over the years. 

 

On 3/11/2023 at 4:23 PM, LSP_Kevin said:

Great work, Chuck! Sorry to hear about your job situation. I had a 20-year IT career before taking up KLP Publishing full-time in 2021, and don't miss it at all!

 

Kev

 

Thanks, Kev.  I like the field quite a bit, actually.  It's just that piss-poor leadership will ruin any good position.  The old saying - "You work for the company, you leave for the boss."  Cross your fingers for me that I can find something else soon.  I'll take any good vibes you can spare.   

 

Anyway, time for an update.

 

I finally got around to getting the turbos sorted out.  As yet, nothing of this build has been done within the realm of subtlety, so why would the turbos be any different?

 

I first started out by gluing in some supports for the turbo panels.  These would provide some strength instead of the butt joint that would result otherwise.

 

Once I cleaned up the panels well enough to dry fit cleanly, I turned my attention to the turbos proper.

Hooray.    When you tuck the little lip of the turbo pipe into its forward position (towards the bottom of this pic), the turbo body itself is a good 2-3mm short of where it needs to be.

 

So, with the lightest touch of the finest razor saw, I cut a small, subtle 3mm gap in the turbo pipe.  

See?  Subtle.

 

That said, after gluing them in place, everything is starting to take shape.  Over the last couple days, I filled some of the more obvious gaps with styrene strip and epoxy putty.  Today, I shot everything with primer to pick out the less-obvious flaws and got to work sanding and filling again.  Clearly, there's lots more work ahead, but this is where we stand now. 

 

Liquid sprue is drying in some of the more egregious spots and I'll continue the theme of filling, priming, and sanding until I'm happy with the finish.  So, now that most of the major surgery is done, we're back to the drudgery of most model builds: the filling & sanding dance.  After that, I'll start the scribing and getting the intake scoops around.  Initial fitting of those looks promising, but time will tell.

 

[chrish]

Love the work, the attention to detail is commendable, the attention to perfect fitment!…Ill admit I had to look up some of the big words used but otherwise I love the work!

[ChuckD]

[LSP_Kevin]

My wife once said that my hobby pseudonym should be Phil Sand.

 

Kev

[themongoose]

Going to be a nice display when you get done. That whole area around the turbo looks like you fitted it in nice and clean!

[ChuckD]

Hi, all.  Back with another update.  For the last... many... weeks, I've been periodically filling, sanding, and cleaning up the model.  The kit itself would have required quite a bit of cleanup, but it was magnified exponentially by the resin work.  The good news is, I'm about 99% done with the sanding and filling.  Tomorrow, my wife is going to blow up some 1/48 scale drawings for me and after that I should be able to start making a good showing of scribing panel lines and rivets.  

 

The intake scoops went on pretty well with minimal fuss, so that's a major milestone.  I've also taken care of the lead weights in the nacelles and the nose to keep it sitting on its nose wheel.  So, progress!  

 

Overall view - some primer is still drying on the left wing and nacelle, thus the glossy finish.

 

Left intakes.  Notice how badly the panel lines have been damaged.  Re-scribing will be an extensive task.

 

The right boom.  Because of this picture, I realized I have another sanding scratch to fill... thus the "99% done" part.  The Mr Surfacer 500 is drying now.

 

The bottom.  I didn't realize I had to remove the small blisters on either side of the cockpit nacelle until I stumbled across a random forum post while looking for drawings.  So, those had to be cut off, sanded, filled, and cleaned up.  With the gear having to be in place, it's kinda tricky getting to the inner lower wing.  
 
 

So, next will be fixing the landing light, scribing and riveting, then installing the nose.  My hope is to put the finishing touches on this by mid-May or so.  Crossing my fingers. 

[MikeMaben]

Shaping up nicely Chuck 

[ChuckD]

Hi, everyone.  Just a quick update to say that I'm through the first of probably two or three rounds of scribing panel lines.  Once I'm happy with those, then it'll be on to riveting.  Not much fun stuff to post because it's pretty tedious work, but I wanted to update to show it hadn't been relegated to the shelf of doom.  

[ChuckD]

Hi, all.  I'm back at last with a meaningful update.  After much fiddling and such, I have rescribed and re-riveted the majority of this aircraft.  As you can imagine, getting riveting and scribing tools into all the nooks and crannies created by two booms and a pod was a significant challenge.  The work isn't perfect, but I'm happy enough with it to move on.  I didn't take any photos of that work as it was pretty tedious, but I'll share some overall shots at the end.

 

Once Dances-with-Riveters ended, I moved on to the nose section as I knew the next major challenge would be the vacuform canopy.  I first replaced the kit gun barrels with a set from (I think) Quickboost.

 

They turned out nicely.

 

Next, I wanted to tackle the oversized hole in the nose for the cannon.  This was attempt #1.

I backed the hole with a piece of card stock, then filled the hole with my trusty epoxy putty.  Later, when I tried to drill it out, it just crumbled.  So... on to attempt #2 which is still curing.

 

Good old fashioned liquid sprue.  Some more light rescribing and riveting work will be required.

 

While that's been drying, I decided to tackle the nose panels as they would give me a reference point for the vacuform canopy.  As with much of this kit, the fit sucks and I'm really glad I didn't follow the directions as they would've really burned me.  

 

With the center piece cemented to the bulkhead, the panels were both offset 1/16" or so from where they needed to be.  

 

So, I subtly broke out my most subtle razor saw and subtly cut the center piece off the bulkhead plate.

 

I then glued the two panels directly to the center piece and worked them till they dry fit nicely.  Results were good and will be shown in the overall shot below.  Once those were in place, I could start looking at the vac canopy.  After much fiddling, sanding, and finagling, I got it to roughly resemble the contour of the kit part.

 

 

I've no idea how I'm going to mask the vac canopy as the panel lines are almost non-existent.  It'll be a very subtle job, I'm sure.  

 

Here it is dry fit:

 

It doesn't sit perfectly when dry fit, but there's enough flex and wiggle room that I should be able to get glued into place well enough.  I'm going to model the kit with the canopy open and the side windows rolled down, so that's helpful in this case.  Some dry fitting showed the sides and upper canopies to fit reasonably well, but I'd like the cockpit to be open.  I'll also have to re-rivet the sides of the pod once I get the canopy situated properly.

 

As I'm waiting for the future on the canopy to cure completely, I've turned my attention to the wheels.  I'd like to use the block tread tires that came with the GMF conversion kit but they're... not great.

The mains are out of round and the block tread is chunky, heavy, and inconsistently sculpted, so I'm not super interested in using them.  I bought a set of res-kit crosshatch tires a while back, and I found at least one picture of a P-38G running them, so they should work.

They are *much* nicer.  I'll fiddle with those next and get the bird on her feet.  After that, I'll get the canopy and nose cone squared away, then there's not much left until the paint booth.  (!!!)  As much as I've enjoyed this challenge, the scribing and riveting have sucked some of the wind from my sails and I'm ready to get this beast off the bench and on the display shelf.  

 

That said, she's coming along pretty nicely.

 

 

Hopefully the updates will pick up a bit as we move towards the finish line.    Thanks for following along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve Eagle]

You are doing well with this. It is tough to get this conversion done well. I feel for you with sand/fill/sand routine. It would be nice to have an up to date early/late kit of the Lightning. 

[ChuckD]

And we're back with progress.

 

The GMF props are now complete.  Here you can see the wildly out of shape propellers from the kit along side the more correct GMF props.  

 

 

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially in light of not having a specific jig for them.  Only one of the blades for each hub is molded onto the hub itself, so the other two have to be installed and pitched consistently.  

 

I forgot to take pictures, but I worked my way through the hole in the nose cone for the cannon and got the nose closed up.  I also added scratch made strakes next to the turbos.  A set was included with the resin but they were too short in length based on my reference photos, so I cut some out of styrene.  

 

 

Overall shots showing the nose.

 

 

 

 

The canopy glued in fairly well with liquid super glue.  After sitting overnight, I didn't see any fogging, so that's good news.  I filled the voids around the sides and forward edges with tamiya putty and let it set overnight.

 

The first round of sanding went pretty well.

 

Using interior green as the detective primer (since the insides of the canopy aren't masked and will not be painted, I was pretty pleased with the first round of sanding of the tamiya putty.

 

Only a few voids to fill on either side, all of which should clean up pretty nicely.

 

 

A little more light sanding and she should be just about ready for the paint booth.  Test fitting things like gear doors and what not seems very promising and outside of those, there's not much else to add outside of a pitot tube and nose antenna.  

 

You may have noticed that she's got a set of kicks under her now (though dry fit they are).  I was able to rework the GMF tires and wheels a bit to get them to work.  They're still a little wonky, but they won't be too noticeable once everything is together.  

 

So, clean up the last of the tamiya putty on the canopy and she's off to painting!  I hope to make some great progress this weekend and next week. 

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Nice progress, Chuck!

 

Kev

[MikeMaben]

 

    Go for it