1:48 Academy P-38J Lightning (Completed)

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
21

Trying to take care of some of the little things to make this Lightning shine a little brighter. Right now I’m scratching out the radiators on the booms. I first cut some plasticard and sanded it down into shape to make up a backing for the mesh I have from Eduard. All of this will also receive a primer before Alclad’s Gloss Black. So far I’m thinking these surfaces will get painted in the Alclad Semi matte Aluminum.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here’s a view that will be more commonly seen. The actuating arm for the radiator door is visible too.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I’ve also including some thin strips of brass rod to approximate the ribbing that I’ve seen in photos of this radiator wall. If you look close, in the walkarounds of Lightnings there are two on both the top and bottom of the radiator housing. This will be more evident after it’s primed. The shadow from it will show better… =]

22

Great work thus far bv, not sure what you mean by “stressed skin”. Your build makes me want to jump into the old Revellogram P-38.

23

that radiator looks great

24

Rambo: =D Thanks.

Reasoned: I’m actually borrowing the term from another. I’d seen a photo while digging thru something somewhere on Google and had come across a site discussing it and how to do it. Then, I found another site showing a similar but better looking (more user friendly too) method for showing this pattern of behavior from the panels that would get taken off and put on over and over again, as well as the wind speeds and friction beating up the “skin” of the plane as they stay riveted onto the framework of the plane. This is the site I referenced for the it:

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/stressedskineffectkh_1.htm

It’s not hard to pull off, but you do have to take your time with it. It’s a bit like cutting hair. You can’t put it back once you take it off. =]

Here’s a bit more that I was fooling with last night to try to finish up one of these booms.

If you look closely you can see a small gap between the boom and the radiator housing:

Screen Shot 2014-04-30 at 5.48.33 PM by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here’s my attempt. I made a small slice into it with my exacto blade and used the back side of it to widen it slightly:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Same on the front side of this:

p-38j-20-lo_44-23314_skidoo_34_of_57 by brittvallot, on Flickr

Mine:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

annnnd one more look at this boom together:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Hopefully, I can get the other one done tonight and get them both riveted so they can be married to the wings.

25

Nice to see you back on this one bvallot. I like your stressing technique. I see the clamshell seam is an issue on the Academy kit too. I don’t think its so much the kit design, but more of the plane’s design which makes these tricky builds. Careful with the booms for I hear they are tricky on this kit.

Joe

26

Glad to hear from you Joe! Yes, I forgot to include a picture of it here, but I spent a good 20 minutes taking care of the seam that runs on top and bottom of the boom. I’ll throw it in a later post. I wanted to ask you more about your thoughts on better navigating the booms to the wing. I really don’t want things to warp on me and tug things out of place.

27

Alright!! Got some work done. =]

I got the boom halves mated together and attached to the wing. I first set them up on the horizontal stabilizer/elevator. That way I was able to keep them perpendicular and prevent them from warping and twisting on the wing. Once they set, I used Tenax to attach them to the wing and followed up with a 2 part epoxy to ensure they stay put. =]

Here it is:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

For the intercooler intakes, I scratched out a bulkhead to hold the housing for the intakes. I realize that there isn’t a real bulkhead here and the housing doesn’t extend this far up, but seeing as none of it is visible I cut it to fit the area of the nacelle to allow for more contact to make it a stronger fit.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here’s a seam that needs fixin up:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

The panel here has been sanded and rescribed a little lower. There is also two panel lines that need to be extended to meet the front face of this engine nacelle:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

AM parts:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Happy to see these superchargers working out!

Comments, suggestions… =]

28

Okay! So, I’ve got everything riveted, sanded, and tweaked and then primed. It took a while to finally get here but I’ve finally got my Gloss Black coat on. =]

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Even got me a new cutting mat!

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I love laying down this gloss coat.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I’ll let this set over night. I’m still trying to figure out just what kind of metal scheme I’ll be doing for this lightning. Most likely Duraluminum over most of the wing surfaces…some Polished Aluminum in places…and Semi-Matte Aluminum to pick on certain high traffic areas.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Any other NMF P38 veterans out there?

29

Here’s a quick repost from the NMF Group Build page:

I managed to get a little painting done on one of the nacelles. Here I’m using the White Aluminum.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I’ve torn some Tamiya tape to mask off each panel briefly while I paint and I move from panel to panel that way. I’ll start painting in the middle of the panel and move the AB around while leaving a bit of the sides and corners alone some. I’ve found this helps the paint to look more like metal bending around the aircraft.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

On the bottom, I move a little more quickly and since I trust my hands I can paint a little haphazardly to fill in spaces as I find needed. I still taped off what I don’t want overspray on though.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

And that’s a wrap for the weekend. =]

30

Looking great Bvallot, especially the pit. reference the nose issue. I would’ve just squeezed it and then super glued it. The line could then be rescribed. Looks like you got it though. P-38’s are fun yeah?

Joe

31

Ha! yeah. It hasn’t been so bad actually. I have been reading into a lot of the issues with construction. Mostly trying to avoid the more common pitfalls. I tried not to rush too much and took care of what was needed for each step. Granted the cockpit was the only issue…so maybe I just got away with one this time. =]

32

I don’t see any issues with boom alignment. That looks great!. From what I recall, its the Hase kit that has boom issues and the Academy is easier in that regard. I could be wrong. I look forward to your NMF.

Joe

33

Tried to get as much done as I could tonight since I’ll be out of town through the weekend. As it happens, I almost couldn’t have done more to make a mess, spill paint, and gunk up my AB. =[

I did make some progress however. I got the other nacelle painted in White Aluminum just like the other side. The radiators were done in Polished Aluminum, but I will be masking these again and coming back over them in places with the White Aluminum as well.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here’s the top of the nacelle. Same as before…the inner panels will get a coat of OD Green later on.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I paint in the direction of how these panels would be riveted onto the frame of the aircraft. So far I’m very happy with how it turns out.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I’ve outlined more of this painting method in the NMF GB still going on as well as my 1:48 Tamiya Mustang WIP. I’ll go into a little more on the next post. =] That’s all for now.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome. =]

34

Nice work so far. Careful with masking over the highly polished Alclad. Its not as strong as the others and my pull up on you. Run the tape on you pantleg a few times so it loses some tackiness.

Joe

35

Thanks for the reminder Joe. I certainly know better, but it never fails…I start cruising along and it eventually happens. This time I was ready. =]

So I managed to get a lot done today. This update is a bit picture heavy. Some of this was a step by step process so I kept a few in-betweeners in here.

This is the upper surface mostly completed.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

As outlined before, I paint in sweeping motions in the same direction as the the rivets are riveted into the ribbing of the plane. This is done lightly at first until I find something I’m happy with or if I’m referencing a photo until it matches what I see. I may still go back on some of this as it nears completion.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

The lower surface.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Lower wing surface.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Finally got the nose painted. I followed the same pattern of masking and painting as before.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Detail of the upper surface. This will all get lightly buffed to assist in weathering. You don’t need to do it, but I found it helps to create the worn look of a warplane. Again…here less is more.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here’s a good view of how masking the big panels off and painting with the rivets can help to show more of the metallic characteristics. In the instance of the stressed skin, I think it’s working quite well with it. I do feel I could improve the stressed skin effect in it of itself. This was the first time trying this and I was fairly confident I could pull it off so I just went all in. I’m content with this attempt, but in the future I will try to smooth out some of these rougher edges.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here’s one thing I wanted to showcase. In virtually every NMF Lightning I’ve seen, they have this bend in the metal revealing a difference in shade on the door to the cannon bay. I’m not entirely sure why it occurs. Maybe somebody out there can fill in the blanks, but here what I’ve done is to lightly set up the metal tones on the door…then mask over the part I need darker and with the same Alclad shade I just paint the opposite area a little thicker. I use this same technique at various places on the wings as well. It’s an easy way to vary your panel shading without having to change Alclad colors. =]

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

And that’s where I’m stopping for tonight. I’m hoping to push through and get this wrapped up by the weekend. Just to recap, White Aluminum on the Nose and Middle undersurfaces, and booms/nacelles, hori/vert stablizors. Duraluminum on wings. Polished Aluminum on radiators and top of the pod. Helps to set if off away from the wings…purely an aesthetic choice.

Comments, critiques…

36

Outstanding work there!

37

Looking good, sir. I’ve not heard a single good thing about this kit. :stuck_out_tongue: You’re doing a bang up job though. The NMF is really nice on this one.

38

Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve heard anything good about any P-38 kit…lol. Very convincing NMF…Nice work.

Joe

39

I’m just now seeing this. Nice lookin’ P-38 so far!

40

Looks good thus far, very convincing looking NMF. Yeah, I’ve always been somewhat fascinated with the P-38 airframe and the success it had, I’d think it would have been less so. Multi-engined fighters had very limited success in WWII.