america heros: The lightning

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

As the corsair is near complete and the hetzer having some prolem, i decided to move from the “dark side” and work on my P-38 lightning by Revell.

cockpits almnost done, but I need to confirm the colors and details are right.

Made great progress, windows are cleaned by futur and are almost ready for masking.

This one will be converded into the pathfinder version (tactic bomber) which has a compartment at the nose, already painted it alumium laqueder.

and finally the top of the aircraft is looking good too.

Comments are welcome, thank for viewing.

2

Looking good so far, keep us posted.

Darwin, O.F. [alien]

3

She’s lookin really good to me! What colors do you have in the cockpit? Keep us posted!

4

nice work on the Fork Tailed Devil, T-Rex. Keep up the good work.

5

The nose is the only reason that I have never done the droop snoot from that kit. I am interested to see your results in getting everything lined up and smooth in the front while keeping the glazings clear. I still say that this one is one of my all time favorite kits though.

6

Looks like a good job so far on a tough kit. In my earlier modeling days, I tried to build one of these, but it was a mess. the kit is really not that great, but you are doing a great job so far.[tup]

7

Looks like you are doing a fine job to me, Trex! Please keep the prog pics coming as you go! This is kind of a pig of a kit, but with some patinece and care, turns out to be a very nice a/c, and you are well on the way!

Brian [C):-)]

8

Darg, Revell dosen’t say much about color referance of the cockpit, whats the clor for the interieur, this is what I got so far.

Seat belts will be added later (made from tape and styrene sheet) but need to make sure that everything is going alright. And its a total pain masking all the windows[banghead].

Until next time, will be paint it alumium Lacqued.

9

I build one last summer and convertd it to the F5 photo recon. The fit of most of the parts leaves alot to be desired. But if you do not mind adding alot of putty and then sanding everything back to the correct shape see can turn into a nice kit. I do not know if the pathfinders carried different interior colors but i believe zinc chromate green should be correct with the modified areas left in bare aluminum. here is my F5

Soulcrusher

10

you should find this little piece of research interesting:

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/02/stuff_eng_interior_colours_us_part2.htm

11

Alright, thanks for the refences, I read it over and got the colors right ( Paint instruction were wrong, Revell says the seat and some control panels should be OD, yet referance says it interieur green).

Modefying to Pathfinder

The Pathfinder version isn’t as difficlut as it seems, but it does it some work, first the nose is shorted, some detail that only nightfighter/fighter has must be sand out, the door that normaly cover the 4 MG have to have a hole cut out for the widow (as so below) and of course no MG’s instead a figure in a seated position.

Pathfinder version are use for Reconnision and Tactic bombing but if they get spoted by the enemy, well there just about srewed cause they got nothibg to fight back.

Masking is just about done on mine, but I need to make the cockpit more detail, it just looks to plain, and toy like, how do you make the details show in the cockpit and How.

Box cover

Thanks for posting

12

Uh-oh, it seem that this Revell kit doesn’t include details in the landing gear interieur, in fact there nothing. Why did they do that [%-)]

Also there a stick at the back of the aircraft, just under the tail, is that suppost to stay?

13

This kit dates back to an era when such details weren’t considered “important” to many model manufacturers. At least it has open bays - at one time, landing gear bays weren’t even attempted, they were solid where the opening should have been.

I would think that this is a prop to make the model stand on all three wheels. If it’s possible to put enough weight in the nose to balance the model, you can lose the prop.

14

That thing usually requires a fair amount of weight to keep it on the nose gear. It may be a bit of a challenge to do this with a droop snoot but I think that it is possible.

Just a note about about the F-5’s and the droop snoots being defensless. I have read a couple of references that claimed that the top two .50’s were retained by some in order to keep from being totally helpless, I have not seen photos of this configuration though. I can see this being done easily enough in the F-5 but have a hard time imagining it in a pathfinder.

15

It’s fairly easy to add bulkheads and internal details to the Main Gear Bays. The little stick at the back is the boarding ladder for the P-38 and should be there, down if you’re doing gear down.

I have built this kit several times. Watch the fit at the top of the boom to wing joint. It can be a PITA to ge tit right. Also there are sink marks on top of the cowling that need attention, but it’s easy to fill them, just watch that you don’t change the shape of the cowl ( I found that out the hard way). The kit has its faults, but its nothing that can’t be overcome. The oil cooler fairings on the back of the booms should have some type of screen or other filler in them to keep them from being see through. I filled the fronts of the booms with weight to keep it from tail sitting and got rid of that ridicoulous post thats molded on to the tail. You’ve got a good start on it it looks like. I painted the interior Zinc Chromate Green and then washed it super thin Olive Drab, picked out the detailby dry brushing with an appropriate color. I would post some pictures of the last one I built, but I don’t have a means of taking any.

[oX)]

16

Hey, BRO!

…separated at birth possibly? Ha!

Nice work so far… That’s a 1/32 Scale, correct? I’ve got the same kit (unbuilt) with the late repackaging (no droop snoot)…

I want to do a Pacific Theater of Operations NMF fighter…

Oh one detail that I often see NOT done right is the large doors on each side of the nose nacelle. These doors in photographs show differences to the surrounding skin from handling with oily hands, being in the “UP” position for long periods causing extra sun bleaching, and nuances of contrast that is often ignored on model minatures… Just an FYI

17

When I built it, I coulda sworn the instructions said to chop that off if you weight the nose… otherwise it’ll be sitting on it’s tail. I’m pretty sure it’s not a ladder or anything part of the real plane.

I actually put weight where the engines usually are to give it a more friendly feel when I pick it up and fly it around the room :wink:

18

That stick as shown in the photo is NOT the boarding ladder. As others have said, it’s to keep the model on three wheels.

19

Lots of progress has been done this week end, see for your self.

Started by finishing the cockpit, I started by dry brush dark yellow (for dirt) then heavily thinned flat black to make the details come out, and finaly dry brush metalique grey.

When I’ve added the front of the canopy I notice a massive hole that needed to be covered, syrene sheet to the rescue.[angel]

looking good, but thats not all, I’ve also stuffed the engine room with pennies to even the weight of the plane front.

I can’t beleive I almost forgot the back of the cockpit, no provblem it fit in place now.

Now that the cockpit is done it save to add the canopy.

Pathfinder is fully assemble, here you see I mask the canopy, and windows, the landing gear are mask and base coat is ready to be applied.

But first I need to should the interieur color of the canopy frame, in the April issue of FSM Luciano weather a P-47 also bare metal, I’m use many of the same thecnique that he use on this build. Rader that painting the frame inside, i’m painting them outside, this is also good to fill gaps of the Canopy windows.

Not for the painting I’ll be useing Tamiya’s Lacqueder paint, Alumium gloss of course, and it looks stunning…

Unfortunatly things didn’t go as plan (they never do) for those anti-glare OD bars on the nose and engine, the maskin didn’t hold up completely but it was easy to wipe it off the asses with thinner. but some colors like red, blue, and yellow, I only had in enemal, and as you can see the masking didn’t hold up, I can’t applied the futur coat until another coat of alumium is applied but I just rand out, and the landing gear will have to be details.

I hope the canopy mask hold up to the lacqueder, but for now I go out thing to attend to.

It is looking good, and is almost done, hopefully it will make it to the contest.

20

I was talking about the one under the back of the pod. The “stick” on the tail must go though.