I built the Academy P-38 that has many different versions, Putt Putt Maru being on the box art. I bought Glacier Girl by the same maker last fall and finally got around to starting it a few days ago. I had to toss it. Fit on the booms to wings was near impossible. This really po’ed me as I love the P-38 and it cost 30 bucks at least. I went right out and bought the Revell-o Gram P-38 for under 15 bucks and it was going great until the canopy. So I traded one POS for a not as much POS. What is the best kit out there for this great plane? I have the old 1/32 Revell which I have yet to tackle. I sure wish Tamiya made one, I know it would fit properly. Thanks.
I wouldn’t knwo how to “rank” it, but the Hasegawa kit is pretty nice. The detail is excellent and the fit is good. I’ve read reviews that the fit on the Academy is a little better, but I haven’t tried one myself.
I dont know what the best kit is but I do know another that is a pain in the butt. I started building the Pro Modeller (re-boxed Hasegawa) P-38 by detailing the cockpit with PE parts and thought I did a pretty good job. Then came the same problem you had. after cementing the booms to the wings..poor fit..I dry fitted the tail plane and found the booms were uneven..one pointing a little North and the other South. After fiddling around for an hour, I had to walk away from it. Nothing more frustrating than not being able to get those booms even!! Im gonna give it another shot. hopefully I won`t be chucking it in the trash. Good luck Zar…Len
Unfortunatly no one makes a good kit of the P-38 in 1/48. There are three The Hasegawa Monogram and the Academy. They are all difficult to build with nasty gaps around the wing to boom areas. I build the Trumpeter 1/32 P-38 and the fit on that kit was horrible also. The old Monogram kit goes together easy enough and everything lines up ok there are just big gaps in areas that are hard to reach and difficult to fix.
Soulcrusher[oX)]
Maybe the P-38 is just a difficult plane for the model makers to get right? It’s too bad. The cheap Revell had a good fit on the booms to wings but the front of the plane and canpy got real dicey. It turned out acceptable enough. I’ve seen one by Minicraft lately, wonder how that one is?
I’m pretty sure the Minicraft is just a reboxing of the Academy kit wih different markings.
Soulcrusher[oX)]
Judging from the responses, it would seem that the RevelloGram is the best.
If ALL have bad fit issues, then the least expensive is by default the best.
Don’t forget, this is 40% off coupon week at HL, so the P-38 will be even less expensive.
Regards, PWB.
I like the Monogram kit, there are some fit issues, but nothing the average modeler can’t solve.
I’ve built the Academy P38J (I think) and P-38M, and several Revellogram Lightnings… IMNSHO, the Monogram/Revell kit is the best, warts and all, when you consider price as part of the equation… I’ve never done it in the NMF though, always camouflaged it with OD over Neutral Grey… The Monogram cockpit is alright, but the Academy “office” seems to be a bit more accurate… One thing I’ve noticed on P-38 builds is that there’s a few out there that didn’t know the P-38 side windows roll up and down (It can’t be flown with the windows down though, due to severe buffeting issues), rather than drop down flat onto the wing root, and that the “No Step” stencil should be visible when the window’s down…
FWIW, I’ve bought two more Revell Lightnings (The aforementioned HL 40% coupon knocked the price down to nine bucks and some change) and plan one to be the CAF Lighting, “Scatterbrain Kid”,
and the other as CAF Co-founder Lefty Gardner’s “White Lightning”…
Whoa Hans! Thanks for that picture of “White Lightning”. That is one good looking aeroplane!
I have three P-38s in my hangar. All by Academy. I did not encounter any problems in the built. Could the booms might have been warped? I agree with you the Fork-Tailed Devils is an interesting aircraft.
I have built the Revellogram, Hasegawa and Academy kits. All can have problems with the booms. The key for me is taking my time and taping pieces in place before the glue goes on. I fiddle around and tweak pieces until I find the best overall fit. There always seeme to be a gap or two at the joint with the wing but doing it this way helps me to keep the booms even and the stabilizer straight. I have seen some who build a jig for this but I find that a calibrated eyeball does a good enough job.
My all time favorite is the Revellogram kit because of the variety of options included in the kit. If you plan on doing the standard gun nose, there can be some fit issues with the bay doors. If you choose the pathfinder option, this will not be an issue. The raised detail on this kit is a bonus. The P-38 didn’t have all of those flush rivets like most of its contemporaries, so the heavy surface detail on this kit helps it to capture the look a little better.
I have fewer overall fit issues with the Academy kit and I prefer it if I am not going to be doing any cutting on the kit. It has more detail included in the kit and for me it is the closest that any P-38 has ever come to falling together.
I don’t care for the Hasegawa kit because the booms seem a little too thick. In other respects, I like it about as much as the Academy kit but I do seem to have to fiddle with the booms a little more.
Well, I fixed my Pro Modeller kits problem...bent the heck out of the booms over the stove until everything was straight! Tried everything else and that was the last resort...and..I gotta say..itlooks pretty good. Shouldnt have to go to those extremes though to build a decent looking P-38.
All the 48th scale P-38’s have build problems. Seems I read a few years ago that the P-38 has proven to be one of the hardest airplanes to engineer in model form. Most of the problems seem to fall in the boom to wing area which seems to be very difficult to engineer properly. I’ve built Hasagawa, Monogram and Academy over the years and found the same problems in each version. The last one I built a few years ago was the Academy P-38E which seemed to go together fairly well. I’ve found that with models like these you need to trial fit a lot, work slowly and pay close attention to detail. Eventually the model will start to come together. Over the years I’ve really only found one or two completely unbuildable models and for those I usually managed to salvage something. LTD models come to mind but in their defense they had pretty good decals. RickM
I am currantly building a 1/48 Revell P-38J for the NMF group and havent had too much trouble with it. I plan on finishing it with foil. I did have to do quite a bit of filling and sanding and got lucky, didnt lose too much detail… so far [:)] I didnt like the crystals at all, so got a vacuformed one from Squadron solved that problem. My real worry now is the nose, I am doing the fighter version and see some problems there with the bay doors, they dont fit so good, Hopefully I will be able to figure something out to fix that problem. All in all I dont really think it is a bad kit, that could be because I am used to working on the older kits, I do find it a bit easier than the P-61 but not by much. Was at Michaels today and almost got another one, 9 bucks with a 50% coupon, just cant beat that price for a bit of fun.
For what it’s worth, I remember reading that one of the issues with the 1:1 P-38 was a relatively long, complex build process. Too many compound curves!
I have built several of these kits and I have had some that fit well here and some that didn’t. My best advice for this one is to take your time fitting the parts before committing to glue. This area is actually pretty easy to re-scribe if things don’t work out as well as you plan. Sometimes some creative bending helps. If you are going to keep the bay closed, you might try gluing a lip on the inside of the bay for the door to glue to.
It is challenges like this that make me love this kit!
Thats a good idea Screaminhelo I hadnt thought of gluing a lip in, thanks. I too like the older kits for both price and the challange, after all I build to keep my mind and hands busy, and for the fun. I havent tied scribbing yet but wil have to give it a shot one day.
A few years ago I built the Hasegawa P-38 had nothing more then minor fit issues but I really liked the end result. THe thing about the P-38 is there are alot of things to align before you glue.
Didn’t realize until after I took the picture of all the dust. Oops JOHN
Randy
The nose of that kit is just about the only thing that I can scribe successfully. If you have some fairly thin sheet brass that you can use as a guide, it is fairly simple. The sides are close enough to flat that you can often use a steel rule as a guide. One thing that you can do to make this easier is to try and get your best fit at the top and avoid destroying the rivet detail up there.