The wheel wells were painted Testors’ chromate yellow which were given a light wash of black and rust. The two copper wires were painted blue and glued in place with epoxy.
Weights need to be added to the nose to prevent the plane from sitting on its tail. I added a plastic bag filled with fishing sinkers on the bottom of the fuselage and solid weights to the top of the fuselage. I always write the word “weights” inside of the model so I don’t forget to add weights. The cockpit was painted with Tamya cockpit green and Testors’ flat black with silver highlights. The seatbelts are from Eduard.
Lots of clamps were used to hold the two parts of the fuselage together while the glue dried.
Looking sweet! IIRC,when I researched mine, the gear bays were either neutral grey or sprayed aluminum lacquer from the factory.That’s not to say some couldn’t have been sprayed ZC at some point. It still looks great! How did the frame fit? Looks like you got it licked.
I took the clamps off and the airframe is straight as can be[:D] Everything looks to be in proper alaignment.
Nice tight seams. The two halves of the airframe slid a little out of alaignment at the right boom and to the left of the cockpit. Additional alaignment pins would have prevented this. A little putty and sanding will fix this. Overall, the two sides of the airframe went together really well.
I should have spent more time reading . Early P-38’s had their cockpits painted Interior Green. Later versions had their cockpits painted Chromate Yellow Primer. The photos below are of a “J” versiion.
My model is a P-38LO and I painted its cockpit green. Oooops! It should have been painted yellow. Better luck next time.
The “P-38 Walk Around” document also mentioned that factory specifications required that the interior of the airframe was painted CYP, including the interior of the wheel wells. Well, I got that one correct. Most restored P-38’s have the wheel wells painted aluminum or silver.
The filling and sanding of the seam between th two fuselage parts went pretty fast. The anti-glare panel was painted flat black. Eventually I’ll do some weathering to it. I like the look of the PE seatbelts. Next up is adding the Bare Metal Foil.
Now comes the tedious part of this build, applying Bare Metal Foil. The foil needs to be applied to each panel separately. The result will be a relistic looking panel joint that does not need to be highlighted. A detailed look at how I apply foli can be found here: http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/13/t/179536.aspx
Before applying tha foil I taped over the cockpit and the painted nose so that they would not be damaged during the foiling process. I also painted the wingtips because it is difficult wrapping foil around curved surfaces. I may foil those anyway.
The foiling process started at the tail. After the foil was applied, it was given a single stroke with steel wool. Rivets were aded to complete the task. I have a feeling that it is going to take a long time to foil this model. There are numerous, small, odd shaped panels on the fuselage, especially around the main wings and engine nacelles.
Very cool. Looking forward to seeing how your foil turns out. I’ve often wanted to try it myself but never knew if they’re were varying qualities of it…which ones might work better depending on your subject.
There are a number of companies that make adhesive backed metal foil. The only one that really works for foiling airplanes is Bare Metal Foil. The other brands are just too thick and have too much of a shine. Some modelers make thair own foil by applying “foil adhesive” onto aluminum foil. I have never had much luck doing that. The most economical way to purchase Bare Metal Foil is to buy it directly from the company.
I’m not sure of the correct colour of the cockpit but what you’ve got looks pretty [cnsod] fine to me!
And nice to see how well everything lined up. Good luck with the foil, I think it’s probably the best looking NM finish but I always chicken out and just use Alclad II…
I’ve always been happy with how Alclad looks on my stuff. I’ve had problems before but it’s always the undercoat, not the Alclad itself- the undercoat has to be perfect or any blemishes stick out like a sore thumb.
On the other hand nothing looks more like metal than real metal, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the foil works for you.
Cool, seems to me the fuse and booms would be the hardest part to foil considering the complex curves as opposed to the flat surface of the wings and tail planes.
Okay, I’m finally making some progress. The foil on the top of one wing is finished.
After I applied the foil I used a round toothpick to enhance each rivet and the seams at the panel lines. One of the things that I like about foil is that the molded-in details remain crisp. Sometimes paint softenes the edges of the details.
