This bad boy got restashed about 6/7 years ago. At the time, I got myself in a little deeper than my skills could get me out of. It’s time to get this big ole box out of the stash and get this plane on the wall! It’s gonna take a bit of work to bring this 1/24 Airfix kit up to snuff, but I think I can make it happen now! Here’s where I left off.
IP is hand painted.
I’ll have to do a bit of repainting around the engine (mounts for one).
The point where I thought I was in over my head, was after I cut off the flap, and wanted to make some sort of wheel/gear wells. Seems like childs play now! Got a simple start on the bay.
1/24 Airfix? I saw that sitting on a shelf in a LHS while I was away at school…I grinned, looked at my wife… who wasn’t grinning. [:(] Had no place to put it in the apartment then, really no place to put it now either. Someday maybe, in the meantime I’ll have to model vicariously through fermis!
I got this kit from Squadron for $20, at least 10 years ago. The decals are still in great shape, although, I may be painting the markings, or at least some. I did another one about 12 years ago, along with the P-51 and I remember the decals being the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. It will be an “E” of some #. I’m not really up on all the varients of each varient. The extent of my knowledge is the major varients, “E” “F” “G”. So, this will not likely be totally accurate…whatever!!! I’ll enjoy it, and I hope ya’ll do to! If I see another at a vendor table, I’m gonna snatch it up, I love this kit!
Slowly progressing. Most of the tough and tedious are out of the way now!
I used a flat carpenters pencil and left over P-38 aileron to make a master for the gear portion of the well.
I thermoformed the piece over the pencil.
A few shims to keep the piece up where it needed to be. I also scraped the edges of the opening to make space for the extra plastic.
Piece in place, you can also see the replaced rivets, tiny dabs of CA.
Molded in exhausts. It would have been much easier to do what I did before having things partially assembled!!!
I cut a long strip of Arizona Sweet Tea can, and scored it where the bends would be. It took a bit of trial and error to make a master copy, then used that to make 12 more.
In place.
For the flaps, I added layers of styrene for the upper, forward edge, and sanded to shape.
I realized…too late, that I screwed up with the panel in front of the canopy. It’s supposed to be all one single panel between the front cowling and the canopy. Oh well, I’ll know better next time!
The Spit is Airfix, that 51 is HobbyCrafts boxing of Trumps kit(got it for $40 at Hobby Lobby 10ish yrs ago), my Airfix 51 is hanging from the ceiling.
