Hello all! I just completed this wonderful kit and as promised in another thread, I would like to share a few photos. But first, I have to say, these Tamiya engineers are on top of their game with this kit, as I’m sure most of you already know. I had 0 fit issues. My only problem came when removing the Eduard canopy masks on completion. Much of the narrow frame paint came up with the masks, so I opted to hand brush the repairs. I’m wondering if the paint didn’t want to stick because I had first dipped the clear parts in pledge?
So the only aftermarket accessories I used were said Eduard canopy masks, decals, their photo etched seat belts, and prepainted instrument panel. The rest was OOB. Paint was rattle can Tamiya OD and Neutral Gray on upper and lower surfaces, with interior green out of the AB for cockpit and wheel bays (I know, I know, from a historical standpoint, the wheel bays should have been painted in neutral gray as well, but I had already done the nose wheel bay in green and installed it before I found this out. So consider this artistic license. Besides, I rather like the green!). I did not do much weathering besides oil wash and exhaust staining because I liked the way she looked as is and didn’t want to ruin her with my increasing, but still low-level skills. I’m still learning after taking a 50 year break from modeling and will try to do more on future kits.
The scheme I chose is Maj. Joseph Myers’ “Journey’s End”. I chose his mount because he was based at Nuthampsted, England, where my father happened to be based as well (My dad was a bombardier aboard a B-17). Myers had a long career in the Air Force, retiring as Brigadier General. He had the distinction of being the first pilot to shoot down a jet aircraft in WW2 (an Me 262). Hope you enjoy the pics. Thank you!
Nice work on the Lightning. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I added all three of the Tamiya Lightning variants to my stash despite knowing how much shelf space a single P-38 requires.
She really turned out great Bin! Ugh, yeah my luck with Eduards masks are meh…
Thats why I usually use a liquid mask and my results are a lot better (knock on wood).
Love the back story on this too! Thank you for sharing!
Yes, Aggieman, I set on my shelf along with the others I have finished and it seems to be the same footprint as the AD-47 and the Mosquito, both of which I thought were ginormous.
Thank you fxsti03-42 and Butz. I’ve used the liquid mask (ABT by AK) a couple of times without great success. Do you paint on more than one coat? To be honest, I’ve had better luck just doing it by hand using Tamiya tape and a new #11 blade.
Nice job, I’ve got it in my stash also. I’m leaning towards a ‘Marge’ build myself when I build it. I’ve got McGuire’s ‘Pudgy IV’ markings on a Revell 1/32 Lightning from twenty or so years ago and if I can ever rebuild my damaged Trumpeter 1/32 Lightning I’ll do ‘California Cutie’.
Great looking model of my favorite aircraft.
Thanks, Adrian. Once the build was finished, I have had a hard time taking my eyes off of it. Not because of my work, but the real plane it represents is just such a marvelous and beautiful piece of engineering. I find my mind wandering to the stories I used to read as a kid, vividly imagining the pilots’ exploits while jockeying these, and all the other great fighters in that war. When you stop and think about it, it boggles the mind that airplane technology had progressed that far only 40-ish years after the first powered flight.
Looks great!! I built the earlier version of this kit. This is by far the best P-38 kit out there (IMHO). This kit practically builds itself. Great Job Binspin
Thank you, waikong. I have not built the Hasegawa version, so I can’t comment. I have a couple of their other kits, though, including an F-86F, which I plan to build soon. However, right now I am going to build a pair of PT-17 Stearmans out of Revell kits I have had for a while. One navy and one army version. By all accounts, the kits are supposed to be great. I’m just waiting for some EZ line for the rigging, and a couple of now hard-to-find Eduard PE sets.
Great job. I recently became a docent at the National Museum of WWII Aviation here in Colorado Springs. Tamiya’s P-38F is based on the museum’s “White 33”, a fully restored, flying P-38 that was dug out of a hole in New Guinea in the nineties. I have learned some interesting things about the P-38:
There is a flare ejection tube located in the rear of the right boom. Apparently, it is there to allow a pilot with trouble (i.e., wounded, aircraft systems damaged, etc.) and no radio to provide a distress signal to an airfield upon which he needs to land. Also, I suppose flares could be used to indicate position of an aircraft that might be separated from a formation or is a lead aircraft that others will form up on. If you look closely at Tamiya’s model, they have accurately reproduced this flare port (don’t know if it is present on the Hasegawa or Academy kits).
The P-38’s props are counter-rotating and gear-driven. Some of us docents were speculating that the counter-rotation was achieved via some gearing arrangement, similar to the reverse gear on an automobile. But in talking with the Westpac people who restored White 33, we learned that the counter rotation is achieved simply by having the starter motors spin in opposite directions. Leave it to Lockheed and Kelly Johnson to come up with a rather elegant solution!
