Minicraft P-38J Lightning

[Glorfindel]

So I've been kicking this around for a while simply because I like the airframe. Minicrafts 1/48 scale P-38J Lightning. Two booms, short fuselage, sort of a retro WWII Y wing fighter.

The kit comes with three markings options for which I'm still undecided on. Not a whole lot of parts on this and the details are a bit soft. Panel lines appear a touch rounded over and don't have that definition that you look for. I'm going to try my hand at re-scribing most if not all of these panels lines with some Dymo and a flexible straight edge like a Hasagawa tool. I didn't take any tree pics...sort of went straight to working on the landing gear bays. They looked kind of blah so I spruced them up a bit with some added styrene strips and brass wire for cables.



After.



Assembled the booms and installed the wheel bays. Also painted them Interior Green. These I'll detail paint and weather later. I'm liking the way they came out. The booms on the other hand took a bit of work. Each one had noticeable seam lines that I still need to attend to and clean up some more. Most is done but I'm getting finicky with the seams. Guess that's a good thing.



Also banged out the cockpit and dry fitted it. Really not much to this cockpit. I built it OOB and added seat belts fashioned from masking tape and turned LED leads for the buckles. I then touched them with a bit of Tamiya Buff for a cloth-like appearance.




Then it was on to some fun with a dry fitting of the cockpit tub into the fuselage. So far it looks like a good fit. Also the instructions call out for a decal with gauges and dials to be placed on the dash but there is no supplied decal in the box. I therefore made my own and placed that on instead. Went through all that trouble and it can't even be seen in the fuselage. At least I know it's there.






That's it for tonight. Thanks for checking her out.

 

[Chris S]

Niiice ;D Great work there Anthony ,the scratched up parts really help it too .There is some nice ole Warbirds being built on the site now Looking forward to this one coming together .

Chris.

 

[JMac]

Nice start Anthony. Are you doing the scheme on the box or maybe a natural metal finish? I'd like to know what you think of the Minicraft kit also as you go, especially the decals (mine did not react very much to the decal solvent I was using).

Jason

 

[Junkie]

Looks good. Nice work adding the detail in there.

 

[Glorfindel]

Thanks guys. Jason I'm most likely doing a paint scheme other then the metallic finish. I've never used the Alclad before and there will be plenty of seam work around the fuselage and booms. As you well know the Alclad shows all the imperfections dramatically if their not taken care of properly. But you say the decals acted funny in your decal solvent. What did you use? I have the Set/Sol on the bench but can switch gears to Wet Future instead.
As far as the kit so far I think the details (panel lines) look a bit soft in my opinion but it's such a cool design for WWII I love it anyway. I think the seat and roll bar plastic is too thick because it appears chunky in the cockpit. And of course the cockpit could use better details OOB with out going to AM. Thanks for the interest.

 

[Quaralane]

Reminds me of another build I want to do.
Yours looks like it's coming along well, so far

 

[Glorfindel]

OK, it's been a while since I did anything to this due to work and laziness on my part, but I decided to jump in at it again. Most is together with the exception of the landing gear, nose guns, canopy, drop tanks (optional) gear doors, and props. All of that stuff is still sitting attached to their trees. So over the last week I puttied, sanded, first coat of primer (which showed all my hack* marks) used some Mr. Surfacer 500, sanded again, re-scribed about 1/3 of the panel lines, sanded again and finally a finish coat of primer. Here we go.

Second coat of primer with Tamiya Surface primer, Gray.



A little pre shade using the Createx Black Air Brush paints. Is that stuff meant to be used straight out of the bottle? It lays down with spider webbing like no tomorrow but maybe because I thinned it with alcohol and perhaps your not supposed to do that. Anyway....


A coat of Flat Aluminum followed by hairspray. I'm going for some chipping along the front edge of the panel lines on the top and bottom of the fuselage. Can't wait to start this!!!


Color call outs say Olive Drab so there it is with two/three drops of Flat White mixed in to bring it to scale. This Olive Drab lays down dead flat! I like it!!



Now in the last pic you can see the inside of those little air intakes that there is un-painted plastic in there. Had I known that was going to happen I would have painted those before completing assembly on the booms. But in person you can't see in there so it looks dark as night. That's it for now.

 

[adampolo13]

looks great man, really impressive work, all that work sanding and re-scribing really paid off.

 

[rookie]

Good call lightening up the olive drab, looks spot on. If you look at my Glacier Girl, it's way to dark once the clear is applied.

Looking forward to the chipping, did your use hairspray on the whole thing or just around the areas you want to chip ?

 

[Glorfindel]

Thanks guys. Yeah rook the Olive Drab looked so dark after my first coat I decided I needed to bring it up a bit to help with the scale. I think I added 3-4 drops of flat white to the drab and mixed it with a tooth pick in the AB cup. It lightened the surface up ever so slightly. So far I'm happy with the results.

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

Looks great so far, I like the shade of your OD for the scale.

In the future though, you might want to use something like light flesh (or similar) to lighten OD (or any color really). White can be overly harsh and really rob the color your mixing into, where as something like light flesh is still a 'warm' color and will perform much better.

8)

 

[rookie]

Great tip Ken , one I haven't heard of but makes a whole lot of sense. It's going in the bank!

 

[TBadger]

The Createx paint works best on an absorbent surface....every time I tried to use it, thinned or not, I had spider webbing like crazy on plastic and none on a chunk of terra cotta or paper.

 

[Glorfindel]

Looks great so far, I like the shade of your OD for the scale.

In the future though, you might want to use something like light flesh (or similar) to lighten OD (or any color really). White can be overly harsh and really rob the color your mixing into, where as something like light flesh is still a 'warm' color and will perform much better.

8)

I kid you not....I had a jar of Deck Tan in my hand and weighed it against the white and played a game of enie-meanie-minie-mo in my head and the white won. That is an excellent tip, and one that I will remember.

The Createx paint works best on an absorbent surface....every time I tried to use it, thinned or not, I had spider webbing like crazy on plastic and none on a chunk of terra cotta or paper.

Man that would explain alot! This is the second time I've used the Createx to pre shade and it happened the first time too. I was wondering if it was something I did or if it was the Air Brush both times. Thanks TBadger, next time I pre shade cinder blocks I'll give you a call.

 

[billb]

Such a cool looking aircraft.
Nice work on it too!

 

[Chris S]

Nice to see this on the go again Anthony ....Nice work too my man .I likes the OD too , in addition to what Ken said ,I like to use Buff to lighten as well .

Chris.

 

[Eclipseone]

Looks awesome, excited to see it complete!

 

[Glorfindel]

billb, Eclipseone, thanks for the comments guys.
Chris always an honor to have you aboard Sir.
A lot of pics today so I hope that's OK. Spent the better part of the day with the AB and making beef stew. Fun with both!
So today I finished masking and painted the fuselage and some of the appendages.










A quick in post wheel masking tutorial.








Base coated parts.


And the chipping has begun!



I think I got carried away with the chipping but I'm enjoying it. I think much of it is going to get covered up with washes and weathering. Haven't touched the canopy yet and I need to put more weight in the nose. The radio deck behind the pilot seat came out anyway so I can slip some weight in to the nose without a hitch. Should be an easy fix.








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[rookie]

Niiiice ;D

 

[Chris S]

Loving the chips Anthony ....Looks great mate .

Chris.