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Hobbyboss P-38L 1/48th 'Shady's Lady' (now Geronimo II) - FINISHED


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Knowing how slow a bulder I am (TV is in the other room major distraction issue) jumping in so late may be a bit of gamble, but after an impulse buy at Cosford I am going to give it a go.

The kit of choice here is the Hobbyboss P-39L in 1/48:

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My secret weapon here is that two piece fuselage/wing/tailboom assembly, which will speed things along and help me catch up - once I get to that stage. Because there is another hurdle to get over first:

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Yes I am going to try to wedge the Aires cockpit set in there...an exciting challenge or over-ambitious foolishness only time will tell. The reasoning behind it isn't hard, below is the kit cockpit floor with the True Details version and the Aires on the right. No contest really.

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Bought at the same time was Kagero's 'Pacific Lightnings'; this has eight rather attractive schemes, but I am probably going with Shady's Lady.

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Be warned I am not fast so posts will be irregular, but work has started in that the Aires floor is no removed from its casting block and has been test fitted into the top half of the fuselage, which has only served to warn me how much work will be required to close that that 5mm gap...

Edited by CheshireGap
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OK work has started..at first glance it looks as if the Aires cockpit will fit quite well

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But there is no way the fuselage is going to close

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I reckon there are at least 5mm to be lost somewhere; for starters the cockpit is sitting about 1.5mm too low, so the radio shelf will have to go and the front bulkhead will be sanded down until the cockpit sits at the right height. Then there is another 1.5mm to be lost from the cockpit floor which retains a chunk of its casting block. Finally I am convinced that the Hobbyboss nosewheel bay is too deep, it measures deeper than the Academy version by at least 2mm, plus the nose wheel, already bigger than the Academy wheel, fits entirely within the bay if a flat floor is placed above it: this is wrong, that bulge in the cockpit floor is to accommodate the top of the wheel. This means the wheel should fit into to bay ONLY by protruding into the cockpit space by a scale 8 to 10 inches, and only just clear the doors. Proof to my mind that removing 2mm from the depth is actually the correct thing to do.

Work has started on removing the excess off the floor and cutting out the radio shelf. Interestingly nobody seems to agree on the radio layout, below Aires, Hobbyboss and True Details versions, and I can confirm that the Academy version is different again - four cockpits, four different layouts!

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Welcome aboard.... and you're already off and running!!

WOW the wing/boom/fuselage assembly will make life a bit easier, very interesting concept.

The Aires cockpit is really lovely and I'm glad you are using it, though the fit as you have found out is "interesting" to say the least! I had to use wet-n-dry on mine and took it back to almost paper thin to get it to fit. The the instrument panel/cowling does sit too high and I had to trim it to get it to fit, I still have a little bit to go. You may get lucky by just really thinning the cockpit floor (just don't go through it!) to get it all to fit.

Removing the radio section too was a good idea, the new one is much nicer plus it may help in the end with the overall fit.

Well it's great to have you here in the build and you've made great progress straight out, do wish you good luck with the build and hope it's enjoyable.

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A little more progress to report: after much champferiing of the floor, the fuselage sides and not as much off the nosewheel bay at first thought, the cockpit now fits pretty well with the fuselage closed up, the starboard sidewall now sits perfectly, the port is riding a little high, but that can be dealt with in the final fitting.

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The Aires set provides the front coaming and a section of the upper fuselage to fit, matching the Academy set, but the Hobbyboss provides this as part of the windscreen, with no coaming supplied at all. I don't know if this is right for an -L or not, but I would rather use the Aires part than try to fill in the blank. It would need some work to fit, and then the , so using it whole and trying to trim a delicate transparent part to fit didn't appeal, so I decided to cut off the fuselage section and just leave the coaming and instrument shelf. Not the clearest photo, but I hope you can see what has been done

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Airbrush out and a coat of Gunze Interior green on all the major parts, after a good wash in soapy water; a slightly pebbly finish, but I am still getting used to a double action airbrush, and indeed acrylic paints, and after some of the screw-ups recently this has to go down as a successful session.

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In the end I decided that the finish was too pebbly after all, so it was out with the Universal Airbrush cleaner and a toothbrush to remove the first coat, and a second better coat laid down. Much detail painting, a Flory wash, lots of dry-brushing, some cockpit placards and a coat of matt, and the various sections of the 'pit were superglued together.

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A little more dry-fitting, and then the whole assembly goes into the top half of the fuselage along with lots of super-glue - now its going nowhere

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The remaining cockpit parts are underway, these will go in later in the build when there is less chance of damage.

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More work now shaving bits off the top of the wheel well and the bottom of the cockpit floor to ensure a good fit of the two fuselage halves; I am fairly satisfied they are pretty good now, but before they go together there are a few more things to be done: opening up the prominent shell ejection chutes (they simply don't exist on this kit), a new roof for the nose wheel bay and some detailing in the bay as a whole. Overall I am actually quite surprised, and pleased, by how far this has progressed

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Very nicely done!!! :thumbsup:

That cockpit looks great, you should be proud. As I mentioned those Aries cockpits are amazing and he's a good example of how they can look when painted up!

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Thanks Rich, they don't normally come out this good in my hands!

A little more prgress has been made...a new roof for the nose wheel bay and some weights are installed.

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Shell casing ejector chutes are competely missing on the Hobbyboss moulding, so these are drilled, squared off (well sort of square) and backed with a bit of card

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Then the landing lights in the wing are cut out as they are moulded solid - they will be boxed up later, not sure yet how I am going to do the glass but I have ideas of using clear tape...

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Finally we are ready to stick the halves together, so out with the pegs and glue...fit is okay, there are a few steps here and there which will cause some lost detail, so the scriber, which I have hardlyused before, is going to get some action.

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Found a couple of links about making landing lights not sure how easy it would be but here they are

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/headlights1/

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/headlights2/

Also found these but don't know if they would work

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/QB48407

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/MUDM48001

Your P-38 is looking good.

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you're progressing nicely with this one.

The easiest way I find to do landing lights is use a section of clear sprue, works for wing tip Nav lights as well. First off sand and polish flat one side of the clear sprue, then trim to fit the cutout. You want the still round section of the sprue to still be clear of the wings profile.

Next using a small drill (or the back of a ping that is really hot) make a small hole around the size of the landing light on the flat side where the light would be, try to do it slowly so you get a nice smooth hole. Then a drop of chrome silver paint (or similar) in the hole to represent the light and paint the surround per your reference material (surrounding the lamp it could be black, or green, or even silver, that part you need to check on.

Now glue this new "light" in place ensuring the "lamp" is centered in the wing, you should have clear sprue protruding from the wings profile. Now carefully sand back the clear sprue to match the wing profile, using finer and finer grit as you get closer to the wings profile, I like to us nail polishing stick once I get this close, at the end you should almost be polishing it, A coat of Klear or something will make it shine.

It sounds like a lot of work but it is quite quick and don't worry too much if you don't get a super clear finish. These wing mounted landing lights did loss there shine and "clearness" quite quick as they were only Plexiglas.

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Found a couple of links about making landing lights not sure how easy it would be but here they are

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/headlights1/

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/headlights2/

They are excellent links :thumbsup: , thanks for posting those, that's how I do wing tip lights. But those other tips are great.........going to steal those ones!! :D

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  • 3 weeks later...

So a week away and the usual heavy week of work that follows has put me behind, and some of the refinements I hoped to make are going to have to go on hold or be quietly forgotten about otherwise the deadline will be missed - I may return to the nose wheel bay after the main paint job but other stuff will probably just not get a look in.

Main assembly is complete and puttying, sanding and restoring surface detail is well underway.

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The main landing lights are boxed in now, lenses & covers will come later, perhaps using one of the tips offered above - thanks for those, guys!

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Once all the exterior is ready, next up will be adding the last of the cockpit detail (bar the seat which can wait till final assembly) and the masking up and adding front and rear canopy sections prior to priming - fortunately these both look like they fit well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

OK I have been falling behind somewhat on this, going on holiday and then only having an hour or so every couple of days has left me panicking a bit as to whether this one will make it; but progress has been made in the right direction over the last couple of days. We have masked the canopy and laid down some interior green on the outside, and tonight the Alclad gloss black base has gone on.

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Next up is the Alclad Airframe Silver, and trust me there is plenty of scope from this point for things to go hideously wrong - if Alclad isn't hard enough we have olive drab anti-glare panels and then lots of green & white striping on wings and tails, oh yes plenty of scope indeed...

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I too am looking forward to seeing her all silvery and shiny.......though she does look pretty mean in black!

I've never used Alclad before so am always impressed when somebody does...just looks great.

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It can look great, but not frankly in my clumsy hands...I tried to use Airframe Aluminium for a nice shiny finish and it has gone down awfully, leaving aside the spattering there are blooms on the finish. I think therefore a coat of white aluminium, which I used more successfully on my Ki-84 may have to come to the rescue, but first an evening of levelling off the surface with some 8000 micromesh...

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OK Shady's Lady is about to become Spirit of '76...basically the Alclad experiment has been a disaster...

First the Airframe Aluminium did this...

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I have no idea...googling suggested this might be humidity, but its June, how humid can it be? Don't answer that, this is Britain for gods sake...

So an attempt was made to rescue with White Aluminium which I used successfully before, but this somehow also went wrong and appears to have crazed the plastic underneath:

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I had hoped that this might fade under a coat of gloss, so persevered with the other colours, but things went worse, the Alclad appeared to repel the first layers of each colour (white, green, olive drab, so each looks frankly crap.

So its all coming off and being sanded smooth ready for an olive drab over grey finish, its going to be Spirit of '76 also from the Kagero sheet, but this in now a real race against time...

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Not too much Rich, but I guess there is one shortcoming - Spirit of '76 is not an -L so I wandering into what if territory rather than just chucking it all in the bin; I am going to continue to post and try to hit the deadline, but I will exclude myself from the vote as I am in breach of the rules.

So yesterday and today have been busy, after the disasters of the morning, lunch was spent with some ultimate airbrush cleaner, a toothbrush and a brillo pad...

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I actually quite like the look...Spirit of '76 is quite worn, so I rushed out to get a can of hairspray - this is a new technique for me so this could be fun - then on to a coat of neutral grey and this time a different tactic, very thin paint layered on gradually, it took flipping ages but seems to work.

On with the masking:

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Then out with the Xtracrylix Faded Olive Drab, same approach thin paint layered on slowly, the better part of 45 minutes work before it is eventually opaque enough all over, but it is smooth

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Masking is off and you know what it looks ok...

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that finish looks floorless, well done!

How much difference is there between this model and "Spirt of 76"?

At the very least I'll let you put it into the galley, I'd like to see every build finished and posted, unfortunately mine won't make it there due to not being finished in time. As for voting, we'll worry about that when the time comes around.

keep going you're doing well now!

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