Eduard 1/48 P-38J - Lightnings Over Europe - out of box review build

[Chris Jephcott]

Following on from Mike's review here: here - I'm going to attempt to make the Eduard 1/48 P-38J "Lightnings Over Europe" boxing.

It's a bit of a muddle at the moment as have had the girlfriend making me write Christmas cards all day (and all other manner of boring tasks!) - so I haven't quite got my mancave fully in order following from the last build, however, I'll be hoping to start this one over the next couple of days and will post photos as soon as possible.

Initial impressions are excellent though and I'm looking forward to getting my grubby mits, well, grubby, on this one!!

Right then, a nice 4am start calls tomorrow. Urgh!

[Chris Jephcott]

Ok, the first job of the day was to have a look at this... and much to my horror, I'm missing 2 pieces!

The seat has gone walkabouts and as has the joining piece - R17 and R18 respectively. Which means that we're off to an excellent start here... I've contacted Eduard to see if they can possibly help out! However, if anyone else can, I'd be very interested to hear from you!!

In the meantime, it's back onto the shelf and ready to go again for another 4am start tomorrow!

[smuts]

Andy

[perdu]

Don't hog the popcorn Andy, pass me a few handfuls

I will be sticking around here too Chris

Good luck, time you had some

b

[Chris Jephcott]

Hi Chaps, well, thank you very much for the good wishes! - And an even bigger thanks to Andy Keane (smuts), who has stepped in with the two missing parts until Eduard send me their replacement bits...

You'll be delighted to know that I've made a start on it now - and the girlfriends' family are on their way over now too, to put a real damper on the progress that I can make on my two days off!

However, here goes...

Starting off with the obligatory Eduard box shot:

The first thing that I would say about this kit is the size of the casting blocks (as referenced by this photo from Mike!):

I can't recall making a kit that has just such huge blocks for the resin in any way, shape or form. This led to a massive process of sanding, filing, sawing and the occassional strong word as the saw slipped and went into my finger. I would strongly advise caution though when removing the seat from the block - the very nature of it makes it wafer thin and a cut too close to the actual seat could ruin a day, and make some even stronger language come forth!

So expect lots of sanding and sawing for the first few bits of this build... which in turn lead me to consider the kit and decide that to prevent the carpet monster from acquiring a taste for Brassin, I would saw the other brassin pieces (including the Superchargers!) as and when required.

As you can see here, from all the Brassin that is included in this kit, the cutting is a sizeable job! However, nothing too impossible for a steady hand:

It was as a break from this that I decided I would chose the markings I will be going for. The kit gives 6 options, which is a fantastic amount and a good variety of Natural Metal finishes and Olive Drab over Grey. Being a sucker for Natural Metal though, having considered the options, this was the one I've decided on:

After much procrastination and a little distraction and a cat that wouldn't leave me alone:

I ended up with the Brassin bits cut loose! - Hurrah!:

The detail on some of these bits is just incredible - including the wires, the switches and the details for the radio bay:

http://s7.beta.photobucket.com/user/c_jephcott/media/17122012024_zpsad6a3dc4.jpg.html?sort=3&o=12

With this done, it was time for a quick squirt of Grey primer, which further brought out the details:

And time to start painting. The base colour I decided to use was Vallejo Model Air interior green, with the panels painted in Tamiya Nato Black:

Then it was a case of picking up small details and highlighting using Reds, Greens, Silvers and Greys. A drybrush of Citadel Chainmail was then added on top of this, to highlight the details:

Anyway, this is where I'm up to now - there's a few little bits of etch to add still, but it's coming together:

However, I will write a warning on attaching the sidewalls - Eduard thoughtfully provide locating tabs for guiding the sidewalls into the right place, but - the side panels themselves don't fit these and are about 1mm too long. In order to combat this, I've trimmed the locating panels off and have had to use the mk1 eyeball in order to get everything lined up correctly. It's a bit of a pain, but it seems to have worked ok though for me.

Next update soon!

Chris

[Josip]

Thank you for sharing your efort with us.

Will be keeping my eye on this build.

Josip

[Mike]

Looking good chap. Hope your finger is feeling better soon.

[Chris Jephcott]

Cheers guys - Mike, the finger is already much better... That'll teach me a lesson in learning how to tell which side of the scalpel is which!

I'll aim to do more tomorrow when the outlaws have left!

[Mr B]

Lovely choice and great start......this kit is on the list but .......somehow I never pushed thru.........perhaps soon

It will be very nice to see it completed

rgds

mr b

[woody37]

You're not hanging around Chris, great progress

[nick32]

Looks great, i'm looking forward to following this one.

Nick

[trickyrich]

Hi Chris,

that interior looks awesome!!

Was just showing my wife this model the other night, would build either the version you’ve chosen or the one with the snake, want to pop my Alclad Cherrie!

It looks such a lovely kit, will watch this build with great interest!

Nice kitty, just don’t make it angry by sticking a silly Xmas hat on it....or you’ll be sorry!!!!!!

[Chris Jephcott]

Thank you very much everyone for the comments so far - so here comes the 2nd installment...

In the previous post, I mentioned that the sidewalls of the Brassin cockpit are about 1mm out of place with the locating tabs on the base of the cockpit - the end result is that the cockpit doesn't quite fit together as well as you would have thought! So - the simple thing to do is to remove the tabs and use the Mk1 eyeball in order to make sure that things are lined up.

The key to this is to make sure that Resin piece No13 is in place before playing about with the sidewalls - thankfully, the instructions show this:

However, I would say that this is the key to making sure that the line up of the parts is correct. With this piece in place, it was clear that the locating tabs on the base were out of place, so I was able to remove them. The main thing though is to dry fit and dry fit until you are happy with the way that it fits.

The next fiddly bit was with regards to the etch throttles and mixture levers - yet again, as referenced by Mike's original review photo (etch parts 15 and 16 are the offending items!):

I found that when you bent these little blighters, they were just far too big for the small resin holes into which you had to insert them. It took me a couple of attempts at this before the Carpet Monster announced his presence and gobbled up the first set.

The only real option was to build my own set out of stretched sprue - which whereas aren't as detailed as the original etch, they give an idea as to what should have been there.

What boggled my mind a bit was the fact that when the levers were all bent up, you then had to slide in the etch cover that represents the run for the levers - which means of course, rebending and repositioning each one into a better place and then sliding on the etch cover, and hoping for the best.

With that in mind, I took the opinion that a much better use of my time would be to glue the etch cover on first and then mount the levers individually...

For the second set of levers, I decided that having learnt from the error of the first one, I wouldn't do the same again. So with that in mind, I clipped each lever off the original part. Yet again, I glued the etch cover into place and then mounted the levers - thus saving a vast amount of swearing, and throwing things at the cat in sheer frustration. I wouldn't say it is impossible to somebody who is much better at using etch than I am, but certainly, I found it tricky and a real fiddle.

Either way, this is what the end product looked like:

The instructions then show the removal of the textured fabric on the instrument panel combing:

Having looked around a number of resources, photos and reports - this was actually quite a regular thing to do, especially on the J model. I'm sure somebody in the know will properly understand the reasons behind this - as I couldn't actually get to the bottom of it?. Could it possibly be to enhanced visibility?

What it does mean though in terms of this build is that there will be a large gap between the panel and canopy with nothing to be seen in there. So, I decided to go off-piste a little bit and do the back of some instruments - nothing scientific at all, just enough to add some detail and to make the area a little bit more interesting.

Using my good friend, Mr Milliput:

I rolled a long sausage:

Crimped off little bits of the putty, and then put some very fine fuse wire into the putty. These were then painted black and glued onto the back of the panel:

The cockpit was then given a coat of gloss varnish and left to settle:

Then it was time to Matt Varnish the cockpit, and attach it into the wing assembly:

This in turn raised a couple of small fit issues - but nothing that a bit of sanding and Squadron white can't sort out:

Next up are the undercarriage bays, with the supplied etch forming the roof of the bays, but leaving a couple of really quite boring sidewalls with no detail on at all. The photos I have seen of P-38 undercarriage bays allude to the fact that there wasn't much on them at all, just a few lines of rivets. So all I did, was run my rivet maker over the plastic in a grid pattern:

Anyway - that's where I'm up to now!!

Sorry about the quality of some of the photos - my camera is having a real struggle with the light conditions and focussing! Maybe it's time to reinvest in a new one???

Chris

[Chris Jephcott]

So, if you've been following this, you'll have noted that it's gone quiet on this thread for the last few weeks.

 

 

To tell the truth, I'm not really that impressed by it at all - the basic kit is fundamentally ok (aside from one or two normal fit issues) - but nothing that can't be sorted out with a bit of elbow grease and gloop.

 

The trouble is the Brassin cockpit. In fact, although it looks very pretty, Eduard haven't really managed to get it right and instead have ended up with something that just doesn't fit at all.

The smallest and most rectifiable issue is the length of the sidewalls. Not a problem at all, with the locating tabs taken off, it pretty much works perfectly.

The biggest is the wretched Instrument panel.  The thing sits 2mms too proud! I thought I'd cracked it - and it was looking great until the gunsight went onto the front canopy and then it just didn't fit at all. I wondered if I'd messed something up (as usual!), but no - the resin base was wafer thin and I'd even sanded down the top of the wheel well pre-empting this issue. And still it was 2mms too high.

Out of desperation, I've looked around on the internet - and build articles on it are very few and far between - but the 2 I have found have had the same issue (in fact, one of them even went as far as emailing the Eduard Customer Service department to have a gripe!). One of them persevered but in doing so had to lose 1/3 of the instrument panel in order to get it to fit, and the other basically put it onto the shelf of doom.

Which is where I thought that this was going to go...

But in a flash (?) of inspiration, I've decided that I'm going to open up the front section and replace the brassin with a put from Aires. It seems a bit drastic, but... actually, my theory is that this might be the best way to resolve the build to a successful conclusion.

So anyway, with the calming down complete... Normal service is to be resumed - the resin pit from aires has arrived and I will start on this work right now and will update this thread with pictures in the next few days!

 

Chris

[woody37]

Be good to see a successful conclusion Chris, looking forwards to it

[elger]

I've been following this with great interest. I got the "Early Lightnings" boxing and I'm wondering (fearing) that it has similar issues with the resin.

 

Do you think that not removing the hood and maybe using the kit instruments panel (which will practically be invisible) would be an option?

[M4rk]

Thats a shame to hear about the poor fitting resin, but it is apparently an issue Eduard are aware of. In their January 'Info Eduard' e-mag they mention the third installment of their P-38 reboxings due for release next month and say;

 

 

This edition of the kit follows in the same footsteps as the previous ones, the resin components have minor variations incorporated to make them fit better, something that was not entirely successful with the fit of the instrument panel in the first kit.

 

Frustrating but - as they always state on aftermarket products etc - it is made for 'experienced' modellers so its reasonable to expect some fettling to be required. Given this kind of fit issue is par for the course with Aires its ironic that you've gone for their offering instead 

[Bertie McBoatface]

You are not a quitter, are you? Excelsior!

[Chaotic Mike]

Etch throttles... I thought Eduard were having a laugh with the 1/32 pieces that I failed to associate correctly with Revell's Ju-88, so gawd only knows what 1/48 (or even worse, 1/72!) must be like. As I get older, I find my fingers getting increasingly sausage-like and I can no longer see the nearby objects... which is a double victory... a model's detailing can't be done, but I can't see it's absence. Result!

[Chris Jephcott]

Well... first of all - many thanks to everybody for their kind words on the continuation of this build. It's been a bit of a pain, but equally, I've had a slight struggle with motivation due to some nasty news from work, which has knocked the wind out of the sails a bit.

However...

So, in the last update, I talked about how I was going to move into the Aires pit for the model. So with this in mind, I took out the undercarriage bays and undid the assembly...

I took this opportunity to purchase the Eduard additional detailing set for this kit:

http://www.eduard.com/store/Eduard/Photo-etched-parts/Photo-etched-set/Aircraft/1-48/P-38-upgrade-set-1-48.html

I would thoroughly recommend this set. I took a photo of it after I'd decided to play about with the undercarriage bay side walls:

But for the benefit of those, this is what the undercarriage sidewall looks like before:

And after:

So... the results are excellent. It provides new etch for the sidewalls, wiring, and a few little bits for the cockpit too. I'd say this was well worth the investment though as it adds details to the areas that this kit are somewhat lacking.

And then, it was onto the Aires pit:

Straightforward assembly, as per the brassin pit. However, as with all Aires products I was anticipating a fair deal of fettling, sanding, swearing, and trimming. However, out of curiousity, I put the Aires pit next to the Eduard Brassin pit remains for a compare:

As can clearly be seen - the dimensions are very different. The Aires pit is substantially longer and also narrower! Which made for a much easier fit later into the construction...

And when it was fully made up, with the last few bits to come, including the seat:

Now, the issue on the combing is also present on this - the Aires pit comes with a replacement resin piece to slot into the opening in the kit. It's equally not a direct fit either, and requires a bit of filling and sanding. So, for this, I used milliput to sandwich it in and sand it down:

The next problem is that the cockpit does NOT fit into the combing. It's supposed to be a direct fit, however, I was darned if I could get it to work. So, I trimmed the aires resin piece down and then glued it into place on the actual cockpit tub.

This solved this issue very nicely - and then it was a quite straight forward job to fill and sand down the seams:

More to come in a bit!!!

[Chris Jephcott]

The rest of the assembly is relatively straight forward - one or two small issues that can be solved with a bit of filler.

And now, it's onto the painting...

I had intended to do this particular aircraft, as detailed in an earlier post:

So... the points for me - the D-day strips are said to be roughly finished and painted over Olive Drab. The upshot of this is that there were no straight edges between the divides... so I used standard masking tape from a well known hardware shop to mask off the D-day stripe areas.

I then covered the model in Alclad black base and microfiller. This filled in the majority of any small cracks that I hadn't seen. And then, I sprayed on the Alclad Gloss Black and highlighted the panel lines with Tamiya NATO black to show up some difference when the Alclad went on:

The model was then sprayed with Alclad Duraluminium:

The masking tape was removed and the area underneath this was sprayed with Vallejo Model Air Olive Drab, highlighted again with a small amount of Tamiya Black:

And then the D-day stripes were painted on, along with the Olive Drab. these were chipped with a dab of Citadel Chainmail on a toothpick, and weathered with Tamiya smoke:

I painted on a few more details including the red nose cone, and then came the Resin superchargers and the etch surrounds:

The resin superchargers were painted in Alclad Exhaust Manifold, and then to add some variety, I added a couple of the hot metal colours (Violet and Red) onto them...

Anyway, this is where I am now. I've got the bit between my teeth and want to finish it!!

Chris

[Peter W]

Some really nice work Chris and the stripes look very good.

I've got the Aires pit to use in an Academy one that will be built one day, so I guess I'll have some of your fun to look forward to.

Pete

[trickyrich]

It's looking really good.

That's very interesting about the invasion strips, was the demarcation line on the strips always this rough? This is the first time I have heard this and will be very helpful for a 1/48th P-61A I have in the build shop.

[Chris Jephcott]

Thank you very much for your comments...

Most D-Day stripes were applied in the field, and roughly at that. From wikipedia:

"In most cases the stripes were painted on by the ground crews; with only a few hours notice, few of the stripes were masked - As a result, depending on the abilities of the "erks", the stripes were often far from neat and tidy"

It's quite an interesting thought though - the number of times we all model for straight demarkation lines, when we really need not be overly fussy with the painting lines...

Chris

[sunshine coast]

"It's quite an interesting thought though - the number of times we all
model for straight demarkation lines, when we really need not be overly
fussy with the painting lines..."

I remember seeing a photo a few years ago of a Dakota having stripes painted with a broom ....probably quick but certainly not neat...

hand painted stripes on models would give a good representation of neatness and coverage ...

enjoying the build ...well done so far ..

Regards Trevor ..