Lockheed P2V-3 Neptune --A Forgotten Warrior

[David H]

Ed, this is just me, but i would cut off those antennae that run along the upper fuselage joint, and just sand everything smooth and flush with rigid backed sanding sticks. The petite raised rivets will be gone, but a small sacrifice in my view on a gloss blue model. Surface prep is everything; botched seams and scratches will stick out like a sore thumb on a gloss finish. You've done a heroic effort cutting and splicing but a lot of surface prep will be required to blend it all in seamlessly (no pun intended).

In my original post, i forgot to mention that i would save the antennae that you cut off, and re-attach them later on using a piece of fine brass wire as a locating pin, installed by drilling corresponding holes in the base of the antenna blade and the fuselage with a No. 78 or 79 drill bit. Depends on how thick the blade antenna is at the base.

-d-

Edited March 5, 2016 by David H

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi David, thanks.

Just got back and noticed your post. Actually, I came to the same conclusion right after I posted these pics, for all the reasons you mention. And you are correct -- the nice rivets are all long gone!

Hope to have another update in a day or two.

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Well, finally, back to the Neptune. If you will kindly refer to post #30, you will see the point at which the gun nose for the P2V-3 was halted, awaiting the joining of the fuselage halves. This is where we'll resume.

First I took some Kleen Klay and rolled out a small piece about 1/8" thick. I then used the nose of the assembled fuse halves as a "cookie cutter", to mark out a piece of clay that just fist into the interior of the nose. I then carefully fished the "cookie" out of the nose and laid it on a piece of 40 thou card. I then tracd around it and cut out the part -- a "nose bulkhead" if you will.

Next, I stuck the wings and horizontal stabilizers temporarily into place of the fuselage, to determine how much nose weight would be required to balance the aircraft on it's landing gear. In my case, around 2 oz of lead were glued into the fuse nose area with canopy glue.

Next the nose bulkhead was liquid glued onto the part of the gun nose described in post #30, taking car to center in so that the entire gun nose would align properly with the fuse center-line, etc.

Next the gun nose was glued into the fuselage halves. Note that it was not a perfect match, but good enough to hold it, given that Milliput was going to be added to finish out the nose shape. (I had thought about using watch crystal cement so that I could later remove the nose, but decided against it.)

Then, I filled the top part of the nose with Milliput. I also put another chunk of Milliput onto a piece of plastic card, which will later (hopefully) become the raised fairing on the top of the fuselage, just behind the cockpit.

If anyone would care to advise what this piece is called and what it was used for, I would love to know.

Now, I'll let the Milliput dry overnight, and start some more sanding!

Later, Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Alright, moving along....

After some more sanding and priming, the next three photos show the current state of affairs. The nose turned out well, but as these things go, every time I pick up the fuselage, I see a little something else to sand or correct a little. This will probably continue for a while!

To avoid using the vacuform nose from the conversion kit, I sanded the top of the fuselage pretty flat at the rear of the cockpit. This wasn't sanded to totally flat just yet, preferring to allow a little slack for filling/sanding after the cockpit glass was installed. It was however, enough to cause the top of the fuse in that area to get paper thin. So, I decided to put a strip of 10 thou plastic part under the thinned "roof" behind the cockpit area, bot to reinforce the seam, but also to give me a "ledge" upon which to glue the canopy glass. This piece was about 4mm wide and trimmed to fit from console side to console side.

While doing this, I managed to knock loose the co-pilot's seat and the pilots steering column and wheel, the later assembly which was eventually eaten by the Carpet Monster!

So, I'll have to digress for a moment while I show you my lazy man's technique for re-creating the control wheel.

You could just bend the circular part around any sort of correctly-sized mandrel, but I had a special "ring-bending" plier left over from some long ago project, as shown belows.

Note that half the nose has the round mandrel and half has the female part to make the bend.

I was originally going to use some thin copper wire I had laying about (once?), but couldn't find it. Fortunately, from my former fly-tying days, I had some 20 thou lead wire, shown below:

The right-side photo above shows both items in action. In this case, the lead wire will work out much better for me, because I can cut nice, clean ends with a razor knife, rather than side cutters. Also, since the cockpit will eventually be sealed up, softness and fragility of the lead wire won't matter.

The next photo shows the original resin part that I am trying to replicate, as well as the bent lead wire, before trimming. Everything is stuck onto a piece of cello tape, to help keep everything from flying about:

The pic on the right, above shows a piece of the cot off lead wire bent to shape and cut to length to form the central arms of the wheel. The base and the control column were cut from appropriate-sized pieces of plastic card, everything glued together with tiny drops of 5 minute epoxy, and there you have it. A little crude, but the little that will be seen in the end will be close enough.

The next photo shows the inside off the added plastic piece at the rear roof of the cockpit area, now painted with the interior color.

Oops, looking at the photo, I just realized that I've also lost the co-pilot's headrest! Oh well, a scrap of card and some paint should put that aright. At this point, I have also scribed back in a few of the major panel lines here and there. Close examination of the photos of the real thing show almost no panel demarcation whatsoever, so I decided not to do a bonzai all-over scribing job.

Also, note the relocated hole for the navigator's bubble. From the photos I have, it appears to be slightly ahead of centered onto a line from the wing leading edge, or around 11' 6" scale back from the cockpit rear edge.

.

That's all for now, see you soon.

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello to all following this thread.

If you look at the last photo posted in post #70, you'll see one item that has been bothering me for a while -- the fuselage side window, particularly the newly added ones at the rear of the crew cabin, ahead of the wing. It has been bugging me, once I noticed, that these two windows should be smaller than the others, although still aligned at the top in the same plane as the other windows. For a while, I considered "taking a dive" as they say in boxing, and just letting them be. But, at last, the modeler in me said I had to fix 'em!

This is not terribly difficult, but as you might imagine, I'm really getting tired of sanding. In fact, I'll confess; I hate sanding more than anything! Whether it's automotive, woodworking, painting around the house or just modeling, I hate it! That's the hard part, pressing on when every lazy bone in my body says "don't do it, no one will care". In the end, I guess I WILL care, so here goes.

I began by filing and cutting little "U"'s out of 40 thou plastic card. The "U" shape was only because they were aligned at the top, so I only had to shrink the sides and bottom. I glued these into place with the old Weldon #3 liquid cement, with each standing just proud of the fuse surface:

The next photo shows these little "U"'s, labeled "B", as well as showing the cockpit glazing temporarlily hend into place with tape, with the rear edge resting of the "shelf" gluing surface created earlier:

Also note the repaired co-pilot's headrest.

The reshaped windows will then be filed flush, before the next item, the various "bumps" on the aircraft.

Originally, with clever foresight, I had carefully trimmed of the next-to-the-rear bump on the original kit fuse, glued the halves to gether, and sanded the seam smooth, intending to install the intact "bump" onto the modified fuselage, as I would recommend to you. But, as is more common in my advanced years (72 on 6 April), I lost the darned thing!

Here's the one I'm talking about:

I decided to replicate the "bump" as simply as possible, using silicone putty. I have used this product before, but purchased from Micro Mark. There product works great, but only comes in 1 lb batches. The one I used this time, I found on line, and it came in a smaller, 1/2 lb size. The reason is, of course, that like all unused silicone products, they will go bad if you don't use them in a timely fashion, I use some every year or two -- maybe.

This stuff is used, as you might expect, by taking two equal parts, rolling them around together in your hands, until it is homogenized into one solid color. It then has the consistency of Silly Putty, for a reasonable amount of time. You would norms\ally just "squish" a simple shape into the putty, but fortunately, the opposite is true; you can "squish" the putty onto a fuselage carefully, then let it dry.

After which, you can simply peel i off and you have a simple female mold. Not for use with undercuts, etc., but fine for this use.

During my next casting session, I will fill this mold with resin, and get my copy -- which of course, I wouldn't need at all if I weren't such a Dufus!

A couple more small items before going. The next photo shows the cockpit glazing glued into place (watch cement for now), and then blended in with a bit of red putty and some white perfect putty at the rear. After sanding, the glazing was hand-painted with Future or Kleer or whatever, in case there were any small scratches I hadn't seen. After that, a shot of CA was spread around atop all the putty around the glazing to harden it a bit and everything is then left to dry.

Lastly for now, I began working on the "bump" behind the cockpit and atop the fuselage, which bump being the reason necessitating moving the Navigator's bubble rearward.

I began by cutting out, then gluing together (liquid glue) 3 strips or 40 thou card, a shade over 11 scale feet long, and a shade more than a scale 1 foot tall. I cannot derive the width of this bump because of lack of documentation. However one factory assembly line photo would seem to indicate something like 9 scale inches or so, so that's what I'm going with. The shape at the bottom of the next photo is what I am aiming for,but alas, the first one ended up only ten scale feet long, so I have to make another.

Well, more next time. Am being side-tracked by more visitors, Easter and the appearance of any early spring here (Atlanta, GA USA). The garden beckons...

Ed

Edited May 20, 2016 by TheRealMrEd

[Gondor44]

You could have simply installed the windows then painted them smaller to the proper size rather than the physical size that you installed.

Gondor

[TheRealMrEd]

Gondor, that would have been true, except these are added windows and there were no kit parts to install, and in the end the windows will all be Micro Kleer rather than plastic, as even the kit windows were acting strangely after I glued them in, probably due to the liquid glue being too hot. (See approx. post #54). When done, all the "glass" on the plane will be either film of vacuformed plastic.

Ed

[Hamden]

More interesting work this is really coming together now!

Roger

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, Roger!

The problem is, at this stage, is that everything is "just another fiddly bit"! But, each one is necessary to the final product, and I have to spend a lot of time thinking about which item needs to come before the other. For example, painting the wing assemblies.

First, they had to be sanded and primer-ed, then painted all over with navy blue glass. Then, come the decals. Next I have to clearcoat the wings so that I can the do the minimal weathering needed, as these plane were only 2 -3 years old at the time, and only in-country on this tour for about 7 months. Also, the Navy didn't like their pretty birds all grimy and such, so no gun blast residue was allowed to accumulate. I am now at this stage.

Then, I will attempt to paint the very unique exhaust patterns that these aircraft generated, whether they would have been soon wiped off or not. Because of their specific pattern, I feel that it would be impossible to do this after mounting the wings to the fuse, particularly in the areas on the inboard side of the engine nacelles.

Lastly, the debate of whether to mount the 5" rockets before adding the wings to the fuse, and risk their being knocked off later on, or to wait until the end and risk damaging something else! Believe me, this build is going to require a lot of plain ol' luck to get finished properly in the end.

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

While puttering around with the bumps and lumps of the fuselage, I just discovered to my horror that the kit's nose wheel bay and doors are too short! They should be 10.5 scale feet long. It is too late in the build for me to modify the gear bay, but I have edited post #54 above to correct that issue for anyone else. I'll have to fake it with the longer nose gear bay doors, but that means the ladder will sort of be sticking down out of nowhere!

More progress to be shown in a couple of days, as well as some corrected distances etc..

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Back again with a little more.

I decided to use Parafilm M to mask the cockpit area, as I had to create the necessary frame lines myself. I could have used masking fluid or Bare Metal Foil, had the frame lines already been established. Since I hard to further shorten the cockpit glazing from the master shown earlier, I had to re-create everything framewise. Below, is shown the glazing area covered with two layers of Parafilm M.

Next I used Tamiya masking tape (cut into suitable widths on a small glass mini-refrigerator shelf, using a sharp Xacto blade. Using a brand new blade, I then began to cut along the edges of the masking tape, trying bare only the frame areas to be painted. The arrow points to a small misstep, which will be repaired by a dab of Mirco Film masking fluid, to which two drops of blue food color has been added. This gives the fluid a little darker color, making it easier to see.

Next is a pic of the finished, masked canopy, which was first sprayed with the interior gray color, then a coat of navy blue on top. Note also the newly added "hump" at the top of the fuselage, behind the canopy:

Next, a picture of the three resin humps to be added to the kit, with the molds having been made via the silicone putty method, mentioned earlier.

and, here is a view with a three bumps having been added.

Note that the nose gear bay should actually extend at the rear clear back to the first radome on the bottom.

Next I begin adding a little detail to the rear turret, which at this point is my biggest hold-up. I can't for the life of me find a view of the gyro gun-sight area, from a sort of "side" view. I have a couple of shots from straight behind, but none to give me a "three dimensional" perspective.

It was at this point that I discovered a couple more new problems:

1) I had cut off the MAD boom at the depicted line, as I had read that the turret and MAD boom were bolt-on interchangeable. Not so on this model. Trial fitting showed therear turret was too far forward, necessitating gluing together the two halves of the previously-removed Mad boom, and cutting off a 1/8" section to add to the rear of the fuselage, thus placing the turret into it's correct position re the rudder and elevators.

2) While dry fitting all this, I noticed that while the P2V-7, as depicted in the kit had a "cap" on the vertical stabilizer and a shortened rudder, the P2V-3 I am modeling had the rudder running all the way to the top, without the "cap" on top.

Next photo shows the glued on piece, as well as the differences in the rudder:

I also suspect that I am going to have to move the upper turret rearward some 1/4" or more. Still measuring photos!

And lastly, below are a couple of pics showing the rather unusual markings on the wings during the Summer 1950 era. Gear doors have been added to the nacelles with white glue, to enable the next job on the wings, trying to airbrush the distinctive exhaust stains, some of which will show on the gear doors. I'll then soften the white glue with water to remove them to install the landing gear later on.

I think the Stars and Bars may be a little to far outboard, will have to liik at some more photos, and try to make a SWAG.

So long for now, will add more asap.

Ed

[Tailspin Turtle]

[TheRealMrEd]

Just what I needed, Turtle. Show off some side profile on that K-18 Mod 6. Thanks muchly!

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello again, everyone. Sorry to have been so slow to add any updates, but this is a really busy time of year for me. Oh well, just have to soldier on as best I can.

For today's installment, below is a photo of the added 1/8 section of MAD boom, glued back onto the fuse, and then filled. By adding the extra 1/8" spacer needed to position the tail turret in the right place, that made the turret larger than the modified fuse, so filler was needed on the sides and bottom, to sort of straighten out the heretofore orderly taper of the rear fuse area. Anyone doing the P2V-5 type mod with the vacu-form parts should be aware of this anomaly!

Next, a view of everything filled and sanded with a light coat of primer (Alclad Grey). At this stage I like to use very light coats of primer, as all I am doing is checking for, and hopefully correcting flaws in the bodywork.

Next, we run into the last thing I needed this far into the build; the top turret needs to move rearward 5/16 of an inch. I scaled several photos looking for an excuse not to have to do it, but no such luck!

Normally (were I a lot smarter!) I would have done this before joining the fuse halves. At this stage, I was just looking for the cheapest way out, and this was the way I chose.

First, I glued in the P2V-7 kit's clear plastic insert, in place of the turret. This had the advantage over using a circle of plastic card, in that the insert conformed closely to the body shape.

Next, I marked the 5/16 inch point (red arrow shown here) , and then drew a circle of the appropriate size, in this case, 3 scale feet diameter. I then started a hole by twisting the point of a #11 Xacto blade around and around. By doing so, I hoped to be gentle enough not to crack the fuse spine seam open. No such luck...

Next, I used a Dremel grinding bit to hog out the new turret hole to just INSIDE the line as shown here.

Then, I took the Dremel grinding tip, and used a grinder dressing tool to turn the stone down to my scale 3 foot diameter, and then used this to grind out the nearly-correct sized hole. Next, as shown below, the turret hole was final-sanded to the exact size needed by rolling up a sheet of 180 grit sandpaper, and sanding exactly what I needed to complete the hole.

And lastly, two views of the modded turret location, using a test-fit turret assembly:

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully, I'll be able to begin final assembly and detailing sometime soon.

Thanks for tuning in! Later, Ed

[Hamden]

More great work - I don't think I would have moved the turret at this late stage!

Looking forward to seeing it in paint

Roger

[TheRealMrEd]

Roger, I really did agonize over this for several days. Once I found that the rear fuse tapered too much to just cut a rectangle out of the upper deck and just reverse, I wouldn't have done this if I hadn't thought of the relatively painless method. Of course I did have to refill the upper seam, etc. Seems like all I have doe the past few days is fill, sand, prime, etc. over and over again. Let me state for the record --- I HATE SANDING!

Ed

[canberra kid]

I've been lagging on this one some very fine work going on here a real inspiration, keep up the good work!

John

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi John, thanks.

Have been really busy elsewhere this week, and have been awaiting a few modeling supplies, which should be here in the next couple of days. Hope to have some real progress on the P2V-3 by early next week -- good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise...

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello, all.

Finally have a chance to sit down and work up a couple of photos and some more build info. Without further ado, the next photo shows the lower radome on the fuse painted white with Alclad II white primer, along with the prop ends and hubs. Always like to do a coat of white under the soon-to-be-yellow tips.

Oops, forgot to paint the nose tip white. Also painted the top "bump" flat black with MM 37038 flat black. Will mask these sections off before spraying the all-over Navy blue.

Next, the prop tips are painted yellow.

Next, the prop tips are masked a scale 6 inches to protect the yellow, and everything else in painted with MM gloss black enamel. I was originally intending to paint the spinners the flat white color, but in the end, decided I will go with polished metal, which will be done last. The glass black enamel will serve as the undercoat for the Alclad II polished aluminum, as well as a glossy surface for the prop logo decals.

Unfortunately, couldn't find my prop logo decals in the decal stash, so will have to finish the props when the new ones come in. Then, I will apply the Hamilton Standard logos, let dry, seal decals and prop blades with flat clear (masking the hub). When all that is dry, I will then mask the blades, unmask the hubs or spinners, and shoot the polished aluminum.

By the way, be gentle when doing all this. I wasn't, and ripped one of the glued on tips off, which I will have to repair!

Meanwhile, time to get back to work on the wing assemblies. I masked everything on the nacelles ahead of the rear line of the exhausts. I also masked part of the wings as shown to cut down on any overspray -- which I am prone to have. I then shot some light grey to represent the rather prominent exhaust streaks on the real aircraft. I will touch up these hard edges later.

I also glued the main undercarriage doors temporarily into place with white glue. They will be removed after the exhaust spray process is done.

Next a little tan is sprayed. Here mine is probably way over done, given the relative short career of these planes at the time of the Korean War. Less is probably better.

Here, a short discourse on exhaust stains left by reciprocating engines on dark-painted aircraft. First, the light grey --almost white, makes up most of the stain. Depending upon fuel type and length of time on the engine since last overhaul, there will be anywhere from a little to a lot of light tan, but not extending as far back as the grey. Lastly, we have the black soot effect. Not seen much on fairly new, good-running engines, it can be really bad on old warhorses at nearly the end of their useful flying time before overhaul. This 3-tone effect is especially prominent on land-based F4U Corsairs during WWII, but not as bad as on carrier-based or training aircraft.

The best way to determine what colors are best used, it would be illuminating for you to examine spark plugs taken out of various engines, even lawn mower types, and you will eventually see all these colors, and the conditions of combustion which cause them.

Oddly, these aircraft had the nose gun-ports cleaned after every mission, but the exhaust stains were allowed to accumulate. Less work for the ground crews, I suppose.

Next, looking at the nacelle on the left, I have removed some of the masking, leaving only a narrow strip of tape on the rear half of the exhausts. This is so I can discern AND MARK the more-or-less center of the exhaust outlet. After both side of both nacelles are marked, more tape is added to protect the cowl flaps, and then the smaller "soot" part of the exhaust stain is painted; not particularly well in my case. But then, it's late and I'm a little shaky!

If I were a better painter, they would be a little smaller and perhaps more even for such a low-time aircraft, but oh, well.

Below, I have made another pass with some thinned Navy blue, to blur the formerly hard masked edges. I will probably go back and forth a few times, grey, the blue, etc. until it looks right to me.

Catch you all later!

Ed

Edited April 29, 2016 by TheRealMrEd

[71chally]

That is a labour of love - quite superb.

At some stage I will doing an RAF MR.1 (preferably the earlier turreted shape) using the Falcon vacform conversion - hopefully not as involved as your project!

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi, 71Chally,

The only reason this one is so complicated is that few of the kit or conversion parts were usable on the P2V-3 version, at least in their stock form. Plus, I had little in the way of documentation, save various small photos. If it weren't for the drawings and photos supplied by others here, I doubt I could have gotten this far. Despite thinking about it for years in advance, I was thrown for a loop several times, as indicated in the build thread text.

Hopefully your project will be more simple, but if not -- make it YOUR labor of love!

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

A few additions for tonight:

Finally, the prop decals arrived, a set of 1/72 U.S. Propeller Markings by Authentic Scale (Olimp). They are shown here, along with the ol' trusty prop jig box, to which has been added two ink marks to assist in aligning the prop logo and data decals into the same place on all the prop blades

Next, we have the decaled props, after the decals have dried and a coat of flat clear acrylic has been added to seal the decals. Note the prop hubs, which are masked with Parafilm "M", applied as several small strips per propeller. I felt that after the broken prop blade described earlier, I wanted a very gentle masking medium, which I could slit and easily remove with the aid of a sharp #11 blade.

Next, the hub masking was removed, and the blades were masked with strips of Parafilm "M" folded over, so that the hubs could be shot with Alclad II Polished Aluminum.

And, at last the propeller blades are finished, save only a little chipping and weathering to be done later.

When last seen, the tail 20mm turret had been given a rudimentary seat assembly, and the had been attached to the fuse. To finish up this area, I wanted to add some sort of gun-sight, but no one makes a

K 20 Mod 6 in 1/72 scale. Thanks to Mr Turtle's kind photo offering earlier, I had a decent idea what it should look like, but soon found that even with 10X magnification, I lacked the tools to fabricate such a small item.

So, I took a dive, and ordered a set of K-14 gun-sights from Quickboost. These are really little jewels, and I can't even imagine how in the heck they made them that small, but good on 'em!

The kit consists of six moulded gun-sights and a sheet of clear plastic upon which the K14 reflectors are sized and marked. I found that buy cutting off the "half-moon" or headrest-looking part on one side, it looked close enough to my K20, that I could live with it. I also had to cut a strip of the clear from the side, as the K20 reflector parts looked more like a triangle from the side view. Bending two creases into this tiny strip was a real bear!

After painting and fiddling, it still took me two days to end up with this:

but at this point I decided to settle. I still bet that even though the reflector is too tall, mine looks better than anyone else's P2V-3!

Anyway, I then took a strip of 32ga wire, and bent a little "shape" that faintly reminiscent of the sight mount, and painted it interior grey.

I then glued the gun-sight to the wire "mount", and then spent the next two days trying to glue the thing into the turret from the outside. (I wish I could have mounted it before gluing the turret onto the fuse, but it would never have survived. Eventually, I got it to this stage and decided to quite while I was marginally ahead. I would have added some wiring, but even my 32 AWG wasn't tiny enough.

Finally, I glued on the tail turret bubble with some CA glue and let it dry. Now comes the filler, sanding, primer, etc. routine to get the darned thing to blend into the fuse properly. It will eventually look better.

Gotta go mow the lawn, will do more soon. As soon as this part is done, I will glue on the tailfeathers, fill, sand, prime, etc., and some day, it will be ready for paint and decals.

I only ANTICIPATE two more problems: 1) finding a secure way to fasten on the rockets to their mounts, which are so thin that it's hard to drill a hole in them for a wire, and (2), I need a better photos showing the sides and/or top of the power steering mechanism on the nose gear strut. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Later, Ed

Edited June 18, 2016 by TheRealMrEd

[Tailspin Turtle]

Power steering: I don't have much better pictures of it than the ones you have at the beginning of this thread. However, I've added a picture of one similar to it, along with an explanation of how it worked, on the bottom of this post: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2014/02/hasagawa-p2v-neptune-kit.html

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, Turtle!

I'll just do my best impression...

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

A little more progress.

First a view of the tail area, with the tailfeathers added and everything primed.

Next, some rudimentary detail added to main gear doors with .015" x .030" Evergreen scale strip plastic. Rather than try to cut a bunch of identical pieces to glue into place, I find it easier to glue each piece in situ, starting with a drop of Weldon #3 at one end, holding the piece in place for a couple of seconds. Then add another drop of W3 to the other end, then trom off the excess with a sharp #11 blade. This, for me is much faster and easier. The two new main gear doors will be made of 30 thou card, each a scale 10.5 x 1.5 scale feet, and "detailed" the same way.

Here, everything is primered with Alclad grey primer. I like to primer under zinc chromate green (34151) whenever possible, as you get a truer color. (then you add washes to alter the color -- go figure).

Next, note the new nose gear doors on the left side, as well as the painted "fake" addition to the nose gear well (see arrow). This is how long the gear well should be on the P2V-3, and would have been here, had I caught it in time.

Next a view of the nose, showing the untrimmed Parafilm "M" over the white section on the tip. Also of note is that the single topmost layer of Parafilm "M" on the canopy has been removed, carefully leaving the actual window masking layer intact. This was so that hopefully, that when painting the rest of the fuse, the paint lines will blend nicely.

And last, a temporarily joined teaser shot...

It's a comin'...It's a comin'...

Ed