Laven's First P-38E in 1/72 #76

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello everyone.

 

I'm back with a rather repetitious build of the RS Aleutian P-38E.

 

Cookenbacher did one a while back, which is worth referring to:  Cookie's P-38E

 

I also did one, representing Laven's second P-38E, #80, with some vagaries about it's color:  Laven's 2nd P-38E

 

Unfortunately,  when I did mine, Cookie's pictures were missing, so I didn't have that to help out. Thankfully for all of you, he has restored them.

 

I am building yet another of these, for two reasons: 1) my endeavor to build one of each type of aircraft associated with George E. Laven, Jr. -- he of the colorful aircraft fame; and 2) I decided to try the resin aftermarket cockpit kit offered by RS for this P-38, to see whether this would alleviate some of the fit issues that both Cookie and I encountered in the cockpit area. We shall see how that goes....

 

The kit and the cockpit set look lie this:

 

 

I began in the time-honored (and usually necessary) tradition of assembling and more or less completing the cockpit area, which of course has to be built into the model at an early stage:

 

 

It has a little more detailing than the kit, and the wheel well is not as tall. We'll see if that helps. Also new (to me) is the use of the Dap Rapidfuse, which is an ethyl cyanoacrylate for those interested. For the rest of use, that equates to a thick CA-type glue that tacks up in 30 seconds and hardens in 30 minutes -- and is odorless!  The later is important to me, because over the years I have fried out my nose-holes from using CA and get burning eyes and a runny nose from the regular stuff -- which has played havoc with my building of resin models.  This stuff is great for gluing resin parts together, as well as adding landing gears, doors, antennae and pitot tubes after the fact.  Alas, I cannot worship it as the universal anti-solvent, because it dries with a slightly rubbery consistency, as do all the other odorless CA glues. That means that you cannot sand it to a smooth finish like regular CA. Pity, as I was looking for another minor deity to worship.  (Just a joke folks, don't get crazy!)

 

 

Actually the kit 'pit is pretty good, except for the wire frame you have to make for the seat back, which is included on the resin seat, as later pics will show.

 

Next the painted and mostly assembled cockpit is shown glued to the lower wing, to center up the landing gear well. Test fitting with the top of the fuse also revealed that the resin cockpit improved upon the fit problems, it did not solve them, so more sanding was needed on the bottom of the wheel bay, as well as the bare resin part atop the instrument panel, as you can see below:

 

 

The two red "L"'s above show the added lead fishing weights cut down to fit in the nose --  a requirement. Can't say how much I used as I just stuffed it full!

 

Next, the upper fuse half was glued to the bottom half (after much sanding and test fitting!), but only at the area where the clamps are shown. The nose seams were left un-glued for the moment:

 

 

As Cookie points out in his build, the bottom nose half is a little wider than the top half, so each side of the nose was glued and clamped separately, beginning with the left side:

 

 

Followed after drying by the right side.  This resulted in fairly reasonable seams -- but not perfect -- on either side:

 

 

All the finely-etched detail is going to go bye-bye -- drats!  Hmm... see that I've nicked the headrest area with a clamp. I'll have to touch that up!

 

Until next we meet...

 

Ed

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Oooh I have decals for both “Itsy Bitsy’s” in 1/48. I think i shall take a seat. 

[VG 33]

Hi

 

This very interesting as she's been a future project of mine since I have read an Osprey book about.

 

Patrick

[John Masters]

I have this kit too and am looking forward to it.

[neil5208]

That RS kit looks scary, was thinking about getting one but I'll keep looking for another Academy P38

[Cookenbacher]

Looking forward to this latest addition to your enviable 'Laven' collection Ed.

I'm so glad to see that there is a resin replacement cockpit available, and it seems to fit! That was really the biggest thing putting me off building another RS P-38, so maybe there will be another in my future now.

Great work so far, Ed!

[Andwil]

Gotta love a P-38, and an Ed build to boot!  Will watch with interest.

 

AW

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello everyone!

 

In the last episode, I had just glued the front half of the model together, resulting in some, but not huge, seam gaps. Sad to say, that while the resin cockpit fits better, it still does not FIT!  However, judicious sanding and test-fitting will improve things a bit.

 

Next come the really tricky parts, in that the kit's directions call out some parts numbers that don't even exist, and none of the parts are numbered. There is however, a wrongly-coded parts diagram.  I will attempt to point out the path I took -- your results may vary!

 

The next parts added are the under-nose intakes. The kit offers two pair, and from the outside, I could not tell the difference. I chose to use the pair that were still attached to the trees. The one I did not use are shown below, the only apparent difference is that there was more spacing on the in side from the rear to the intakes, shown by the arrows. Perhaps I chose the wrong ones?!!

 

 

These were carefully fitted to the front of the engine nacelles, wiggling them around until they fit as good as possible; there are no locating pins on the model.  Next,  the nacelle fronts were glued to the wings, taken care to placed the little scribed ovals to the inside of each nacelle (arrow), as on the real aircraft, the ovals of highly polished metal were left to act as "mirrors" so the pilots could see whether the nose gear were in the down position. There are detailed reasons for this that I read long ago, but have forgotten. Anyone with a better memory, please feel free to jump in an enlighten we forgetful!

 

 

Another issue is that the numbers for the boom halves are all bollixed up. There are several ways to help identify which boom goes where:

 

 

The relative lengths of the areas "A" and "B" are different, with the longer one going to the inside of the nacelles, allowing for the taper of the wings. Also, counter-intuitively, the smaller slots for the elevator go to the INSIDE of the booms, where you would assume that they would be to the outside, items "C" and "D". One last thing, not shown, is that the elevator assembly is slanted on the ends to fit the taper of the booms in that area, and on the outside of the booms (the larger slots), the area is flat, to meet the "tail-lets(?). Anyway, I'm sure that this is clear as mud...

 

One last thing, as the smaller slots must match up to the elevator, the locating tabs on same must be shortened to fit:

 

 

Also, the wheel bays in the booms are "handed". Try to install them to match the dihedral of the wings:

 

 

Also, try to assure that part "A" is slightly tucked out of sight  at the back and, and part "B" should end up flush on the front end. One side of my model didn't fit that way, and caused a little aggravation later.

 

A test fit of the right side boom shows a little gap left, and also points out where the differing lengths of the wing mounting surface occur, at "A" and "B", below:

 

 

Before attaching the booms to the model, it is easier to attach the coolers at this time:

 

 

Now it's time to assemble the many parts, most of whom do not wish to associate with their peers!  I just tacked everything together with dabs of liquid cement and a rubber band. I was not trying to achieve perfect alignment at this time, as that would have required more hands than a Tasmanian octopus -- if there is such a thing...

 

 

For now, I just tried to get everything to stick together, I will adjust alignment later by sawing and shimming, as necessary, along with some fancy clamping! As  always, some gaps remain.

 

That's all for now. Until next time,

Ed

[Cookenbacher]

Phew, I forgot what a beast this kit is. Well done Ed, it looks like a P-38!

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, Cookie

 

Between us, that's three of these kits, and each one seems to fit a little differently. Go figure...

 

Ed

[Mr T]

Watching this one with interest as I have the P322 version which I plan on doing as a Lightning I. Just as a matter of interest, why does the kit cockpit not fit? BTW, yours is looking pretty good so far. 

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi, Mr T!

 

The problem revolves around the cockpit area being too short vertically, seems to be in the depth of the nose gear bay. As stated above the stock kit parts are worse than the resin parts, but both are too tall. On the stock kit, the seat wouldn't even sit totally upright -- I had to lean it back a little. I may have more to say about this when I glue on the canopy for this build, while using the resin parts.

 

Ed

[Azgaron]

Nice work so far!

 

Håkan

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks Hakan...

 

AS is usual for me, I have inadvertently stumbled across a major irritation with this kit, which is sad, because I've already built one, and didn't catch it then!  Anyway, I got to looking at the darned thing head-on, and realized that I had more of a B-25 look going on with the wing, than a P-38 look...

 

 

Looking at the above photo, you will see that the wing dihedral is fine -- inboard of the booms! Outboard, they just get flat --- no dihedral at all.  While an unexpected PITA, this is not impossible to correct. As seen next, a cut through the bottom half of each wing outboard of the nacelles, and the installation of a plastic shim, and some sanding and filling, all should be made right.

 

 

As you will see in the next photo, it took two whole rounds of the above to get something close enough, while still not perfect, it ends up much better!

 

 

 

After getting the wingtips above the engine nacelles, I decided to quite with an improvement. Looks like the nacelles were molded slightly wrong, as the outer wing join should be higher up to maintain the dihedral. A better solution for just the wing would have been to shim inside the engine booms, but then the nacelles would have canted outward at the bottom. Devil's choice!

 

Nevertheless, notice that in the above photos, more filling and priming with Mr Surfacer 500 and more sanding has been done, as well as that all the intakes of various things have been drilled out.

 

One other thing to do before closing up the cockpit is to add the rear roll bar (or whatever it is) to the rear area of the cockpit., as it is fairly prominent in photos. Also note that my rear cockpit shelf has slipped down during the gluing-in process. It should be up to the cockpit sill back there as well:

 

 

After gluing on the cockpit, another El Cheapo trick was tried -- reuse of the Montex masks that I had already used on the first of these kits that I built earlier, and had carefully saved and stuck back on to their original backing sheet. They were such good masks, that I felt it was worth a try -- we'll see.

 

The masks are black, but as you can see, traces of the "Blue Haze"-like paint still adhere to them in places.

 

Next, off to the paint booth to spray some faded O.D. onto just the cockpit area. (You can fade your own O.D. by adding a drop of yellow to a small bit -- don't mix the whole bottle!):

 

 

Well, that's is for now. Next time, we'll see what trouble I can get into in the paint shop -- or elsewhere, for that matter...

 

Ed

 

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello, back again.

 

Next, a little PPP  (Perfect Plastic Putty) filler along the front of the canopy-to-fuse join, to eliminate the gap  - something I always TRY to do. In this case, the PPP was applied with a tiny home-made plastic strip, and then smoothed with a water-wet Q-tip. This also resulting in dislodging a couple of the twice-used Montex canopy masks, and revealed a little sanding "smutz" in the inside of the canopy. Drats!!

 

I'll deal with that after the painting is done.

 

 

Next, the entire aircraft has been primed with a light coat of Alclad II grey primer, followed by a coat of Alclad II Aluminum, which will aid in my chipped paint effort later on.

 

 

Here the required areas of the model were brushed with a coat of water, to which a few drops of Dawn dishwashing liquid has been added, to act as a wetting agent. Otherwise, of course the water would just bead up or roll off. Then the salt was added.

 

As seen below, I use two kinds of salt for this:

 

 

There's no magic in the brands, only that the kosher salt is slightly larger and more irregular, and the regular salt just provides smaller, if more even, grains. In the above photo, the first layer of salt (atop the aluminum) was the coarse, and then I added a smaller amount of Colourcoats Yellow primer. Next the fine salt is sprinkled here and there over the dried yellow, using the same procedure as before.  I am experimenting with trying to have a little yellow primer showing on the edge of the bare metal on some of the paint chips. If this doesn't work out, I can always touch up the final paint job.

 

When all the salt has dried, the nose of the aircraft is masked off with Parafilm "M" and the prop tips are masked off with Tamiya tape, after which the yellow paint was sprayed on:

 

 

Next the wheels have been primed, then painted with MM FS 36495 a very light grey paint. B&W photos of this squadron show that the wheels were not Neutral Grey, nor were they aluminum, but somewhere in between. This is my S.W.A.G. !!

 

Next, the Montex wheel masks were added, and the yellow tips of the props were masked off with Parafilm "M" and trimmed, prior to painting both items black.

 

Next, the yellow on the nose of the aircraft has been masked with Parafilm "M", then trimmed as needed with a sharp #11 blade:

 

 

Oh, I forgot to show that, prior to the overall prime coat, I had added the tiny scoops under the wing and ahead of the oil coolers on the outboard side of the booms.  Have a care, if you build this kit, to install the correct bits here.  Parts for later versions are included, but they protrude further out from the booms than these correct "E" ones.

 

 

Well, just about ready to shoot the final paints on the model.

 

See you then...

 

Ed

 

 

[Hamden]

 

Just found this, you are certainly making rapid progress even if the kit is fighting you!

Looking forward to the next instalment

 

    Roger 

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks Roger,

 

I'll just keep plugging away...

 

Ed

[F-32]

Love it, very cool work so far

[Cookenbacher]

Keep putting up the fight Ed, it's looking great. I really like your approach to salt weathering.

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, F-32.

 

Cookie, it's a skill I'm still trying to develop, but it looks kinda neat, I think. We'll see how it turns out in the end.

 

Anyway, moving along.

 

I forgot to mention, earlier, that after the aluminum, I used a more coarse bit of salt, and after the yellow primer coat, I used a finer table salt, then shot  a coat of Colourcoats ACUS15 Olive Drab 41.  I like this color for the early war period for OD camo US planes, as it has just a touch of brown that seems to match up a little better with the photos -- just my opinion. 

 

This is what it looked like after that paint had dried, but before polishing away (or scrubbing with a toothbrush) the salt:

 

 

Looks pretty ugly and disease-ridden, doesn't it?

 

Next, I removed the canopy masking, and found that indeed, some sanding crud had shown up INSIDE the canopy:

 

 

So, I had to follow the advice I've given others about this problem. Since the canopy had been dipped in Future or PMF or whatever, and I had used enamel paints, I felt pretty safe with the next step.

 

First, I drilled a small, unobtrusive hole in the nose wheel bay (calculating carefully to avoid the seat or control column, and drilled a small hole, say 1 - 1.5 mm. I then took 99% alcohol and a small pipette and shot the alcohol into the hole, turned the model upside down and swirled the alcohol around a lot, then turned the model right side up. The model was then allow to set while the alcohol dried out, in my case, in front of a dehumidifier which I use in the hobby room to keep everything dry. Alcohol evaporates very quickly, so don't worry if you don't have a dehumidifier laying about.

 

In this case, this left most of the crud at the bottom of the cockpit where it couldn't be seen. My backup plan for a really BAD case of the crud would have been original Windex with ammonia, so the ammonia would have dissolved the Future, also carrying away the debris. Obviously, had I used acrylic paints, both of these efforts would have been risky propositions!

 

 

It's still not perfect, but after scraping the window edges with a flat, tapered bit of hard sprue, and a little touch-up here and there, it looks a little better.

 

Next, an interesting effect occurred, probably when I wet the wing leading edges to get the original bits of salt to stick, some of the salt water residue slid down the wing surface, which had been propped up leading edge high, for the salt to dry before painting. After the fact, I shot a coat of MM clear acrylic gloss over the entire aircraft, prior to putting on the decals;  but I'm so oblivious to other than what I'm currently thinking about, that I don't know whether this salt water effect was there before or after the clear coat. It might be a reaction from the acrylic layer. However, for this project, an aircraft in snow and muck, I just left it, and will refine it a bit when weathering the aircraft:

 

 

Here are the props, salt-weathered and chipped. For info on the jig, please refer to the build thread in the first article of this build that ppoints to my build of Laven's second P-38E, #80.

 

 

Finally, after adding the props, gear door, elevator mass balances and fiddling about with some washes, the bottom looks a little better:

 

 

And with that, the build is pretty much done.  Here is a teaser pic to hold everyone until I can set up the photo booth to shoot the final pics for RFI, which I will link here later on:

 

 

I will also try to photograph all the other Laven birds in my collection, and post up as a separate thread, where I will invite everyone who has built a Laven aircraft to post theirs, as well, so get those pictures ready!

 

Thanks for looking in and following along!

 

Ed

[Hamden]

 

Like the effects you've produced, a very nice result

 

    Roger

[Cookenbacher]

Yes, fantastic result Ed!

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi folks,

 

Here (at last), I've finally gotten around to posting up some photos:  R.F.I. Link

 

Ed