Lockheed 1/72 OP-2E

[hsr]

I don't usually do a WIP for my projects for a number of reasons but, it was suggested that I start one for this project. So I figured I would give it a try.

 

This project will be converting the venerable Hasegawa P-2H (P2V-7) Neptune kit

To an OP-2E version using the newly released Blackbird conversion kit

Also while I was waiting for the Blackbird conversion kit to come out I came across another white metal conversion by a company called C Scale

My current plan is to only used the chaff dispenser which is the circled part.

Finally I will be using the Pavla P2V-7 cockpit interior set

 Augmented with the Eduard P2V-7 cockpit set and mask set.

 

The Blackbird set does not come with decals but both Caracal and Wolfpak do have sheets and while the Wolfpak one is out of production and I couldn't find it anywhere I was able to get the Caracal one

 

So I think I have everything I need so it is time to get started. The Blackbird resin looks pretty goo but it is not without issues

 

But that is easy to fix. It looks like he tried to just make some mods to the instruction for the AP-2H conversion and reuse them.

So far I have found a couple of issues. The first of these is with removing the front of the fuselage. The drawing show cutting off the front of the bomb bay door is the process. None of the sources I have describe this as part of the conversion and in fact the Wayne Mutza book says that the bombay was enlarged, although I am guessing that was mostly internal. On the other hand the plug provided to fill the hole left by removing the radar is long enough to fill the bay door section removed. In my first cut I left the bay doors intact but I will probably cut them back.

 

The other issue is on the other end; clipping the tail. The instructions show removing a sizable section including the mounting area for the stabilizer. But there is no way that the tail piece provided can replace that much area or the mounts

  

So this is where I decided to only remove the MAD portion of the tale and use the C Scale chaff dispenser to fill the hole.

 

So today I primed the resin parts and sprayed the interior gray and I cut up the fuselage

 Still to do will be to remove the large bulge on the bottom of the tail and cut back the bomb bay door. Then I'll start of the cockpit details.

 

[janneman36]

That needs a lot of cutting! very eager to see the result as this is a nice and rare gunship version👍🏻
I have the AP2-H in my stash that needs to be build but that is a more straightforward conversion then this, you are a brave man.

 

cheers, Jan

[hsr]

I built the AP-2H last year,

and it was a simpler conversion with a lot less surgery.

 

Thanks

[VG 33]

Hello

 

Nice to see the WIP here. I have the same decal sheet but not the conversion set. I will follow.

 

Patrick

[hsr]

We will see how it goes. I will try to post at least once a day the work of the day

 

Thanks

[RidgeRunner]

Hi @hsr.

 

I’m so pleased that you are ahead of me on this ;).

 

I have everything - kit, Blackird conversion set, flap set, cockpit set, decals.

 

I will be watching very closely

 

Martin

[hsr]

 

On 3/20/2020 at 12:08 PM, RidgeRunner said:

I will be watching very closely

This way you'll learn what not to do 😀

 

So this morning I worked on the cockpit and got the Eduard bits on the Pavla interior

 

 

I also did some grinding on the Pavla interior piece to get it to better fit (I hope) into the Blackbird fuselage.

 

Then I did some detail painting on the Pavla seats

 

 

Pavla supplies 2 really nice seats for the cockpit but doesn't provide you with the third seat for the observer in the nose, so I have to use the nondescript Hasegawa seat.

 

I will add the Eduad seat belts once the red dries. Later I will give a second coat where needed and so some additional touch up and detailing. 

 

Tomorrow I can hopefully start some assembly 

[hsr]

I am very confused. First, as I mentioned earlier the Blackbird instruction say for cut off the front of the bomb bay doors to add the new front fuselage so when you assemble it all you have this

 

with the plug filling in the missing bomb bay door and the hole for the removed radar. I am not happy shortening the bomb bay doors but I can live with it,

 

Second the nose gear doors are molded into the front fuselage closed with an outline where to cut them no mention of this is made in the instructions;

 

So I dutifully cut them out. Only then did I try the fit of the kit wheel well

So the Blackbird doors are way to long. Again I have found no reference that mentions this. Then I thought that maybe the bombay door should not be cut and by moving the plug forward it will fit the gap behind the wheel well. But that doesn't work either.

 

Where the pencil mark is where the back of the wheel well is.

 

There are a number of options that I could follow, but the one requiring the least cutting is to cut back the wheel well, insert the plug and then replace the back of the wheel well doors to fill in that gap (?)  

[Learstang]

Good luck on this! I have an OP-2E scratchbuilt conversion I've been doing to the old Hasegawa kit for some time. Despite this, I've still thought about buying the Blackbird conversion kit (when it came out) as I suppose there are some parts I could nick, such as the camera housing under the aft fuselage.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[hsr]

Thanks, and good luck with your build

[Learstang]

Thank you, and I shall follow along on your build with interest!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[hsr]

Thanks to @Tailspin Turtle and his blog

http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2016/02/early-p2vs.html

I see that the confusion here is all on my part. The OP-2E is a P2V-5 not a P2V-7 like the Hasegawa kit and the gear well and the bomb bay door were both farther back on the -5 then the -7. Duh

[Tailspin Turtle]

3 hours ago, hsr said:

Thanks to @Tailspin Turtle and his blog

http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2016/02/early-p2vs.html

I see that the confusion here is all on my part. The OP-2E is a P2V-5 not a P2V-7 like the Hasegawa kit and the gear well and the bomb bay door were both farther back on the -5 then the -7. Duh

I’m still reviewing it, though, and will get back to you in a day or two. One of the problems is an -5 SAC appears to have the wrong wheel base (same as P2V-7 rather than the -4, which I think it should be). Someday I hope to post a comprehensive comparison of the P2V types. Don’t hold your breath.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Tailspin Turtle

[RidgeRunner]

Thats correct @hsr, it is an E model. The weapons bay was certainly different on this variNt compared with the H. 

 

When you get to it, note that the nose wheel leg is too short. @Moggy's build showed that there is about a 5mm difference between the kit part and where it needs to be. 

 

Happy modelling!

 

Martin

 

[hsr]

So last night I did the touch up painting on the cockpit interior and after a lot of sanding, grinding and dry fitting I was able to shoe horn it into the front fuselage halves, mostly.

 

and the observers seat

 

The instructions suggest joining the 2 resin fuselage halves to the kit ones before joining the 2 halves but because of the warpage and the problems I knew I would have getting the Pavla interior to dit I wanted to work on smaller pieces so I joined the resin, and kit halves separately. I might live to regret that. Note as with all the Pavla interiors I have worked with this set is not a drop in fit.

 

At this point I was fairly happy. Then I tried to add the canopy and found that it was too big in every dimension.

   

 

not only was it too wide and too long but it was too thick and bumped into the top of the dashboard. But, I remembered that the C Scale kit had a vac canopy, and while I hate vac canopies this one was a lifesaver and I was able to get it to fit. You can see the difference in sizes from these 2 pictures.

 

Here it is in place

Obviously it will take a bit more filling and sanding to get it right.

 

Finally I was then able to join the front and back halves together 

 

Note that while Blackbird give you the correct second window as far as I can find the actual window is not included and will require so Kristal Klear.

 

Tomorrow will be devoted to filling and sanding and if I am really luck I will get the wings on. After that it will just be a standard Neptune build until it gets time to paint. 

[Learstang]

Nice work on the canopy! Luckily, I have an old Falcon vacuform P2V-5 conversion canopy for my OP-2E conversion.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[Shorty84]

Hmmm, not a good sign when the canopy of another kit fits much better than your own 🤔 Lucky you that you had the other conversion set. Is the resin fuselage devoid of any panel lines? Will you add some or leave it as is?

 

Cheers

Markus

[hsr]

1 minute ago, Shorty84 said:

Is the resin fuselage devoid of any panel lines?

Yes

2 minutes ago, Shorty84 said:

Will you add some or leave it as is?

I will leave it as is. I don't find panel lines to be realistic. I know I am in a small minority here, but that's my feeling. Plus all of my attempts to add or restore panel lines have been total failures and a man has to know his limitations. 😞

[RidgeRunner]

Thats a bummer about the canopy, @hsr. I wonder if the Blackbird P2V-5 set suffers the same? Certainly it will present a problem for many (who dont have a Falcon or C Scale) but also an opportunity for a vac form producer! I'm surprised that the master maker didnt test build it. Maybe Glenn at Blackbird will pick this up? 

 

Martin

Edited March 22, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[hsr]

An aftermarket part for an aftermarket set? The front fuselage for the OP-2E is a new molding, while I think the canopy is just copied from the P2V-5 set. So it might work with the P2V-5 front fuselage. I have the P2V-5 set but it is too much trouble to dig it out and test it.

 

Also, perhaps it would have worked better if I had done the assembly in the order he suggested, but I don't see how.

Howard

 

[Learstang]

I just checked my P2V-5/Neptune MR.1 conversion set and the canopy is a little wide on this set, although it's better than what you had with the OP-2E. A small shim around the canopy area and/or a bit of judicious sanding on the bottom sides of the canopy on my P2V-5 looks like it will do the trick.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[hsr]

That's what I figured

 

Thanks for checking

[RidgeRunner]

1 hour ago, Learstang said:

I just checked my P2V-5/Neptune MR.1 conversion set and the canopy is a little wide on this set, although it's better than what you had with the OP-2E. A small shim around the canopy area and/or a bit of judicious sanding on the bottom sides of the canopy on my P2V-5 looks like it will do the trick.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

Excellent research, Jason. Thats a relief

 

Martin

[hsr]

I am not going to inflict a bunch of pictures on you today. The day was spent filling and sanding in a seemingly infinite loop. The sanding of the resin fuselage did expose some pinholes under the surface but not too bad.

 

 

The wings are not glued on, just stuck in their slots. All of the resin has been filled and sanded and the top of the plastic. I also added the chin radar and the  rear camera pod. Tomorrow will finish the fuselage filling, and then polishing out all the sanding scratches, especially on what used to be the transparencies. And maybe get some work done on the wings. Now my Sunday laundry calls.🗑️ 

[Learstang]

Nice and quick work! It looks like you're about where I am on my OP-2E. Right now my sticking point is scratchbuilding that large camera housing under the aft fuselage. I really may pick this conversion set up mainly for that.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

Edited March 22, 2020 by Learstang