Tamiya P-38 H – the first of many

[rob85]

That’s some beautiful detail and paint work, love those figures!

 

Rob

[Longbow]

Very nice detail work and paint !!

[Model Mate]

thanks chaps! I've really been enjoying painting figures - switching to acrylics from enamels and oils for these has been a revelation. Not having to wait for paint to dry means you can really crack on with them.

[Model Mate]

Slight detour…..

 

The Tamiya XF-62 Olive drab arrived for the upper surfaces paint and it does seem rather dark. It matches the colour plans provided in the kit, but I want to depict a well-worn and faded tropical machine, so there’s going to be quite a few coats of lightened and altered colouring using white and yellow mixed in together with some heavy chipping. What I really need is a paint mule to test on – ideally another 1/48 plane with the same basic paint scheme….hmmm.

 

 Now I don’t carry much stock – I don’t have a “stash”. But wait… remember the start of this project?

 

My “virtually free” P51-B from ICM – perfect!

 

It’s not the same quality as the Tamiya P-38, but then it was around 1/10 the price and it’s not bad – detail is good and it goes together ok.

 

I painted the interior yellow/green (the instructions called for zinc-chromate). I’m not sure about this, but as the canopy will be closed and it is only a test piece, what the hell. It got a bit of an oil wash.

 

And I used some of the left-over Tamiya IP decal to cut out a few dials.

 

And slapped it all together.

 

I used a few scraps of sprue to form locating tabs as the kit doesn’t come with any and it went together pretty well. It’s no masterpiece and will end up being a “ten footer”, but I really enjoyed getting it all constructed in a single dreary-grey lockdown day. I haven’t built a whole plane this quick since about 1976!

 

[TheFlogger]

P-38 , P-51 and off course figures are extremely cool!

Cant wait to see end.

Especially  I loved the P-51. ICM guys should  offer you a beer  :)))

[Model Mate]

Thanks Flogger - I don't think the P-51 will win any awards though. Fun afternoon build, but not my finest moment! Shame really; with a bit of extra work, it'd make a fine model. The next session should see a fair bit of progress with painting....

[Model Mate]

I did promise paint progress, but unfortunately I’ve not had any airbrush time recently, so on with the ancillaries…

 

I assembled a few oil and jerry cans and carved some dents/scratches into them along with a coffee-stirrer wooden box/crate.

 

I’ll take advantage of an unused drop tank I practiced some model-air painting on, and the also unused gun bay cover to make up a collection of airfield junk.

 

All of these parts need a bit of painting and weathering. Here are the weapons of choice for the job: Vallejo olive green and brown, yellow ochre and white to mix up a few different shades of olive green/drab and my favourite weathering oils.

 

The drums and cans got a coat of these various greens/drabs, with the oils sloshed over.

 

The coffee stirrer box was stained with oils.

 

And the drop tank got some staining as well. This will need a decal or two and then maybe some further weathering.

 

The gun bay cover received some battle damage and I made up some coffee-stirrer planks as well. It’ll all go together something like this, with a tea-bag or rizla tarp draped over part of it – mainly to hide the drop tank connection point as I’m not sure what it really looks like.

 

 

[Model Mate]

Finally I got back to my boat for some airbrush time! For those with limited power (like me when afloat) I came up with a home-brewed 12V/fully manual compressor. To be honest I’ve switched to fully manual operation now – it only takes a few pumps every now and then and is a useful bit of extra lockdown exercise!

First up – “the mule”. The P-51 got some Tamiya black preshading and “metal” rub ’n buff which was sealed with Klear. I sprayed on a coat of hairspray straight from the can. This is the cheapest, strongest, unperfumed one I could find in poundland and I roughly masked this with kitchen towel to avoid getting it on the un-metalled areas. I followed this up with another blast once it was dry.

 

I sprayed the nose area with 60/30% XF-62 and XF-4 (olive drab and yellow/green respectively) and once touch dry, applied some thin strips of masking tape over panel lines on the cowling. Apparently, Pacific P-38s had tape applied to some panel joints during shipping out, which left them slightly lighter than the rest of the airframe. I then sprayed the whole thing in neat XF-62 followed by a 70/25% mix to panel centres and finally added a drop of white which was misted over the upper surfaces.

 

It all turned out pretty dark, and the added white (which has a definite blue tint in the bottle) didn’t look like faded paint as I’d hoped.

 

Peeling off the panel line tape pulled a bit of the paint away, but no problem – this is one of the areas hairsprayed for chipping anyway.

 

As soon as it was touch dry, I started the chipping with a toothpick and a cut-down toothbrush. It came off really easily – a bit too easily if anything.

 

I always worry that I need to get chipping straight after the paint, so I left one wing un-chipped. I returned to it a couple of hours later, and it still chipped pretty easily.

I left another part for later still, and after over 24 hours it was still chippable – good to know.

 

So – experiment fairly successful. I’ve used hairspray before, but there are quite a few variables to iron out and have confidence in, so it was good to be able to do a trial run. I have heard that acrylics other than Tamiya don’t work so well with hairspray and I’m pretty sure enamels would be a disaster.

 

I masked up the P-38 using white-tac and tape and got spraying.

 

I lightened the mixes, starting with 50/50% for the panel line coat and messing about with mixes as I built up the paint. The bottom/sides got neat XF-62, but all the rest had at last some XF-4 in. No white this time. The demarcation is a bit vague in places and the panel stripes stand out a bit too much, but hopefully washes, decals and weathering will draw the eye away from this.

 

Despite knowing that I could leave it for a bit, I couldn’t resist getting on with the chipping, so did it pretty soon after painting and it came out reasonably well. A bit heavy on the engine cowls maybe.

 

I added some sponge chipping to blend it all in and get some chips on the undersides and props

 

Overall I’m pretty pleased. The photos don’t show it very well as they were taken under various different lighting conditions, but the colour is much better on the P-38 I think. The chipping is a bit heavy  (particularly on the mule; it looks like it fell down a rocky cliff and spent 40 years underwater), but I’m hoping that the subsequent weathering will tone it down a fair bit.

[F-104 nut]

Sweet job on that P-38H office. Looking really great and nice to see the H being built. I might have to build the gun bay opened someday. Its a beautifula and very enjoyable build isnt it ? Really love seeing you also building the Tamiya P-51B . My favorite of their kits. Beautiful job on the interior  What markings we going for ?

 

Brian

[Model Mate]

Thanks Brian, I’m looking forward to seeing your H taking shape too - your other builds are really neat, so I’m sure you’ll turn ‘round a beauty with this. 
The P51 is ICM rather than tamiya - much cheaper, but not much worse; just takes a bit of care, though I’ve not lavished much effort on it as I’m just using it for technique practice/testing.

[Model Mate]

Oh, as for markings, I’m going with what’s in the box for both of them.

[Model Mate]

I notice this is update number 13. I’m not a superstitious soul, but I’m beginning to think maybe this does explain some of the problems I’ve faced this time…

 

I brushed on a couple of thin coats of Klear to prepare for decals and washes. I stopped short of getting to a full gloss coat; I find that a couple of coats gives a nice satin which is shiny enough for decals and pin washes, but also has enough texture to take oil filters.

 

I got the major decals on but failed with the rudder tips. They were just too thick, so back to plan A - paint them. The rest of the decals are typical Tamiya; thick and unyeilding - microsol doesn't seem to do anything to them and the underlying detail is pretty much gone. I sliced each decal along panel lines to try and get some sort of impression of the lines underneath for a wash to get into.

 

The P-51 paint mule also got the same treatment and the ICM decals while a bit thinner than the Tamiya ones, were still pretty resistant to microsol. I tried both a black and off-white pin wash on each wing as a test. As the P-38 is a fair bit lighter, I think I’ll go with black for that, but I think the light wash looks ok for really dark schemes. Something to bear in mind for the future. Has anyone out there got their own rules of thumb about light v dark panel lines?

 

So more masking - the mule needed its bottom spraying, and the p-38 rudder tips needed doing.

This is where the trouble started....

 

I masked the P-51 with white tac worms and cheapo masking tape and sprayed Vallejo model-air light grey. It went on beautifully with just a drop of water mixed in with the paint.

Guess what happened when I pulled off the masking though - no prizes - the decals got ripped to pieces.

 

I painted them in roughly - what a mess! This plane is only a tester of course, but it would be nice to be able to finish it off a bit better than this.

 

Meanwhile, I masked and sprayed the P-38 rudder tips using white model-colour with a bit more water - terrible. All it seemed to do was visibly run into the panel lines under the masking tape and completely fail to give any meaningful coverage. Grrr.

 

So I had to resort to hairy-stick brushing. After the white was on, I masked a thin line at the bottom and went over with yellow. Thankfully this seemed to go on pretty well in just a few coats.

 

Time to un-mask, and guess what happened. Off course, the decals ripped off again. Deja vu.

 

I tried to salvage this by taping over the Tamiya colour plan and cutting a stencil. This seemed to work ok and I stippled some white paint on it.

 

Removing the stencil ripped off whatever remained of the underlying decals and a good proportion of the newly applied paint.

 

This whole exercise has gone from bad to worse. I’ll take solace in completing the thousands of stencil decals while I try to come up with another plan to fix this awful mess....

 

I did have some good news and a welcome distraction though. My Chinese Jeep arrived – and what a lovely surprise! It appears to scale out correctly and the plastic is hard, nicely moulded, reasonably detailed and completely flash-free. At £2.64 this has to be the bargain of the century! It’ll need a little bit of improvement, but nowhere near as much as I was anticipating – nice!

 

 

 

[Model Mate]

Distraction time. To take my mind of the rudder disaster/dilemma, I tucked into the lovely little Jeep.

 

First thing was to improve the tools. The axe was pretty basic, being just a flat cut out of roughly the right shape, which I promptly lost to the carpet monster so I’ll have to come up with a replacement. The shovel was rather nicer, but needed its handle opening up.

 

I plugged some of the various fixing holes in the bodywork with sections of stretched sprue and added a bit of extra detail to the sides and bonnet.

 

The dashboard got some lead wire bezels superglued on for dials along with a few switches and so on. I drilled out the lights on the front plate ready for metal foil and clear glue lenses later.

 

The (surprisingly detailed) underside was missing the rear differential – I must have also inadvertently fed this to the carpet monster, so a replacement was fashioned from some plastic scraps.

 

That's all for now....Cheers.

 

[Model Mate]

I still haven’t plucked up the enthusiasm to tackle my rudder problem, so it’s on with the Jeep…

 

I thinned down the screen fixing arms – photo below shows the re-shaped one on the right and the original on the left. The seats got a bit of framing detail added to the backs.

 

I knocked up a light from bits of scrap sprue and stuck the seats in place along with the levers and some scrap-sprue footpedals.

I decided to cut out the radiator grille slots. I’d like to fill in the tops of these, but don’t have any filler with me. The radiator grille will be kept dry-fitted until after painting, so I can always tackle this later.

 

I thinned down the windscreen frame and the glass. The glass was sanded until the top and bottom flanges snapped off.

 

This was then polished and glued into the frame with a bit of detail added to the back.

 

For the diorama I’m planning to have one of my pilots sitting in the passenger seat, wating to be driven to his plane. Unfortunately, he’s a serial man-spreader and wouldn’t squeeze into his seat. A very hot bath followed by a cold shower and some lower trouser tailoring and foot surgery persuaded him to sit properly.

 

This had to be combined with hacking out one of the rather chunky locating holes in the corner of the footwell. It will be pretty invisible, so I’m not too concerned about the mess, and the driver’s side one can stay.

 

And he’s in…!

 

I glued the windscreen to the dash after a bit of trimming to get the right angle (it was a it too upright originally) and dry-fitted it all together to see how it’s looking. I’ll keep the dash & screen separate from the rest for painting and the wheels are also dry-fitted. Looks like a Jeep to me, so £2.64 well spent I’d say!

 

[Model Mate]

More Jeep bits – I’ll get back onto the plane shortly, I promise!

 

The kit-supplied axe was an early victim of the carpet monster. It’s fairly big to lose this way, but I can’t find it anywhere. No matter; it was pretty basic anyway, so I took a bit of left-over sprue and sanded it flat on both sides.

 

A bit of carving and it’s at least as good (or bad) as the one I lost. This got glued in place along with the shovel, and I added some lead wire for brackets and a strip of wine-bottle metal (not expensive wine lead, but cheap screw-top wine aluminium) for the shovel strap.

 

I also used some of this aluminium to form a light guard and the same stuff (very useful, especially if you don’t have any plastic card to hand) made the tray/bracket for my replacement jerry can, with a strip of Tamiya tape as the strap. Here it is compared to the kit part.

 

For such cheap kit, what’s in the box (well, bag) isn’t bad to be honest; it’s the right size at least.

 

The can got glued to the rear of the jeep.

 

I masked up the windscreen after an application of Klear. I was a bit heavy-handed with this so it’s a bit like a tudor pub window – clear, but a bit wobbly.

 

I’ve decided to glue the dash in place before painting as I think it will need a fair bit of glue to get it to sit down nicely since I hacked off one of the fixing holes. As a result, I need to get the dials in place and (carefully masked this time) before the whole thing gets sprayed. So I brush painted the dash in neat XF-62 ready for decals. While the paint was out, I sloshed some around the wheels too.

 

I then added some more spare dial decals from the P-38 decal set and covered them with microsol then Klear.

 

Back to the Lightning – I did promise….

 

I did the best I could with the tail numbers, touching them up with white and olive drab acrylics and wiped a bit of fresh Klear over them. They look awful in close-up, but not too bad in reality, without my reading glasses on at least!

 

I’ve continued decaling – I enjoy the big bits, but God, I hate stencil decals! Just one reason why I can’t see myself doing an F-14 or similar in the immediate future. They just seem to take forever and I can’t read them in the end, even with magnifiers on. The decals are thick and don’t react to microsol at all.

 

The P-51 mule had a Klear coat added to the underside and a single solitary star ’n bar – I decided not to bother with the stencils for this one. I then added a black oil panel pin-wash and started experimenting with oil filters and washes. I resisted adding another Klear coat to seal the decal(s) as I want to retain a bit of “bite” in the finish to take oils for mottling and staining. This is the part I really love. With a decent set of just a few oils and lots of white spirit, you can get all sorts of effects with oil paints, just make sure to use good quality (Windsor & Newton in my case) paints. I’ve probably gone a bit overboard here just to see the difference it can make compared to “clean” paint.

 

 

[Model Mate]

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa's model elves delivered the plastic you'd been wishing for! Blenhiem for me - hurrah!

 

After finishing all the decaling, I gave the P-38 another thin Klear coat, applied a black oil pin-wash and some thinned-oil mottling as per the P-51 mule experiments. This was then sealed with an overall matt varnish using well-thinned Windsor & Newton. This allows the matt coat to be built up gradually, so I left the nose and leading edges a little satin compared to the rest.

 

 

 

The mule got the same treatment and I stripped off the canopy masking. A few leaks, but these were mostly dealt with. I patched up the torn decals with some hairy-stick applied acrylics.

 

 

The masking on the P-38 also came off and thankfully all was good.

 

The separate canopy top wasn’t so fortunate though….

 

A little rubbing/scraping with a cocktail stick and it was much improved.

 

Exhaust stains were sprayed onto the booms using model-air Anthracite and light grey.

 

Right – back to the Jeep. I added some “canvas” seat covers using a cut up tea bag soaked in Tamiya extra thin cement and the dashboard/windscreen was glued into place.

 

The Jeep was sprayed fairly dark OD shades and the seat, tools, straps etc. picked out in acrylics with a smattering of dark grey chipping to the metalwork.

 

A Klear coat went on and decals were added. I couldn’t justify to myself £10 on aftermarket decals for a £2.50 kit, so I cut the bonnet star from a spare star on the P-38 sheet and a couple of (somewhat undersized) serial numbers also came from this spares source.

 

I applied the usual brown and black oil washes and a bit of pastel dust.

 

...and the wheel are on. Just a matt coat, some junk in the back, and a few final details to finish this.

 

I’ve also been busy with the diorama base. I cut down a piece of plywood and sketched out the layout on it

 

I trowelled on some cheap home plaster filler, smoothed it into shape with lots of water and a rough paintbrush and sprinkled on grey tile grout.

 

This was all treated to a heavy wash of very thinned Vallejo Khaki grey and 2mm static grass of various shades was sprinkled onto dribbles of watered down PVA.

 

Here’s a mock-up….

 

And on to all the final fiddly bits – these seem to take longer than anything else!

 

Bye for now….

 

 

 

[F-104 nut]

That is really looking great . Loving that weathering . Really like that Willy Jeep. Keep up the great work !!

[Mountain Modeler]

I have this kit and I have really enjoyed your WIP. Can't wait to see the finished piece. Bravo!

[Model Mate]

Happy New Year everyone!

 

This is the final instalment – I’ll be posting a RFI soon.

 

The last sticky-out bits were glued on to the P-38. This included the aerial wires. I drilled a hole in the back of the canopy glazing and ran a piece of “invisible” thread through. The end of this was melted with a lighter to form a small ball on the end, preventing it from being pulled back through. I stretched a section of plastic tube to make a very small length of narrow tube and looped the thread through it and back. This would allow the tail aerial wires to be captured in the loop to tension the whole arrangement.

 

In truth, this was far from invisible and about a scale 50mm in diameter – more like aerial cable than wire, so I re-did the whole shebang using much thinner smoke coloured mono-filament thread and a piece of 0.8mm brass tube.

 

Much better! Another sticky-out bit was the ground-crew member doing the re-fuel.

 

The Jeep also had a matt coat and headlights added from shiny metal foil and Gorilla clear glue. The masking on the Jeep windscreen was a bit of a mess with the Tudor-pub window glazing now crazed by brush applied Klear leaking through, so they now look like they are cracked as well as wobbly. Short of stripping the whole thing, I couldn’t see a way of dealing with this, and presumably the windscreens of Jeeps did get broken from time to time(?) so it’ll have to do.

[HOUSTON]

Happy New Year to you too.

SPLENDID  workmanship and weathering is TOP NOTCH. 

looking SO brilliant. 

[F-104 nut]

That lightning with crew is really looking great. Sweet job on the weathering !!

[Model Mate]

Thanks fellas. All done now...

 

 

[Col Walter E Kurtz]

Love the diorama.

I bought the same ICM figures so looking forward to making them up using your method!