Eduard P-38F/G Right (Starboard) Engine (6481037 for Tamiya) 1:48

[Mike]

Lockheed P-38F/G Lightning Right (Starboard) Engine (6481037 for Tamiya)

1:48 Eduard Brassin

 

 

Tamiya’s recent new tooling of the P-38J/F/H Lightning in 1:48 gave the modelling world a new de facto standard kit of the type, and provided us with an excellent, well-detailed kit of this iconic twin-boom fighter from WWII.  You can always improve on the detail possible with injection-moulded styrene however, and we’ve already had some aftermarket sets from Eduard.  Now we have a larger resin engine set to allow you to open the cowling to display the Allison V-1710 engine, but bear in mind that the engines themselves were handed to cancel out torque steer, so if you intend to open the left/port engine, this set won’t be suitable, and neither will the cowling parts of course.  As is usual with Eduard's larger resin sets, they arrive in a Brassin-themed black-and-yellow deep cardboard box, with the resin parts safely cocooned in bags on a layer of grey foam, and the instructions folded around the top, acting as additional padding.

 

The Set

Inside the box are forty-one 3D-printed resin parts, a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE) with just one part, a decal sheet, and a thick instruction booklet that consists of five sheets of folded A4, printed in colour on both sides.  Throughout the 29 steps, Gunze Sangyo colour codes are given, and where additional wire from your own stocks is needed to add extra detail, you will be given the length and diameter to help you plan ahead.  As is normal for 3D printed parts, they are attached to their print-bases by many fine fingers that taper at the top end to reduce clean-up once you have liberated the part(s) from the base.  A little light sanding is usually sufficient to make any marks disappear, after which you can start putting things together.

 

 

 

Construction begins with removal of the kit engine nacelle from the kit parts, carefully following the red markings shown in the first four steps of the instructions.  Small sections of other parts are also removed in this step, so take care and cross-refer with the kit instructions to ensure you don’t slip up.  At the side of this series of steps is a separate diagram showing the location of all the decals on the engine block and some of the sundry parts around the nacelle, and as they don’t appear to be picked out during the build, you’d be well-advised to mark them on the instructions before you get too far.

 

The first two parts will need extensive painting and those make up the engine block and the ancillaries behind it, which plug together after some extensive detail painting, and the addition of a little nose-weight inside the hollow engine to replace the kit-supplied ball-bearing that would otherwise fill the space.  The prop-shaft housing has a circular PE ring applied to its front, adding two short lengths of wire to the aft end of the tubes that run down the top edge of the inner face of both cylinder banks.  The ancillary block is wired up with short lengths of different diameters of wire, which are marked in separate colours to set them apart.  Over the top of the ancillaries a pair of ignition distributor boxes are laid, one on either side of a joining tube, with a pair of scrap diagrams showing it in relation to the wires that have just been added.  More wire is threaded from the front to the rear and underneath the engine, fitting a tapering trunk for the supercharger, which should end outside the starboard engine bearer, which has more wire routed down its top side and under the prop-shaft, with two accessories also attached to the bearer.

 

Turning the engine around, the port engine bearer is fitted, flipping the assembly over to add another hose under the accessories, and with the assembly righted again, yet another hose that runs from back to front is threaded through and joined by another accessory on the starboard side.  More wire links the new accessory box to something that will be mounted later, meanwhile fitting another box and a curving hose that has a scrap diagram showing where it links to the rear of the engine.  There’s yet another box with some wire leading into the mass of accessories at the rear, with more wires leading to both the boxes already in situ.  At the rear is another firewall assembly that mounts behind the motor, detailing it with two more hoses, one wide, the other narrower, bringing it in to mate with the engine bearers, linking up the loose wires that finally find their end-points.  At the end of the intake tubes is a paired intake lip that is attached on a pair of keyed pegs, with some detail painting in case you’d forgotten that this had been going on.

 

The underside of the nacelle is an impressively detailed part, and needs painting inside and out, fitting a hose down the starboard side, and printed at the rear a complex intake trunking that slots in from the rear.  A scrap diagram shows some more detail painting that will need to be done at this point, adding two filters into their recesses, a horseshoe reservoir at the front, and hoses, plus another long length of wire from your own stocks.  The engine is lowered carefully into the nacelle, which is starting to become a rather impressive assembly, finishing the path of two hoses with curving sections that dive into the depths of the engine, with another scrap diagram helping with locating them as well as the other wires installed earlier.  Exhaust collectors are installed on each side of the motor, followed by the top framework that is a curved cruciform shape, which has a resin tube and a length of wire run down the underside of the spine before it is applied over the engine within the nacelle.

 

The nacelle is complete, but you still need to paint the surprisingly large number of surface panels that are removed to access the engine for care and maintenance.  Each one is printed vertically, and on some you can just about see some layer lines, so after priming them, check to see if those have disappeared, and if not, give them a very light sanding.  There are eleven in all, and the inner faces will be silver, while the outers will be camouflage colour, but you might want to loosely apply them to the model to ensure you have any demarcations noted before you start painting.

 

 

Markings

The whole instruction booklet is dotted with detailed colour indicators that have the H and C codes for Gunze Sangyo’s Mr Color range, along with the names of the colours in case you can’t get to a paint conversion chart at the time.  The small decal sheet is printed digitally, and the carrier film can be carefully peeled away if you wish, leaving just the thin printed part on the model, which is an improvement if the presence of carrier films bothers you like it does me.

 

 

Conclusion

There just aren’t enough superlatives to cover the quality and detail evident on this set.  The space between the cylinder banks however is almost a victim of its own success, as you might struggle to get your paint brush in between the equipment that is moulded into the monolithic block.  It’s an awesome example of 3D printed model parts, and the amount of effort that has been expended in designing it is incredible.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of