<-- **** DONE: 1/48 P-38J Hill's Angels - Twin Engined Aircraft of WWII (1 Viewer)

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JKim

Senior Master Sergeant
3,601
544
Jul 1, 2014
Carlsbad, CA
Username: JKim
First name: John
Category: Advanced
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Academy
Model Type: Lockheed P-38J Lightning
Aftermarket addons: Aires P-38J Resin Cockpit, Eduard Brassin P-38 Resin Wheels, Eduard Brassin P-38J Turbochargers and Intakes, Eduard Photoetch P-38 Upgrade, Master Models Brass P-38 Early Armament Set, Cutting Edge Decals

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Profile from Osprey Aircraft of the Aces: P-38 Lightning Aces of the Pacific and CBI by John Stanaway

I will be attempting to model the P-38J-10 that Lt. Allen Hill's P-38J-10flew with the 80th Fighter Squadron, operating from Finschafen, Papua New Guinea in 1944. "Ailing Allen" ended the war with nine aerial victories.

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Photos from Attack & Conquer: The 8th Fighter Group in WWII by John Stanaway (thanks Micdrow!)
 
Ok... here we go! I'm gonna do a full sprue presentation. I'm not sure who likes reading builds with this stuff but I find it a nice way to get to know a kit a little better. I often notice things when looking at digital pictures of my own build as my eyes are not like they used to be. So... if you don't want to see virgin plastic on sprues and close-ups of resin and brass parts, you can skip these next three posts.

This is the kit I'll be using. My first Academy kit and first P-38 build. This kit allows you to build some interesting versions of the fork-tailed devil. I'll be doing to standard P-38J fighter.
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The instructions are fairly normal. Color callouts by number, which I hate but seems to be the industry standard.
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The decal sheets looks decent. In addition to personal markings for a few aircraft, the sheet also comes with some technical stencils.
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The wings are presented as full bottoms and tops. From what I've read, there is some potential for misalignment of the booms, which are attached separately, so I'll have to be careful.
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Surface details are finely recessed but pretty basic in terms of the number of panel lines represented. Looks kinda naked when compared with the state of the art kits from Eduard, Tamiya or Hasegawa.
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The booms are on two identical sprues. Some of the outlet openings are molded open, which is a nice touch.
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The main differences in the versions offered are found in the nose and these sprues contain the different types of noses. The chin intakes for the Allison engines are not molded open but have a mesh texture. You might be able to get away with a paint/dark wash treatment here but the safe play would be to drill these openings out.
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This little sprue has the optional rocket tubes and the engine turbocharger units. The molding on the turbochargers is not bad but they'll be replaced by Eduard resin. I'm planning on representing a pure fighter so no rocket tubes or bombs are planned for this build.
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The drop tanks will probably be used. The landing gear doors are pretty light on surface details and I am planning to dress these areas up with the Eduard PE set.
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This busy sprue has lots of the smaller details on board like the wheels and the cockpit. The molding on the wheels looks pretty good with a nice tread pattern and cleanly defined spoked wheels. That tread pattern might be difficult to salvage on the seam though. The cockpit is presented in multiple parts with some detail but obviously can't compare to the detail on the Aires resin parts. But... who knows how those Aires cockpit parts will fit. That's the biggest question that I have before I start this build... can I get the Aires resin cockpit to fit?
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The landing gear bays will be completely boxed off but there is hardly any surface detail on the parts.
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Hmmm... another nose piece? Are these identical?
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This clear sprue contains optional parts that I won't be using so this baggy will remain closed. I should mention that the Academy kit was very well packaged with the sprues coming in separate plastic bags.
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The clear parts look ok but I will have to check the fit, especially the windscreen onto the Aires resin coaming.
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Next I'll jump into the aftermarket stuff.
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First on the extras menu is the Eduard Brassin Turbocharger and Intake set. These are very nicely molded but the turbocharger part is quite flat and will a challenge to remove from its casting block.
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The difference in the amount and quality of the details is evident when comparing with the kit part.
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The kit also provides some intakes that will require some surgery on the kit parts.
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Next up is the Eduard Brassin Wheel set. I really like how Eduard separates the wheel hubs from the tires... it makes painting/weathering that much easier. The wheel spokes have some excess resin flash that needs to be cleaned off but that's very easy to do, especially since the flash comes from the back edge.
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Both the main and nose wheels look to be slightly smaller than the kit parts and feature a different type of tread. The molding is extreme fine and sharp and even features what looks to be the Goodyear logo on the tire!
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Another upgrade that I purchased for this kit is the Eduard Brass P-38 Upgrade set. Most significantly, it provides additional detail for the gear wheel wells and doors. I would've preferred a more "3-D" approach to the add-ons but hopefully the relief on the brass sheets stands out underneath paint.
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Finally, we have the Aires Resin P-38J Cockpit set. I was waffling between the Aires and Eduard resin cockpit sets and finally chose the Aires after a few online builds complained about the fit of the Eduard cockpit. At least one build compared the two directly and stated that the Aires was a better fit so I went with it.
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The resin details are much improved from the kit parts but not glaringly so. The Academy kit certainly provides a decent foundation for scratchbuilders.
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I may assemble the kit cockpit to serve as reference during the fitting process but I'd like to preserve the option of using the kit cockpit in case of failure.
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Pre-fitting the resin cockpit will be tricky since the tub is a multi-part affair.
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I'd like to remove the hood over the instrument panel, which in real-life was a deployable canvas covering often removed in practice. Trimming off the thin resin hood should not pose a problem but I'd have to come up with another way to mount the gunsight.
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The cockpit set comes with an old skool (unpainted) brass fret with the instrument panel face, seat harnesses and some instrument switch gear. I actually prefer the unpainted brass to the prepainted stuff that Eduard produces. Eduard's colors are often questionable, the coloring process leaves a noticeable mesh texture and the paint has a tendency to peel off if the part is handled or bent repeatedly.
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Looking forward to this John. I built the recon version years ago and it went together well. As you mentioned, the booms are a little fiddly but nothing patience will take care of
 
Looking forward to this one. I had an Academy P-38 on the go some time ago and ran out of steam when I had to make a repair for a key broken part using a home made resin replacement. Maybe, if I have time, I'll resume it in parallel with this GB and after I finish my Beau.
 
Probably the longest introduction to a GB yet! I apologize for the overabundance of preliminary photos but like I said, it gives me an opportunity to evaluate the kit before I start.
 
I received my decals from David at Fine Art of Decals, which concludes my shopping for this project unless I pick up a set of canopy masks or botch the canopy and have to order a vac replacement. Decals look very NICE!
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I'm starting off this build in the customary place... the cockpit. I need to figure out how the Aires resin cockpit fits. I CAREFULLY cut the resin sidewalls, floor and radio shelf from their casting blocks. The fit of the resin cockpit parts to EACH OTHER is very good for whatever that's worth. The side walls are being held by friction and the radio shelf is attached with a ball of Blu-Tack.
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I've also assembled the kit cockpit to serve as a guide on how to best fit the resin cockpit. Parts fit looks to be pretty vague in this nose area but the kit cockpit floor has an edge that lines up with the top of the wheel well to help get the correct placement in the fore/aft orientation.
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I dry-fit the kit cockpit into the nose to check fit and orientation, noting the where the radio shelf edge is in relation to the canopy rails on the upper fuselage piece. Fit looks decent but without much in the way of location pins, it's hard to be sure.
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The side-by-side comparison of the kit cockpit and resin cockpit highlights a very important difference... the height of the sidewalls. As you can see in the 2nd picture below, the Aires sidewalls are higher than the kit sidewalls.
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Plugging the kit cockpit back into the fuselage, I can begin to see the first modification needed to make the resin cockpit fit. I need to remove the overhanging edge of the canopy rails to accommodate the higher sidewalls.
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Before the trim...
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After the trim...
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I substitute the resin cockpit in place to see how things fit. We're getting somewhere now! Although it doesn't look pretty, I've already reduced the fit problem to a single dimension, height. By trimming the floor of the resin cockpit tub and the top of the nose bay, I think the height issue will be resolved.
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Playing around with the pieces a little more, I stumbled onto what is probably the key to fit the Aires resin cockpit to the Academy P-38 kit. The fit into the fuselage top half is very good. The notches in the front of the Aires sidewall correspond perfectly to the locating pin position and provides a positive key for placement.
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The slight curvature of the sidewall extension is designed to help the coaming piece to fit into place. It looks like the coaming is a little undersized, probably due to shrinkage.
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Test fitting the windshield to the coaming verifies the size discrepancy. The clear windshield is noticeably wider than the resin coaming it sits on. Might there be a way to gently "force" the coaming to be wider?
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I think the best way of fitting the Aires resin cockpit is to attach it to the UPPER fuselage half.
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After sanding the floor of the resin cockpit floor and the top of the nosewheel well, I tried to dry-fit the fuselage pieces together. It looks horrendous but it is actually pretty good. The vagaries of dry-fitting don't allow the seams to be shut tight but I've verified that all seams are closing with light finger pressure.
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I want to remove the canvas hood of the coaming based on pictures of P-38's in service. It also might be easier to "spread" the coaming out a little bit to help it fit better. I have to find a way to attach the gun sight.
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Still futzing around with the aftermarket stuff and have not laid any paint down yet. The cockpit is almost squared away in terms of pre-fitting. I placed the photoetched instrument panel into place so I can start mapping out where to attach the gunsight.
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Jumping off of the cockpit for a while and taking a look at wheel well bays. The kit provides full enclosures for the nose and main gear wells but the detailing is sparse.
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The Eduard detail set provides some needed relief for main gear sidewalls. Let's hope the etched detail shows through the paint!
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Some wiring is provided for the sidewalls. Flat brass is not the ideal way to replicate wiring but it should ok tucked up into the landing gear wells.
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More wiring details for the main gear wells. This one requires some folding.
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The gear doors have some half-hearted raised details but could use some help.
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The PE panels busy up the doors nicely. Interestingly, Eduard has you remove the molded hinges on the doors but does not provide any replacements. Hmmm....
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The nose gear benefits from a little detail too including some very delicate hinges. Why provide hinges for the nose gear door but not the main doors?
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Curious about overall fit, I jumped again to the main components to see if I could spot any trouble spots. Using tape, I cobbled together the upper and lower fuselage/wing components, the left and right engine booms and the rear stabilizer.
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Everything seems to line up ok but I know that this can change once pieces are cemented together.
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The fit of the booms to the wing was a bit unsure since there are no locating pins. I might use some pieces of sheet styrene to help shim the booms into correct positions.
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Nice work so far John.
From memory, the tail booms fitted and aligned OK, after ensuring each was 'square' to the fuselage and each other before final cementing.
 

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