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

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Time to glue to nose assembly into place. Despite my best efforts to get the fit right before attachment, Andy's prediction came out to be true... need to do some sanding which will require redoing the circular fasteners.





The main culprit is overhang... the gun cowling piece is a bit wider than the fuselage. There is also a significant gap near the nose well that could've been shimmed. White Milliput is used to fill the gap and Mr Surfacer 1000 is used to help blend the joint. I had to do a bit of scraping on the gun cowling to match the surfaces.



After a couple of rounds of puttying and sanding, I rescribed the panel lines and redid the circular fasteners.



A quick coat of Mr Surfacer 1000 thinned with Tamiya Lacquer Thinner as a primer coat to check my work. The starboard side still has a noticeable bulge that I am going to attack one more time with sandpaper before I move on.

 
Nicely rectified John.
I've seen that problem in a number of builds of this kt, and I think i must have been lucky with mine, as the nose cowling fitted without any problem.
 
Thanks guys! I did a bit of touch-up work on the nose last night. Almost there but I might give that starboard side one more go with the sandpaper.


I think the port side and the upper joint is good to go.



After spraying that last coat of primer, I jumped over to the landing gear to a little work. The nose gear was cleaned up prior to painting. The mold seam and ejector pin marks were removed.



I broke out the Eduard Brassin wheel set to give it a look. The spoke openings were filled with resin flash that needed to be cleaned out.


One of the main wheel hubs had some warpage issues.




I dipped the hub into some boiling water and then gently pressed it down onto a sheet of glass to straighten it out. It did the trick but I left some marks on the outer rim of the hub from where the tweezers were gripping it. These should look really nice after painting!
 
Thanks guys! The nose fit has been my primary focus and that hurdle seems to have been cleared. An upcoming issue on this build is the landing gear. The addition of the PE bits in this area adds some sorely needed detail but it also makes things very fiddly. The PE faces for the landing gear doors required removal of the hinges and, like I reported earlier, there are no replacements provided.


The mounting of the landing gear doors is dependent on very fragile PE arms at the front and back of each wheel well. It will be difficult to mount these arms AFTER the gear bays and twin booms have been put together but there is zero chance that the arms will remain intact through the painting process if I install them as the landing gear bay comes together as shown on the instructions. I think I'll craft some hinges so that I don't have to depend on those fragile PE arms.

Also... the connection of the main landing gear legs to the landing gear wells is not the most secure. Instead of a peg/hole arrangement, the gear rests on raised 1/2 circles molded onto the sides of the gear wells.


I'm thinking that the gear legs need to be "trapped" between the two sidewalls in order to get a solid connection and that would mean having the ability to pinch the sidewalls together, which in turn means installing the landing gear legs BEFORE the wheel wells are glued into the booms. This upsets my natural order of things and would require me to paint the landing gear components before assembly.
 
A bit of an awkward set-up, but the detail looks good.

Take care when mounting the main gear !
When I was adjusting the main legs on my model (heck, about 8 years ago, and it still isn't quite finished !!), one of the main gear axles snapped off - the kit parts are not very strong.
I had thought about getting some metal landing gear, but that wouldn't have helped regarding fitting the gear legs, so I ended up drilling out the snapped-off kit axle, and drilling the remaining stub on the gear leg, to add a steel pin - and that's as far as I got !
I'll get around to doing it one of these days, and I'll also drill and pin the good axle, as the amount of weight required to keep the nose down is quite considerable, and does have an effect on the main wheel axles - worth considering, if you're using the kit parts.
 
Thanks for the heads up Terry! Kit plastic is definitely on the weaker side. I've already snapped a couple of the thinner actuator rods, one for the main landing gear and the dual actuator for the nose gear.
 
I've cut landing gear door hinges from scrap plastic. The actual hinges look quite different but I don't have the skills to replicate them. These are more geared toward the practical aspects of providing a way of mounting the doors without depending on way too delicate photoetched parts.


With the door hinges secured, I move on to painting and weathering the landing gear components. I've decided not to add the hydraulic brake lines onto the gear legs as I'm afraid they'll simply get knocked off during the construction process.




The landing gear wells are assembled after painting. The wells are deep and narrow and much of the detail from the PE pieces is obscured.


The finely engraved tires deserve special attention and after a coat of dark grey (Tamiya Black + Tamiya German Grey), I've painted each tread face in German Grey to highlight the tread pattern and simulate wear. Don't mind the shine... it'll get knocked down later. I'm going to weather the tires a bit and will try to highlight the GOODYEAR logo while I'm at it.
 
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