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

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Thanks guys! Been busy with the Thanksgiving holidays so my time in the workshop has been sporadic at best. The booms have been assembled with the landing gear bays installed.


Excess cement caused a bit of mess that needs to be cleaned up. The puttying/sanding process has begun on the booms. One area of concern is the presence of raised rivets on the booms. Some of these will be removed from the sanding and I don't a know a good way of replacing raised rivets. Do I sand them all off and make depressed rivets all around? Lots of work... not sure what to do here.


Jumping to the spinners... there's a bit here that I don't like. One is the assembly order of the props. Individual prop blades glued onto the spinner backplate, which is placed onto the spinner shaft and kept in place with a retaining ring. The spinner tip is then glued onto the backing. This makes painting difficult and the removal of the seam impossible. There is also the raised disc around the spinner shaft that prevents the spinner from sitting flush.


With a circular plastic rod, I've decided to move the shaft onto the backplate. With the original spinner shaft removed, I can drill a hole to accept the new shaft and file down the raised disc. The spinner shaft is tight friction fit so that I'll be able to push the spinner tightly against the engine nacelle.






Before gluing the spinner onto the backplate, I rescribed the panel line around the spinner.


I've highlighted the GOODYEAR logo on the tires with white paint.


A bit of weathering on the tires using diluted sand brown paint sprayed through the airbrush and some dry pigment. You can see the assembled spinners in the background.
 
A short update on the Lightning. I got the spinner painted but wasn't satisfied with the glue seam showing through the paint so I wiped it clean and re-puttied the seam. I added a row of rivets around the spinner for some visual interest.


The turbocharger units have been painted using various metal shades.


I added the spoked wheels to the tires after weathering.
 

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