**** DONE: GB-50 1:48 P-38F-15-LO - Zombie Build

Thanks guys. I think the timing of the few pictures available for this plane will remain a mystery to me for supporting the red national insignia boundaries but others have made the leap. An afternoon of researching books and websites has left me no further ahead as there's so much conflicting info among the little data that I found. The full-on side shot posted a few pages back definitely has the red border but I suspect that the nose art is missing because the swastikas are missing. I think the pic with the full nose art was therefore taken much later and so I think that blue borders would be more likely, unless someone can tell me that the red borders stuck around into the fall of 1943 and even early 1944.

At any rate, more weathering has been applied to this model using the salt technique. The model was wetted in small sections and salt sprinkled randomly on the surface. A blow drier helped drive the water away as you don't want any moisture hanging around for the next step.



A coat of much-thinned straight XF-62 was then lightly sprayed over the surface and allowed to dry:



Then, the salt was removed with a stiff brush and then the whole model was washed thoroughly with water. This step is important to ensure that all of the salt is removed. Once dry, I sprayed another coat of gloss clear to get ready for the decals. Here's an overall shot and a closeup of the effect:


I'm far from done with weathering yet and there will be more to come after the decals are on. Thanks again for looking in.

Nice weathering Andy. As I read your post I thought to myself that I should have done my Corsair with this technique. Not to worry, but again - nice work!

real nice work there Andy...

Love the result

Thanks guys.

very nice Andy

Thanks my friend.

Liking that !

Thanks Terry.

Wow!
Now if I were doing this it would be under the influence of plenty of Rum.
I don't think I could bring myself to do That!!!!!
But it is looking good.....

Thank-you Bill.

Looks great so far Andy!

Thanks Hugh.

I decided to listen to my heart and not my head and went with the red-bordered insignia because these are rarer and add more interest. The decals are the old set from Sky Decals which are beautifully printed but somewhat inaccurate and a bit thick. Here's the nose area to show you what I mean.



The 27th FS diving eagle crest is rotated too much clockwise and it, the "7153", and the swastikas are a bit too large. I would have fixed the rotation issue if it weren't for the fact that the third swastika overlaps the white border a bit and cutting the decal here would have been tricky as a result. The mission tally decal, on the other hand, is slightly too small as the rear-most tallies should coincide with the back of the gun cowl. Eduard also have this aircraft represented in their version of this kit and their decals seem to be more accurate in this regard. I also need to fade the "7153" considerably.

The decals are all in place now and I ran some Tamiya black panel wash into all the seams. Here are some overall shots as things stand now:



The fuel cap stencils are from the kit and I chipped these where the aluminum is supposed to show through:



The s/n "2166" is limited to those four digits on the port fin as verified by photos. However, on the starboard side, Sky and Eduard have presented different interpretations. Sky sticks with the "2166" on that side but Eduard suggests "3-2166" and that the 3 on the port side is missing due to a patch repair. As it was not unheard of for only 4 digits to be displayed, I did go with Sky's interpretation. The 'HV-C' was tricky to place due to the curvature of the radiator housing but the decals snugged down nicely.



A closeup of the bottom of the nose shows a green patch which I hand painted to match one seen on the nose photo. Also seen in this pic is the paint chipping on the underside which is hard to see in the overall shot. The a/c data stencil was not provided by Sky but is clearly seen in the picture of the real aircraft, another inaccuracy. I therefor stole one from another of Sky's schemes which, if read closely, has the wrong model and s/n for this aircraft but it was better than having nothing.



That's it for today. More weathering to come yet and I'll post when I have something to show. Thanks again for your interest and kind comments.

You are presenting a great build!!!!!
You gonna weather them decals????????!

Very impressive Andy !

Thanks gents. Bill, yes, there will be at least a light coat of a very thin mix of a dusty colour sprayed over the decals to make them appear less new. I've not decided yet whether or not to do another salt fade with a lighter colour but we'll see.

Sure is coming to life - nice work Andy.

Well done Andy.

Thanks Terry and Wayne, appreciate it.

More done. I decided against doing another salt fade so ended up just squirting some very thin Tamiya Buff over the whole model to represent more general sun fade and dust. After that, I sprayed a coat of flat clear and this is how it looked right after that:



The light dust coat was shot right over the decals and took a lot of the newness out, which was the intent.



The "7153" number on the nose was sprayed over with thin Khaki to replicate the look seen in the pics.



I then masked the turbos and shot three different colours on them. First came a coat of black to make sure that the background was good and dark. Then came a bit of silver, followed by very thin Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown. The bolts were then highlighted by picking them out with silver.



And that's all I got done today. Next up will be to get the undercarriage on so that the beast can stand up by itself. Thanks again for following.