**** DONE: GB-56 1/48 P-38J-25 - Thunderbolts and Lightnings

Good work so far Andy!

Thanks guys. Well, these past two days I've done my best to f!ck this model up. Let's start with Taniya Extra Thin Cement - wonderful stuff, until it finds an unintended path or drips onto your model unnoticed.

This must have happened when I joined the upper and lower wing halves. I've always found it tricky to run TET along those seams and this time the stuff found its way along the wing root. I didn't notice it until it dried and fortunately it didn't do a lot of damage:



Here I found a drip which fortunately remained small and missed the inspection panel. I was faced with a decision - leave it or wipe it away and, not knowing how long it was sitting there I elected to wipe it away. By this time it had eaten into the plastic. Maybe best to leave these alone next time.



Both areas have since been successfully fixed. The first one was simply lightly sanded and filed and the second one needed a couple of dabs of surface primer which was then sanded smooth once dry.



Next, under the "D'oh!" file, the instructions call for the VHF blade antenna to be glued in place and then cut off:



I duly followed the instructions and cut it off:



No sooner had I done that when I realized that all three of Tamiya's schemes are for Pacific birds which made no use of these antennas. However, since my bird would be an ETO example, I hustled over to my reference pic and, sure enough, the mast is there. Dang it! Good thing I kept the cut off portion. I'll glue it back on late in the build.

With those hiccups over (and hopefully these are the last!), I proceeded to finish off the wings. This starts with adding the leading edges which are separate panels, gluing in the two-piece ailerons and adding the wing tips.



The gun covers were also glued on but these didn't exhibit the same excellent fit as other parts of the model. It didn't help that I sanded down the seam a bit (you can see a bit of filler there) but I didn't take that much off. I also drilled out the gun camera opening.



Following Tamiya's build sequence exactly would result in a lot of masking so I'm leaving some parts off until later. One example is the turbochargers which are supposed to be glued into inserts and then the inserts are glued into the nacelle extensions. To avoid all the masking, I glued in the empty inserts and the small intakes, which I drill out, and all of this will be finished in NMF before adding the turbos. The inserts fit well once again and the parts follow the panel lines, making the seams invisible.



And that brings you up to date. Thanks once again for looking in.

Glad you managed to save those cement stains - happened to me a couple of times too.

You did well Andy, a very industrious day.

Thanks Vic.

This kit is a real joy to work with. Today I moved on to the main wheel wells and oil coolers that need to be assembled before the booms go together. I had painted a lot of this stuff on the sprues but I found that, with the assembly of some tiny parts and the need to remove some mould ridges, I could have saved some time and painted the stuff after some assembly.

Let's start with the oil coolers. Tamiya does a good job of replicating the labyrinth of ducting to these coolers. It's good that I didn't paint these on the sprue as I would otherwise have been removing a lot of the paint for the glue surfaces. Each duct is made of 6 parts which, needless to say, fit together perfectly. Below you can see one finished assembly at left and the various parts that make up the finished assembly at right.



Here's one partly assembled main wheel bay. I need to shoot some more aluminum paint in here as I removed some ridges on the coolant pipe and glue seams on the duct to the turbo. I'll then need to pick out a few parts in black and give it all a wash to grubby it up (the wall was done previously but not the roof).



Some of the parts have a moulded-in "L" or "R" but this assembly didn't so I had to mark it with a Sharpie. Here's a closer view of the front bulkhead showing the delicate undercarriage structure that takes a bit of patience to assemble. Again there will be another shot of paint followed by a wash.



Thanks again for following along gents. More tomorrow no doubt.

All good stuff Andy, really great detail in this kit, plenty of scope to fiddle with.

Nice !

Looks to me that the spinner is painted silver in the front, same silver that was used on the gun doors and leading edges of the wings and top of tail booms on the natural metal aircraft. The back half of the spinner is 3 removable panels that were probably bare metal since they were removed for maintenance.

Coming along nicely

Lovely work so far Andy!

Thanks gentlemen. Nice OT win last night Geo fubar57 .

To pick up where we left off, I've now grubbied up the wheel wells and glued them together. I used a mix of water, dish soap, and black and brown pastel dust. This is much more forgiving than the Tamiya wash and can be wiped off if one screws up. The effect is not very noticeable in the pic but it's dirty enough in reality.



The oil cooler and intercooler labyrinths have been assembled and painted. This time I used the Tamiya wash on the grilles.



On the back end, the intercooler rear grill is now glued on. The oil cooler outlets are supposed to be painted but there's no way in hell you can see them through the tiny slit where the louvres are. Having dry-fitted this assembly, I noticed that Tamiya have moulded the intercooler exit flap closed, which obliterates from view all the nice detail inside. It was a simple matter of carefully bending the flap open and you can see where the plastic has turned white along the bend line.



This assembly is not painted for the above pic but that was done before installing the part. Here's how it looks with the boom halves together and the lower cowl assembly glued in. You can also see the tiny slits for the oil cooler exits.



Tamiya asks us to fill in the access panel on the right boom so I applied some Tamiya grey primer.



Interesting that for the coolant radiators, Tamiya chose to depict the grilles as decals. The effect is OK but why have moulded parts for the above parts and decals for these? Before and after:



It's at the boom radiators that I encountered fits that were not as good as seen in other places so far. Both cut-outs that receive the cover panels seem to have a slight step in the moulded edge that causes a very small gap but this is easily fixed by filling with sprue and applying some TET.



Tamiya also says that we should keep a seam along the top and bottom glue line which is kinda hard if you want a good joint. In the above pic, I've already run some sandpaper down the seam to prep it for scribing.

Thanks again for following along and for the comments.

Not sure what's wrong with the team Andy. I think we now have the record for most blown leads and last night was no different. Always liked your guys weathering

fubar57 said:

Not sure what's wrong with the team Andy. I think we now have the record for most blown leads and last night was no different. Always liked your guys weathering

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Well the Flames have different issues. Loss of 2 highest scorers from last year and new guys struggling to fit in. That and never knowing which version of the team will show up for a game.

Nice work so far Andy!

Excellent work Andy

Lovely work Andy

Lots going on again Andy.