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

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Thanks guys. While putting the masks on the To Do list, I've been proceeding with the rest of the decals.

Here's how she looks today:

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I'm using the kit decals for all but the codes, nose art, and the serials. The Sky decals are at least 10 years old but they behaved well as they seem pretty stout and thick. The nose art is all one decal and it went on well but, as with the H5-A codes, there are scale issues.

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Comparing the real bird with mine in the montage below, you can see that the "677" number is way too big as is the whole cartoon. The word "Little" should start right behind the gun fairing and the swastika should be within the gun door. Same with the grass under the donkey - it extends beyond the bottom of the gun access door on the decal but not on the real bird. All of this oversizing results in the crew name plate and victory tally being shrunk to stop at the wing root fairing. I had the same issue with my other P-38 HV-C build which used the same decal set so I should have been forewarned. At his point, I will have to live with it but anyone who is thinking of getting Sky decals, beware of these isses. (BTW, the decal sheet clearly says 1/48, not 1/32!)

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The props are also done but still have the gloss coat on them. Matte coating and weathering are yet to be done. The one on the left does have an aluminum cap though it appears white in the photo.

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Thanks again for following along and keeping me company.
 
Yep. In hindsight, I should have turfed the "677" and found/made a new one and moved everything forward.
 
Looks very smart Andy and on reflection I'd have squeezed the '677' numbers a little closer together and the '6' closer to the red nose line. :D
 
So, keeping it PC, let's move on to some more progress. The stencil decals are all on now, except for one on the canopy that will need to go on once the masks are removed. 118 of the little buggers.

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The signal lights were painted and popped in, as was the landing light lens.

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Next, I had to deal with the crazy Sky code letter decals, which weren't worth the paper they were printed on. I scanned them and converted them to an SVG file of outlines in Illustrator, sized them down from the 12.7mm they were to 8mm high based on judgement from pics of other birds in the squadron. Then I sent the file to my Cricut machine and cut some masks. Below you can see the difference in size with the masks stuck to the model and the decals in the foreground for comparison. The decals would have almost wrapped around the boom half if I'd used them.

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Ready to spray with Tamiya semi-gloss black. Yes, I'm frugal and re-use my masking tape!

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And...done. Unfortunately, in removing the mask for the 5, the stencil for the battery hatch came with it so I'll need to touch this area up. It will be tough to match the silver now.

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The mask cutter isn't perfect as some of the corners aren't sharp where the knife needs to rotate but I'll need to live with that. I don't think I could have made black decals to go over the silver without making two or three layers and this might not have looked any better, and could well have been much worse. Anyway, I'm good with the results so will move on with a bit of weathering and addition of the last few bits. Looks like I'll finish this on time.
 
That's is some stencil cutting Andy and at this scale no one is going to notice the corner details unless they take close up pics like you to show us. :D
 

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