Posted by Matty on May 25, 2015, 0:46:44 Edited by board administrator May 25, 2015, 10:40:37
--Originally Posted 5/25/15--
I recently learned that a type of P-38 which I had been wanting to build in plastic, since about age 10, was also directly associated with my current, naval modelling interests:
What I call the "Slick Lightnings" were the earlier P38 variants, having the above, fish-like, streamlined engine nacelles - all the versions prior to the "J"-model, with which the nacelles were redesigned forever after to the more familiar, gape-mouthed look which would come to typify the (especially later) Allison engines. Above is "White Lightning", a P38("H", I am fairly certain), maintained currently in operating condition by the owner of the company that makes Red Bull energy drinks (apparently based in Switzerland).
Only in recent years did I finally see a 48-scale, plastic kit of a "Slick Lightning" - a P38G (IIRC), by Hasegawa - and missed a specific opportunity to get one (at a reasonable $30) a couple years ago, at one of Donny's local hobby shops. So, after 40 years, the kit finding its way into my stash once again was the classic Revell P38J:
Click on Image to Enlarge
Despite having the wrong type nacelles, this kit (left) was admittedly now really affordable - around $15 at the local Michael's or HobbyLobby, etc. - and, I was surprised to rediscover, has really quite decent panel/surface details, including even most of the cockpit. So, I finally just bit the bullet - one avoided for 40 years, while my skills finally caught up to the task - and chopped the engine nacelle-panels, reworking them - with relative ease, per the thick and soft Revell plastic - into the Slick Lightning configuration (right). Only the actual intakes confronted persistent difficulties - currently finding solution with prefabbed, clustered brass tubing inserts (right, foreground).
All this was going well enough - including substantial work (not shown) towards a hypothetical radar/photo-recon/pathfinder variant (which I doubt ever actually existed), to incorporate almost all the numerous and beautiful alternate parts of the Revell kit. Very cool, but nothing at all naval-related - and so you didn't see anything posted about it, here.
But then last week - while surfing all the additional historical refs by now available on the web - I was stopped cold by the following:
Click on Image for FULL-RES
A P38F Slick Lightning - the mount of ace Robert Faurot, of 39th Fighter Squadron, of the 35th Fighter Group, in New Guinea - lost at the BISMARCK SEA action! Not only Faurot's, but - so I learned - a mix of (nearly identical-design) P38Fs and -Gs, from both 39th Fighter Squadron and 9th Fighter Squadron, of the 49th Fighter Group, provided crucial CAP (along with P-39s and P-40s) over the Allied attack-bombers at Bismarck Sea. This changed everything - and I decided (although Faurot's double sharks' mouths, above, were a bit over the top for my taste) this build just had to depict a gun-nosed Slick Lightning fighter, from Bismarck Sea.
To build which, I needed another kit - as the Revell fusealge was already committed irrevocably to the above "what-if" configuration. However, at this moment of realization, it was found that, in (the 3x places that sell models in) this entire county, but a single 48-scale P38 kit remained on the shelves:
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Another P38J (left), this one from MiniCraft - but, having already scratched out the above, Slick Lightning nacelles, ready to swap with the kit nacelles, and in no mood for further delay - I immediately snagged it. And discovered my (completely unthinking but) rather good luck, that the MiniCraft wing attachments to the engine booms (right) are designed almost identically to the Revell (top).
The only other visually-crucial feature - again, lacking in either of these kits - was the smooth, conical Slick Lightning windshield:
This is P38F "Glacier Girl" - restored to flyable condition after being melted free, as the name suggests, from ice in which she had been trapped - and preserved - since the day she came to ground in the Aleutians, in 1942. Note how slippery and graceful the combination of smooth engine nacelles and windshield make her look.
My solution for the needed windscreen I found in yet another cheap-cheap, but really quite decent, Revell 48-scale kit:
Click on Image to Enlarge
The Revell 1:48 F/A-18 Hornet (left), in my stash for going on 20 years, I have never and probably will never develop any desire to build. Thus I was free to pilfer its "bubble" canopy - really more like two butting (half-) cones - the aft piece yielding a section having near-perfect curvature and size for the required windshield (right, top). Quite different from the flat-faced P38J windscreen (background), the replacement piece was cut free - carefully - as indicated. Minor reshaping of the Minicraft instrument hood, and slight augmentation of the cockpit rail (right, bottom) allowed for a near-perfect fit - to be made well and truly perfect, later with glue/filler, during installation.
While the above may look like little progress for a lot of effort (and even more talk ), actually these are the only significant mods required - so that, when finished (which they nearly are), not just one but both builds can then be completed, essentially OOB.
And so that's the "official" story - and start, on yet another modelling subject, over which I've been obsessing for 40 years, now: my Bismarck Sea Lightning! Pretty Slick, huh?
At mid-boom, both sides on each, Revell's turbocharger intercooler nacelles were utterly devoid of light-baffling - severely see-through, fore-to-aft - which innaccuracy I could no longer ignore. Despite the booms' already being assembled, I was cleverly able to fish-in, threaded through the landing gear "wells" (likewise, on the Revell kit, simply yawning, cavernous voids), some radiator-textured spares (from old car models), mounted at the ends of easliy-detachable plastic rods (left). Once installed (center), the mylar/"chrome"-plated grating pieces looked, under most lighting conditions, nicely muted (top) - only really shining out when viewed from directly "up-light" (middle) - but in any case roundly achieving the main goal of light-baffling in the nacelles (bottom).
I then regarded the MiniCraft booms (right), discovering their very nice light-baffle plates - a rare advantage of the MiniCraft over the Revell kit - making also for easy installation of grille-textures here: again, for the anticipated occasional glimpse (bottom), under typical lighting conditions.
Now of course the title "Gone Fishin'" is a pun on the above, "fishing-in" of the grilles. However it could equally - and unfortunately does - apply also to the "vacation", embarked upon repeatedly, by my better judgement, after deciding to go ahead and also convert the MiniCraft booms to "Slick Lightning" fit:
It wasn't just the extreme difference of the MiniCraft nose caps (left) from the Revells - particularly regarding the chin scoop (bottom) - but that this led to several key misdirections of the required work. The first being unnecessary plating-in, with heavy plastic (cream-colored) cylinder, of the huge "bites" left from removing chin intakes: virtually every inch of which would later needing either to be drilled open for insertion of the Slick Lightning inlet tubes and/or puttyied-over/recontoured anyway (see below)!
One thing I did do wisely, this time, was to recover the tasty little cheek vents (center), which - along with several equally tasty little curved-wedge pieces - which otherwise would unavoidably have been obliterated in the conversion. However I then prematurely installed the (white plasticard) central keel (bottom), a mistake detected only upon realization that the original (and only workable) scheme was to double-hinge the belly (right). The first hinge point needing to be all the way back, just ahead of the landing gear bay (top) - and now the keel, already attached in this area, accordingly itself needing to be hinged, with a wedge removed from its middle. The third mistake - which perhaps you've seen it coming, "baked into the cake" as it was from the start - being that the forward section was re-attached too far back from the nose (bottom).
But I didn't catch it - not yet - and instead plunged ahead to fill the remaining gaps:
It didn't help that I was distracted (left) by two circular panels, molded into the MiniCraft nacelle bellies - one pair drilled out for better examination (top), revealing their positions to be not at all right for (any part of) the Slick Lighting intakes installation. Likewise failing to prove of any use were the erstwhile "tasty little wedges", already in my eagerness fitted to rods (bottom) for insertion: this role going instead - and, in the event fortunately - to thick plastic blocks, embedded in generous amounts of CA-putty (off-white). It was only now I noticed - finally, despite taking all the above pics (!) - that the MiniCraft booms did not have the propeller spinner-bases pre-installed (because their different design did not require it), as had the Revell booms (which did). This design difference - another rare advantage of the MiniCraft over the Revell - was nevertheless immediately more than offset by the truly offensive, borderline-horrific MiniCraft props (center)! Of scant comfort to note this was the first problem not in any way my fault , these paddles, looking like WWI wooden blades - warped by dry-rot, no less - were, without hesitation chopped off, with intention of replacement from spares, other (cannibalized) kits - anything - even molded from the Revell props, if required. I am even toying also with the idea of depicting them in-flight, with bare-spinner, "turning"-props.
The only Good News being that these hubs, now with blades removed, appeared noticeably smaller than the "restored" nacelle chin (top) - giving a green light, for which I had been searching, to further cut down the nacelle chins, more (at least closer to) like those on the Revell, which I knew looked at least plausible. Already, note I had left untrimmed the forward ends of the filler-blocks (white), to better-support all the putty I could see would be needed to fair into the larger noses.
Fast-forwarding over a lot of putty/sculpting/finishing work - complicated by yet one final (and massive) F*k-Up - we come basically to completion:
The screw-up clearly showing through the smoothed putty, before painting (left): the wrong (next-larger) size of intake tubing installed. Which did still permit easy correction by simply inserting the smaller tubes - however prohibiting nesting them up snuggly around the small brass tube. (Without digging nearly everything back out again - just too much to contemplate, even for me!)
And so the (essentially) final appearance of the inlets (center) ended up rather similar to the Revell conversions - with notable exception that, this time the radiator-texture grilles are installed appropriately further back down the tubes. Remarkably, the overall "look and feel" of the converted MiniCraft vs Revell nacelles (right) are far more similar than expected: only the latter's inlets look significantly larger, when lit from some angles (top) - due to their faux-interior (black) painting - but not from others (bottom), as in fact they are all of the same diameter.
So - finally, and not without Considerable Struggle - now both builds can be fitted with Slick Lighting booms:
Click on Image for FULL RES
And, of course - particularly given the rough equivalence in appearance, overall - there is no longer any need to swap booms between kits, nor the extra work for such adaptation: a classic case of eliminating "X" amount of work - by putting in just 3X' more work!
Seriously though, I am unexpectedly very pleased with the look of these latest booms - though possibly to get minor additional refinements in shape, after (more) comparison with reference pics, already certainly "keepers" - Fished surprisingly out of yet another Episode of A.S.S.!
I've been slowly plodding further on both builds - may have some more pics, after this weekend.
So, you're going to build a B-25 and a B-26, eh? I'm planning to build the lone surviving WidowMaker from the quartet of 22nd Bomb Group B-26' that did that near-suicidal torpedo attack, at Midway. Already years ago, I was well along building it from the Monogram 48-scale kit - all torn up, complete with blood-drenched crew members - but decided that was indication of a concurrent psychological malady, and went to see a therapist instead!
Seriously, I suddenly felt that build just looked too gory, and now plan to do it undamaged, from the 72-scale Revell Marauder kit. I'll have to sand off all the too-proud rivets, but after that it should build out nicely. For now though, it's still moldering in the box.
As a kid I built the Airfix 72-scale B-26 - a very nice little kit - and liked it very much.
Would love to see your Mitchell and/or Marauder, Don!
Cheers,
- Matt
6/12/15 progress: "ASS" Going HOT
Posted by Matty on June 12, 2015, 9:55:17, in reply to "SLICK LIGHTNING from the Bismarck Sea" Edited by board administrator June 14, 2015, 12:17:01
--Originally Posted 6/12/15--
Well, as expected, in fairly short order I did finish the engine nacelles - however, not in exactly the way expected:
The earlier, large brass tubes for the intakes didn't pan out so well: too difficult to work (no doubt my tools are inadequate), and also their thin walls did not leave any margin for sculpting/adjusting (see below). Instead, plastic tubing (left, white) provided both the (much) softer workability, and far thicker walls required. The brass centerline tube, small enough also to be worked easily, was retained - and its additional benefit, due to its precision-fit over some brass rod (left), of providing a great aid to alignment during installation. Each prefabbed brace of tubes "fished-in", amid a welter of CA-putty (off-white), the latter both adhering and filling all gaps, after hardening and with the rod withdrawn, the entire putty-encased mass of tubing could then simply be sculpted to the nacelle contours (center). Notice I had (luckily) also remembered to first install radiator backings - though it immediately became apparent they were set too far up forward. Some clever painting would provide a visual "fix" for this (see below).
The thick walls of the plastic tubing were then carefully shaved, uniformly flaring the inlets wider all around (right), until each pair was nearly in contact on the centerline - as well as rising up to bracket the small, centerline inlet more (though still not completely) accurately. Likewise, the final contours of these nacelles are actually a bit too rounded to be perfectly accurate for the Slick Lightnings - but already I certainly liked their look, and would keep 'em: chalk it up to Artistic License.
Painting would provide the solution (see below) to the one glaring problem, remaining above: the too-visible radiator gratings - now rendered yet more prominent, by the flared-open inlets,. Blackening the entire inlet-interiors (left), of course helps to hide the grilles - but only at the expense of an unrealistic look for the inlets, particularly from underneath (bottom).
However, we can finish out much better, by further employing some "Trompe L'Oil" (in French: "Trick the Eye") painting:
Click on Image for FULL-RES
The exterior (silver) color was feathered back-in, over the flat-black (or, alternatively, the black could have been partially washed back off), so as to grade completely back to black, at the depth of the radiators. Yielding both a plausible look for the inlets while also visually "pushing" the radiator grilles further back down the inlet throats - where they now produce just an occasional glimpse, and no longer shine out, like headlights.
Again as anticipated, at this point in the build a quick finish had emerged clearly into view, dead ahead. Until, that was, my eyes settled upon MiniCraft's fuselage nose cap: a part Sucking So head-and-shoulders over everything else - in the kit repidly and increasingly proving to Suck Mightily overall, in its own right - particularly compared to the Revell kit - such that I didn't even stop to photograph it for you, before (literally) chopping the offending nose cap to pieces. This to begin accommodating replacement with the just beautiful Revell nose cap, leftover as unneeded by my other, Pathfinder build.
Even in this Revell Rescue, however, such unexpected redirection is Frought with Risk: chiefly that of Advanced Scratch-basher Syndrome - "ASS", in the common vernacular - in which I was, in the event, Bitten Squarely - and Hard - yet Once Again:
Because, among the other Revell spares, offered up as unnecessary to my other build, was a very nice cluster of MGs with their ammo drums and belt-feeds (bottom). So - as I was already chopping away at- and reassembling the MiniCraft nose (top) anyway - it was really a No-Brainer (which is exactly how much I used) to decide also to open up the nose access doors. And of course these will be hinged, to display eithe closed up or showing off the contents - seen here dry-fitted, while the right-side is being built-out/detailed (bottom, right), compatible with Revell's details already on its left.
In short order you can see how this all SnowBalls - "The Leg-Bone-connected-to-the-Thigh-Bone" - to instantly double the effort/complexity of the entire build. Including (at least) some minimal detailing on the insides of the access doors, now to become highly visible:
Ribbed-unibody patterns (left, top-left) corresponding to those on the insides of the Revell doors (absent the windows, in the fighter build), were laid down in (white) plastic strip - though they could not be made to match exactly, as corresponding dimensions differed noticeably. Still, a very similar "look-and-feel" (left, top-right) was achieved through the combination of filletting alongside all the bases with superglue, and rounding down the relief.
The above views of the nose, as but crudely taped-together, belie the actually quite good fit of the doors - though their edges will still need some more thinning - whereas, on the other hand, gaps around the nose cap indicate significant mis-fit: a still-persisting legacy of the Thoroughly Malignant MiniCraft nose. Yet another bit of work to do - with yet another tidbit, left over from the Revell kit.
Meanwhile, the apparent pitch-up of the nacelles/booms, relative to the fuselage pod, is not meaningful but due simply to the former not yet being fitted to the wings. This does, however, raise a true upcoming issue - for both these kits: they are both serious Tail-Sitters (the MiniCraft slightly more so than the Revell). For both cases, I decided the solutions for adequately weighting the noses are going to involve first molding the above nose contents - gun-cluster for this fighter build, and for the other a bank of aerial cameras with film magazines - and then try yet another First, and Matty's Models Experimental Development: casting both in solid lead.
So, it looks to be getting pretty Hot, pretty soon, around here - and you'll want to stay tuned, for that...
You may perhaps recall, from several years ago now, some amazingly coincidental appearances in my Victory at Sea series DVDs, of the next-numbered sister ships of an LST I was building at the time. But what happened just now is truly freakily coincidental.
Recall that - first, and for no particular reason - I decided to build a "what-if" Lightning, incorporating all the Photo-Recon-, PathFinder and Night Fighter parts of my Revell 1/48 P38J kit. Well - after picking up a second P38 kit, dedicated to a Bismarck Sea Slick Lightning - now the just other day I happened to stop in to the local Thrift Store - something I never do - with the random thought they might have a decently-entertaining DVD or two, for cheap. And found instead, Vol.II of "Crusade in The Pacific" - the 1951 series from Time (a sort of "How We Fought" sequel to the wartime "Why We Fight"), and direct contemporary of Vicotry at Sea - took it home, and promptly discovered a sequence, in Episode 10: "Up the Solomons Ladder: Bougainville", starting at minute 04:04, showing - you guessed it - Slick Lightings:
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Photo-recon Lightnings, to be precise. From exactly the New Guinea/Guadalcanal/Bismarck Sea theater of interest! Confirming the dull-finish (undoubtedly Olive Drab) camo on these planes' upper surfaces (at least, starting out that way - at some much-earlier time), though these planes (different in each clip) also showed extensive bare-metal - perhaps from brute wear and tear - especially on the lower/under -sides. This would be consistent with the greater longevity of PR airframes, in general - the more critical need for replacement being, of course, for the combat ships, swapped-out with the latest, factory-new and/or improved-versions, upon arrival. Thus, these pictured Slick Lightning PR planes from 1943 were no doubt of earlier, 1942-vintage: "F"-version - and perhaps even earlier - P38s.
Although currently building a standard, gun-nosed P-38, still details relevant to any of the Slick Lightnings are included in these clips:
Click on Image to Enlarge
At left and center, the smooth/conical windshield can be seen to rise directly from the nose, with no hump fairing in the base, forward. A nearly full-width rectangular plate of bulletproof glass - framed, and more heavily so, along the top - is mounted all the way back over the lip of the instrument panel hood. And atop the wing root, the horizontal stringers are outlined by a pattern of "oil-canning" and/or extreme wear of the camo paint. Inside the nose door, at center, the rib pattern appears (as much as can be seen) to confirm that of the Revell mold (the corresponding MiniCraft parts being utterly featureless).
Many other details of this PR Lightning (nose art apparently spelling "Pumping" something) are of course more relevant to my PR/Pathfinder "what-if": a second, smaller side-window on the nose (only the larger one included by Revell), and especially the (at least 3x) large banks of cameras in the nose (right).
So, that's some great inspiration - for both these Slick Lightning builds - amazingly making an appearance, unsought and effortless in its coincidence, right at this moment!