Please find photos of my recently finished P38J Lightning. It's the first plane since returning to the hobby after a 20 year layoff, so be kind on the comments.






The kit was a Minicraft 1:48, and was not the easiest to make in terms of fit. Both booms were twisted and i'm still not happy with the whole tail section.

Thanks for looking

Andy

Hi Andy.
First of all,,,,Congratulations!!!,,I was in the same position last December and I know just how good it feels!
Your Lightning looks great to me, but Im sure your already looking at it and thinking,,hmm,,I wish Id done this or that differently,,but thats all part of the fun of this great hobby!
It looks from the first photo as if youve got a "tail sitter" there.If its not possible to squeeze some ballast into the nose I would suggest mounting the model on a small base and securing the nose wheel to the stand.
Now all you need to do is buy yourself some coloured card from an art shop and take some pictures with a nice plain background and get your P38 entered into next months MoM!!
Well done on what looks like a nice clean build.
Now go build something else to keep it company,,it must be getting lonely all on its own!
Nige

Lampie.

I sure do have a tail sitter - mighty cheesed off about it too - i filled the nose with milliput, but it's not heavy enough

I may well get some plain card and do the MOM thingy, so long as you aren't doing another Sopwith Camel - that was a fine model - thanks for doing the write up.

It's not going to be lonley for long, have a Camel of my own halfway there, a catalina crying to be built including all the photo etch stuff, and various half built armour to finish.

Thanks for the comments

Andy

Nice one Andy!! I hope that my return to the promised land of modeling will look that good. I've been "lost" about 20 odd years too. Buying all kinds off new stuff, including parts for my Catalina(s) and other aviation projects..... :-)
Looking forward to see your Camel.

Very nice P-38, one of my favorite aircraft. You did a fine job there. If only it was 1/72 scale! LOL Ha ha.
Hope to see more from you. Good luck in your return to the hobby. Russell

Russel

It's one of my favourite aircraft as well. I have plans to build a couple (at least) more - i may try a 1:72 one - Academy do a couple, but i prefer bigger scale - i've got large fingers!!

Andy

Hi Andy.
Beware the Academy decals!,,Ive had nothing but bad luck with them and any future Academy builds I do will use aftermarket decals,although the kits themselves are great!
As for MoM,,your safe,,I have no plans to do another Dazzle Camel,,LOL.
I DO,,however,,have plans for something just as wacky and wild in the near future,,so beware,, :-) :-)

If your planning on putting the P38 on a base,one way of fixing the nose wheel down would be to drill a small hole in the bottom of it and insert a thin piece of wire.Then drill a hole in the base and this should hold the nose down and stop it tipping back, especially if you drill it at a slight angle.
I will be building a similar undercarriage type on a future build and Im planning on filling the nose with fishing weights to over come the tail sitter problem.
Looking forward to your Camel as well.Did you know there is some debate as to the actual colours of the dazzle camo I did so perhaps you could do one the same scheme but a varient?,,just a thought,,hehehe!

Hope this helps
Nige

Congratulations with the soft landing !!!


This first bird looks really nice but you have to learn it not to sit on its tail. :-)


I'm almost, nearly, approximately, roughly, more or less, just about , virtually ready with my first models after a 15, year stop myself

Hi Andy,
Coming back to the hobby after 20 years must be a bit daunting but, by the looks of things and like Nige, you will have nothing to worry about. Keep us posted on all progress as I, and I'm sure most here, like to see the progress made by newcomers and returners. Just remember that almost nothing will go right the first time, but, as long as you learn from those mistakes, you will get better every model. I've been doing this now for over 25 years and I'm still learning
Mal

Congratulations Andy & nice job! I'm so jealous. I'm in the same boat (returning after 20+ years). I started 2 kits in July but then work & family have gotten in the way the past 2 months. Your metal finsih looks good. I never had good luck with those. Keep going

I just wanted to add my two cents in about Academy decals. They can indeed be problematic, you need to put a good gloss coat on for them to stick right onto the aircraft.
I acturally had to take some decals off my P-40E Aleutian tiger, to regloss the model in spots for the decals to work.
I really like the academy fit though, I tend not to put any filler in the wing root or horizontal stabilizer area, and often get away with just a line being there. Scale effect would argue fill it but I don't, oh well. Take care. Russell