How to construct the HASEGAWA´s Lockheed P-38L Lightning in 48th scale?

Lightning On My Bench

Written by Jaroslav KUBAT

Intro. Sometimes every modeller longs for having an unusual model in his collection. It might be a resin kit, vacuformed kit or classic kit in an unusual camouflage scheme or with everything close up. My choice was the P-38 Lightning, in my eyes one of the most beautiful planes of WW II. This choice was easy, but it was more difficult to choose between P- 38 from Hasegawa and P-38 from Academy. Finally, I elected the Hasegawa kit for its better details. This article isn’t an instruction on how to do it, or even a descriptions of the plane, but it is only a description of my work. Therefore there aren’t any description of colour details here.  

Start of work. I’ll start this description no traditionaly, I’ll begin with the camouflage, because I decided to do my P-38  in a natural metal finish . If you look carefully at some pictures of planes in natural metal finish, you will be able to see an indentation around rivets. For this reason, I had riveted my model with the help of an old gear (tooth wheel) from a watch, after that I scraped the area around these rivets with a scalpel and rubbed down the whole plane with sandpaper  and polished it. The polishing had to be perfect, because no imperfection can be hidden under the silver colour.  

Cockpit. I bought  a P-38 detail set from Verlinden to make my work easier. The cockpit was really the only place where the Verlinden helped me . However, I had to use some parts of the Eduard, because some parts of the Verlinden, for example the dashboard, are worse than the original injection moulded parts of the Hasegava.  

Gun bay. It was the first place where I crashed. What is offered by Verlinden is far from reality.Only the front half of this part was useful. The rear half was made from the Pavla models and I changed the guns for super guns from Aires. The magazines were mirror reversed so I had to improve them. I made new Gun bay cowers– vacuformed, because the Verlinden set contained only one, which I couldn’t straighten well.  

Engine. An another huge problem became when I tried to use a Verlinden engine.  You must be a magician if you want to make it work. If a miracle happened and you made it work, this isn’t any a time for celebration. The engine was probably calculated for another kit, maybe for 1/32 scale. The odds are, that for Hasegava P-38  in 1/48 scale, the engine was unusable. This engine has  only 11 exhaust pipes, in contrast to a real engine, which has 12 exhaust pipes, but this problem became irrelevant ,because I had to buy a new engine. In the very nick of time CMK made an engine which was correct for this model. Engine holders, exhaust strokes, coolers, pies and wires were made from plastic profiles, sheets and wires.  

Wing and fuselage. The radio set and boot in the booms were built from scratch. The ladder was very easy to make, because it was included in the kit. I only made gaps on the fuselage. Openings from the fuel tanks was also easy. Bungs were included in the Eduard set. Flaps and control surfaces were made from plastic sheets.  

Assembly. Now the time came that I worried about, putting the wings and booms together. I had read an article which called attention to some fit problems. Even though it wasn’t easy work , I think that any experienced modeller could manage it well. Higher  consumption of putty and sandpaper made it possible to produce an accurate model of this plane. After that came only routine work as landing gear and so on.  

Spraying time. For the look of a natural metal finish, I always use  Modelmaster polished colours. On this plane, I used a mixture of aluminium, magnesium and steel. All surfaces were doped by Tamyia gloss varnish, after applying decals I doped all surfaces once more. The colour were absorbed, resulting in a natural gloss, and the plane, appeared to have had a strong weathering.

Final works. After the spraying  time I stuck on the control surfaces, flaps, covers and others details. Under the wing I hung only fuel tanks, because, unfortunately, I have never seen this plane with rockets.  Finally I did the weathering and a final dope. The drama was over, and what can I say in conclusion. Perhaps only warning, warning to all, who are speculating on buying this Verlinden set on the P-38 for all that read this article. On the box of the set is also written, that it is for experienced modellers, indeed more faithful would be: The set is for horror lovers or masochists.         

Reference:  Detail & Scale P- 38 part 2, P- 38 In action,  Replic magazine,  HPM magazine,  APKR magazine,  Web sites

Kit:   Hasegava P- 38L

Detail parts: Verlinden P- 38 updated, Eduard P-38 photo etch. parts, True Detail wheels, Aires Browning 12,7 gun set, Pavla Models P-38 guns, CMK Alison engine

Decals:  Aeromaster " Lightning in the sky" part 3