Monogram White Box 1/48 P-61A

[lyle]

John, you are are a master model maker!

[jeaton01]

I am through the assembly of the major components and have a few thoughts on how it might be done better. There are a lot of parts that have to come together at once. Both fins need to be vertical, the booms have to be aligned properly in both side and top views, and the dihedral has to be exact, as well as the central pod being vertical. I had assembled the wings to the fuselage as a first step, and relied on eyesight to set the angles. I got very close but now that everything is together and it is sitting on the gear legs the right wing tip is slightly higher than the left. The inner wing has 4 degrees dihedral and the outer wings have 2 degrees on the real thing. Next time I will build a jig to set the dihedral as with the long span a very slight difference is noticeable. The second step was to assemble the booms to the horizontal stabilizer. I ended up using CA there to get a strong joint. I was able to get the rudders aligned vertically with reference to the stabilizer this way. Once that was well cured I started fitting the boom assembly to the wings. The right side fit pretty well but the left side required some work with a dremel on the bottom of the wing before the fit was good. I don't think this explains the difference in wing tip height as the wing fit to the upper surface of the wing was correct when the work was done. Filler was required along the nacelle sides in all four places but was not difficult. I used Tamiya putty for that and rather messily wiped away the excess with lacquer thinner so little sanding will be needed. I could fix the wing height issue by slicing the lower wing surface outboard of the nacelle but it is not that noticeable and at the moment I am not in the mood. Adjusting strut height would be another option but then the fins would not be vertical and I am really not in the mood for that.

[lyle]

Looking good!

[brandonk]

That's alot of work, John. And you seem to have a handle on what it needs. Even if your wings are not exactly perfect I think it will look really good. Your work is an inspiration.

[jeaton01]

Well, I fixed the wing thing, Brute force, grabbed the high wing by the root and pulled down at the tip. A little creak and she seems all better now. Sometimes it's best just not to overthink the problem!

By the way thanks for all the support, but keep in mind I'm just an old kid muddling along!

One other thing I have done is saw the pylons off of the tanks and faired in the cut end with Epoxysculpt, from photos it looks like they had covers over the bottom when the tanks were not on the wing.

[tcoat]

Feb 13, 2024 17:48:22 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

Well, I fixed the wing thing, Brute force, grabbed the high wing by the root and pulled down at the tip. A little creak and she seems all better now. Sometimes it's best just not to overthink the problem!

By the way thanks for all the support, but keep in mind I'm just an old kid muddling along!

One other thing I have done is saw the pylons off of the tanks and faired in the cut end with Epoxysculpt, from photos it looks like they had covers over the bottom when the tanks were not on the wing.

I have a big bottle of Brute Force I use on a regular basis.
I lucked out on my wings. Since I didn't want to mess around with a full assembly while masking and painting the invasion stripes I called a hail mary and glued the booms to the wings off the fuselage. It worked out pretty good but when I did glue the wings on the starboard vertical stabilizer is about 2 degrees off straight up. I have not been brave enough to give it a twist yet though.  Can only really see it if you tilt your head, squint one eye, stick out 3/8" of your tongue and sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic while standing on your head but it is off.

[jeaton01]

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!

[kyledehart5]

I’m not even going to go look at mine to see how far off it is…I just sort of stuck mine together and hoped for the best. 🤦🏻‍♂️😂 Great work here!

[jeaton01]

Got a coat of Tamiya Gloss Black on, and after two days to cure I painted on the walkway stripes. While I was waiting for the paint to harden I made some decals for the Bat Outa Hell based on a scan of a profile in one of my references. I drew it in Corel Draw and printed it on an ALPS MD-1000. I also made stencils to paint the wing walks. I painted a square of sheet plastic and placed a nose art decal on it to test how it will look and I'm happy with it. Sort of looks like what you see in museums, nose art cut from scrapped airframes.  I don't know if the nose art was on both sides so I made mirror images and mine will have both because I think it looks more cooler.

[TJ]

Man that is looking really good

[406 Silverado]

Feb 17, 2024 0:29:18 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

Got a coat of Tamiya Gloss Black on, and after two days to cure I painted on the walkway stripes. While I was waiting for the paint to harden I made some decals for the Bat Outa Hell based on a scan of a profile in one of my references. I drew it in Corel Draw and printed it on an ALPS MD-1000. I also made stencils to paint the wing walks. I painted a square of sheet plastic and placed a nose art decal on it to test how it will look and I'm happy with it. Sort of looks like what you see in museums, nose art cut from scrapped airframes.  I don't know if the nose art was on both sides so I made mirror images and mine will have both because I think it looks more cooler.

  This is turning out fabulous so far John and you've managed to work your way through alot of the fit issues of this kit. Paint job looks great. 

[lyle]

My, oh my.....looks marvelous.

[jmarc]

NNNNNNNNNNNNNeat !

[kyledehart5]

Nice work! Looking outstanding. 

[reserve]

I've seen quite a few of these models built and painted but there ain't been many that look as good as this one does

[jeaton01]

Thanks guys, I'm hiding the bad spots! I put the decals on and painted the fuel caps and serial numbers. Broke off the nose gear, drilled and pinned it. Onward. Glossed with a thick coat of Future. Barely dry enough to touch but reports is reports.

[kyledehart5]

Stunning work going on in this forum everywhere. I’m loving this John.

[handiabled]

This looks great dressed in black John!

[tcoat]

Boy oh boy she looks good in shiny black!

[stikpusher]

[keavdog]

Man I missed a few updates John! Great progress and she looks soooo good. Makes me want to build one, but fighting with my old Monogram T6 will be my battle for the year

[jeaton01]

This one is only going to get some light exhaust weathering on top, here's the look. I'll have to add the ADF loop and sense antennas. It also looks like it has cover of some kind over the .50 barrels but I'm not doing that. Another few things are visible in the lower photo, the fairings on the bottom near the ADF antennas, and there is no storm window on the right side of the windscreen, which is molded on the Monogram part and provided for on the Eduard masks.  I had been wondering about that as there would be no reason to have those little windows on both sides.  They are there only for the pilot to open if the windscreen is iced over or otherwise blocked, as with the oil from the airplane you just shot down.

[jeaton01]

Feb 18, 2024 14:36:56 GMT -5 keavdog said:

Man I missed a few updates John! Great progress and she looks soooo good. Makes me want to build one, but fighting with my old Monogram T6 will be my battle for the year

Thanks, John.

I like the Monogram T-6, I built this one as an SNJ-3. I left the canopy movable sections loose so I could pose them closed, or off as an approximation of open.  Next time I think I will use a vacuform canopy as I think a finer look would be a improvement there.

[keavdog]

Very nice John. I'm struggling with the wing/wing root but I'll get it figured out.

[406 Silverado]

Haven't posted anything on this but dang sure will now. You've got a good gloss coat on her along with some good decal work. You and Tony are really showin' how it's done in successfully building these old kits. Beautiful work John.

[tcoat]

Feb 19, 2024 17:05:40 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

This one is only going to get some light exhaust weathering on top, here's the look. I'll have to add the ADF loop and sense antennas. It also looks like it has cover of some kind over the .50 barrels but I'm not doing that. Another few things are visible in the lower photo, the fairings on the bottom near the ADF antennas, and there is no storm window on the right side of the windscreen, which is molded on the Monogram part and provided for on the Eduard masks.  I had been wondering about that as there would be no reason to have those little windows on both sides.  They are there only for the pilot to open if the windscreen is iced over or otherwise blocked, as with the oil from the airplane you just shot down.

So cool to have a picture of the plane stating it is freshly painted and still at it's stateside (well soon to be a State) base! Tells you exactly what it should look like. Bit jealous of that captioned picture actually.

[jeaton01]

I'll put more pictures in the gallery, but she's ready for the display case. I did do some light grey exhaust staining on the top of the wings but it's not showing well for the camera. Next time I will put a bit of flat in that area.  I think that there is an issue with newer kits with the glass, because comments are fairly uniform that it does not fit well, but that is not the case with this first run kit.  The only issue I had was that the main cockpit part was a few thousands wider than the fuselage, on my model the mismatch ended up all on the right side toward the front.  All of the separate pieces fit very well with no adjustments, and they are only tacked in place with a few spots of canopy glue, no glue used to make up for problems on the edges.  My wing dihedral is slightly off which if you look very close it can be seen that the central pod is just slightly off from true and the right wing tip is slightly higher than the left.  It would never be noticeable if I didn't bring it up.  When I build another P-61 I will make a jig to establish the dihedral that also holds the pod vertical, I don't think I could do it any better by eye than this one is.  There's just too many moving parts and the requirement for accuracy is too high as any error with wing dihedral leads to problems fitting the booms and getting the fins straight.  But I'm pretty happy with this one, I think it's going to end up in my favorites column.

[tcoat]

Gorgeous ! The canopies closed up better than I thought they would.

[stikpusher]

Beautiful clean shiny finish John! Very nicely done!

[cbaltrin]

Very nice work jeaton01!  You built that faster than a bat out of.... oh,   oooops, sorry  , I don't want to step on lyle 's toes here. Anyway, great looking P-61!