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1/48 Hasegawa P-39N "Red Star"


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Now that the Tamiya Tony is in the case, time to start on the next project which I picked up in Chattanooga in January, The Hasegawa 1/48 P-39 along with a beautiful wooden base from Bases by Bill (picture coming!) with the nametag of the Soviet P-39 ace Alexander Pokryshkin. 

 

Picked up the kit as a package with the nice wooden base and name plaque, and the Eduard PE bits for the interior, placards and flaps.  I'm more used to Eduard's really nice P-39 kits which are mostly out of production now, but the Hasegawa kit has a nice level of detail and the Eduard PE just adds to the detail.

 

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Name tag from Bases by Bill:

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Here is the cockpit floor, with some of the Eduard PE bits attached:

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Debated on using the Eduard PE seat, but it is so much thinner than the kit set, and has much better detail. Still have some work to do but got it together.  Have to close some gaps.

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The Eduard PE rudder pedals:

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Here is the kit IP, on the right, sanded down and the angle parts cut off, to take the Eduard PE color IP, which has already been sandwiched using Formula 560 clear glue. Will paint the exposed part with Interior Green or black as appropriate.

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Here is the IP all together, with the PE machine guns:

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Base coat of Model Master Acryl Interior Green. Nice detail showing up on the seat (and bits still be to be added).  The floor shows where the tweezers were holding it during painting.  Should be behind the seat-back and under the equipment shelf.  Probably will touch it up with a brush anyway.

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Used a drill bit to open up the holes in the canopy frame. The Hasegawa kit is pretty good so far. 

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And a couple of the black bits painted - lower instrument panel with the two slots for the PE knobs, and the radio which goes behind the seat.  Will address that seam on top:

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So just getting started, lots of details still to be painted.  Stay tuned!

Chris

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks guys for the comments and encouragement.  I'm in a bit of a lull due to a heavy work load and business trips for much of Nov (including a trip to Telford for Scale Model World).

Will see how much I can get done this week (got a bit more work done on the cockpit this past weekend).

 

Thanks!

Chris

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As far as I remember, Pokryshkin's plane had not that many stars on it. The famous photos of him were made using other plane flown by G. Rechkalov. So Hasegawa box photo is a bit incorrect.

Edited by Helmsman
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7 hours ago, Helmsman said:

As far as I remember, Pokryshkin's plane had not that many stars on it. The famous photo's of him were made using other plane flown by G. Rechkalov. So Hasegawa box photo is a bit incorrect.

 

Ahhh, that is good to know.  Do you have a photo of his plane with the correct markings?  I've seen pictures with two different sets of stars on the nose, but don't know if that represents different times, different aircraft or what.

 

Thanks, Chris

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If you want more info on this aircraft and its markings, I highly recommend you read through the thread linked below on Massimo Tessitori's site, which specifically deals with Pokryshkin's 100. It it impossible to say whether the profiles towards the end of that discussion represent the final word on this aircraft - rather read through the material and make your own conclusions:

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php?topic=1367.0

 

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8 hours ago, Mfezi said:

If you want more info on this aircraft and its markings, I highly recommend you read through the thread linked below on Massimo Tessitori's site, which specifically deals with Pokryshkin's 100. It it impossible to say whether the profiles towards the end of that discussion represent the final word on this aircraft - rather read through the material and make your own conclusions:

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php?topic=1367.0

 

 

Thank you for the link - VERY helpful and timely as well!  Much appreciated.  I did a quick skim of the pages and I think the consensus is that Pokryshkin's aircraft did not sport any kill markings and that the photographs of him in front of marked aircraft were of other pilots planes.  Now the question is the color of the disk behind the fuselage star.  Great source, thank you again!

 

Chris

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  • 1 month later...

FINALLY, an update, sorry for the delay - 19 days traveling in November, then this month was our club's annual holiday party.

 

Got the fuselage closed up after doing some adjusting to the instrument panel to move it back a bit. I cut the armored glass behind the pilot's head from some clear plastic from some retail packing.  Radio cable is from the Eduard set, and also used some of the Eduard placards. 

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Minimal of weathering except on the seat.  Used the Eduard PE Seat belts which worked better than I thought they would.  I used a drop of Formula 560 over each instrument face and the effect, showing up in pictures much better than the naked eye, works pretty well.  560 is VERY thick and sticky.  I thin it just a bit with water to make it less stringy.

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Also masked the canopy using Eduard masks.  It is me or are sometimes the masks oversized a bit?  Admittedly some of the panel lines on the clear cockpit are kind of vague but had to do a bit of trimming esp on the back glass over the radio.  I've also seen where I've had to scrunch up the masks on some canopies.

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And for this particular kit, two key masks are missing:  there are only masks for one door inside and out (R5 and R6), or two doors, but only inside or only outside - which doesn't work for the P-39 as most kits (including this one) mold the P-39 doors in clear plastic.

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I'm planning on using 'Liquid Gravity' in the nose to keep it from being a tail-sitter so I filled in the gaps at the back of the nose gear bay with some Vallejo Acrylic putty.

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Speaking of the bottom - I added Eduard's PE vent screens and flaps.  Here is a few of the screens into a light.  Of course, when the wing is attached to the fuselage you will not see anything behind the screen but oh well:

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And the last part of the update is work on the amazing Quickboost resin exhausts.  Picked these up from Spruebrothers but saw a LOT of Quickboost at Scale Model World in Telford and picked some up for some other kits.  Base color is Vallejo Gun metal, some dry brushing with Vallejo Black Grey and the inside of the exhausts painted black.  I'll add some brown and perhaps light gray later.

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Next up is to close up the wing and then check the fuselage seams, find two more masks for the doors, add the ballast into the nose and close that up, then lay down a layer of primer (and of course that landing gear!).  So still a lot to do!


Thanks for following along, hope to mostly finish this up this month.

 

Chris

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

 

SO I've been doing some building and even some picture taking, but not a lot of posting.  Sorry about that.  Let's get caught up!

 

Here are the bits together ready for the primer coat (Vallejo gloss black) then the overcoat of Vallejo Dull Aluminum I'm using under the Olive Drab coat which I'm planning on weathering.

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I fashioned a 'handle' on the wing to hold onto while painting:

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One thing I noticed is that the wing intake part just did not fit well into the bottom wing and needed a lot of work:

IvQRiw.jpg

So on with the Vallejo white putty...

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and after some cleaning up and sanding.  Took a couple of touch ups.

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After the primer coat then an overcoat of dull aluminum (and before the tires got their coat of Black Grey and the prop its black):

DZ8Vb7.jpg

The top of the wings and the elevators show my usual mottled paint to help vary the top-coat to show wear.  Will hit it with a clear flat before the top coat of the Olive Drab (and some Green as well).  

 

Red spinner:

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Fuselage without the nose piece attached.  Once I get the wings on (see below) I'll mock up the landing gear and then load up the nose with liquid gravity (powdered graphite) as a nose weight then close up the nose.

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Actually planning on rolling down the windows. 🙂  My first attempt at that so stay tuned!

 

Test fitting the wing to the fuselage after the base coats - well, ran into THIS little problem:

Oj8fIU.jpg

 

There is no way to compress the fuselage the 2-3mm needed to eliminate the overlap.  The only solution I could think of is to grind the fuselage wing root (less to deal with than the wing) so went to Amazon and ordered a Dremel Motor tool (only about three years after tossing my old one.. sigh) which will be delivered tonight.  We'll see what I'm able to do tomorrow!

 

Thanks for looking.

Chris

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Took advantage of the holiday to get some serious build time in.

 

I used a Dremel tool to fix the overlap, took some work and its not perfect but I can get the fuselage onto the wing now.  I did some further adjusting after this.

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So what do you do when you forget to mask the outside of the windows on the door and end up with several coats of paint?  Actually, put some cleaner on it, let it sit for a while.  Took a toothpick to it and actually it came right up.  🙂  These were dipped in future to start with.

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Pretty pleased at the final result:

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The decals are pretty thick, so I put them down over a bit of MicroSet, then brushed some over the top as well.  Even though they took about 5 minutes in water to loosen up, these sunk down into the panel lines really pretty well without a lot of work:

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Before adding in the landing gear doors.  The red gas cap is thinned Vallejo red paint kind of a wash which sucked right down into the depressions that are the cap.

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The tires are resin and I drilled out the nose gear hinge. I did touch up the tires with the Black Gray paint.

 

Here are all of the landing gear doors in place.

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Painted the top of the tail red with the while line, but got some bleed under the tape so need to do some touch-up.  Also got the doors detailed on the inside.

 

More to come!

Chris

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