| Image Comments |
| CPN | 05-Oct-10 21:56 |
| I picked this gem up on eBay for pretty cheap. Not a Dumas P-38, a Comet. I have to be honest - this thing is a bit intimidating. There is no plastic parts - it is all wood. Lots of carving. Funny thing - the wood is great. I'm going to be cutting parts for the next week on this kit. |
| BillParker | 05-Oct-10 22:11 |
| If you've got the parts cut out, the hard part is done. Don't confuse the left and right parts on the booms... |
| scigs30 | 05-Oct-10 23:15 |
| Old fashioned model building at its finest. |
| CPN | 05-Oct-10 23:30 |
| This kit's structure is so sparse, its wing is so big and the wood is so good that this can't not be a good flyer. The only thing I don't like is the flat canopy pattern in place of the beautiful bubble style canopy the Lightning had. I've bit off this much, I might go all in and carve a canopy and then punch-mold one out of plastic. There is a good tutorial on Mike's Flying Scale Model Pages. |
| Richardsk | 06-Oct-10 03:48 |
| If you intend to fly it, it's probably best to make the outer wing panels knock off and have a detachable undercart as well. I've got one of these in the pipeline - it's been waiting twenty years or more, but I hope to start soon. I also have the A26 Douglas Invader lined up. I have too many kits and not enough time! |
| CPN | 06-Oct-10 08:36 |
| Sounds good - any building tips or techniques for knock off wing panels? I am going to just not fit landing gear to the plane, I rarely do that for flyers. |
| scigs30 | 06-Oct-10 09:54 |
| I built this kit many years ago and flew just fine with no mods. I did use Peck props and wheels. When it is all done, the flat canopy does not look too bad. |
| Richardsk | 06-Oct-10 13:30 |
| Either piano wire pins in aluminium tubes or ply tongues in balsa boxes work well. It would mean doubling the ribs at the outside of the booms. I went with the ply tongue and balsa box on my Comet Thunderbolt and it worked well, saving it from damage in many hard landings. I used the pin in tube method on a scratch built Brewster Buffalo (peanut-sized) and that worked well too. Shouldn't really be necessary on a peanut but mine used to crash a lot. Sometimes it's possible to use rubber bands with bamboo pegs, a method I used on my Comet Spitfire IX and Earl Stahl Mustang, but of course that wouldn't be possible on the P38. As sciggs30 says, it may not be necessary. For less skilled fliers it might be advisable. |
| scigs30 | 06-Oct-10 19:44 |
| I just looked at the plans for this to see if it brought back memories, I think I built it for a twin motor contest back in 1983. I did nothing to make it lighter, just kept it the way it was designed. I did change the motor peg mount and made a more functioning nose block. It flew nice on slow even though my building skills were not up to par back then. I can't remember if I covered with Peck grey tissue or Esaki white and sprayed it with Pactra Aerogloss Silver Dope from the spray can. I have this kit and have to build it again for old time sake. I never built the A-26, but seen that one fly, and she flies pretty good as designed. If I build it again, I won't make too many changes or I will never finish it. Also I remember soaking the fuselage longerons in water/ammonia and pre bending them to make my life easy. |
| CPN | 06-Oct-10 19:58 |
| I've recently come to the conclusion that the reason
I can never get a box type constructed fuselage to build true is the tension caused by bending longerons and holding them in tension using glue. Good heads up - I will defintely do that here. I'm planning on using very thin balsa (1/32) sheet for some of the patterns that are supposed to be bond paper. I will probably add some gussets to the wing and cover in Esaki or silkspan. Esaki is lighter but I've become addicted to wet covering silkspan using dope - it always comes out drum tight while other methods are more hit or miss. |
| scigs30 | 06-Oct-10 20:08 |
| Thymekiller started to build the Comet version sometime ago, and I don't know if he ever finished it. Here is a picture of it compared to his Guillows kit. You can see how light it looks and that is why it is a good flyer. Like I said, if the canopy is nice and clean, it looks fine flat.
http://www.hippocketaeronautics.com/hpa_forum/index.php/topic,2673.0.html |
| scigs30 | 06-Oct-10 22:23 |
| CPN, Most of the time fuselages come out crooked is because of the bends in longerons. If you preshape them first, I guarantee the fuselage will stay nice and straight. You can look at my last build the Comet North American Trainer, I pre bent the longerons in that build. Also if the LE or TE of the wing supplied in the kit is slightly crooked, and most of the time it is. Then soak in the same mixture then build the wing. That will keep the LE and TE nice and straight and resist warps. |
