On The Bench: Operation Vengeance

This will be a joint project with Willi  Bigbro. I received my plane order first, so I'll kick off.

For details on the historical Operation Vengeance that resulted in the death of Admiral Yamamoto, I recommend looking here: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/lightning-strike-admiral-yamamoto.html

We intend to create a vignette featuring the G4M1 "Bettys" of Admirals Yamamoto and Ugaki, the P-38s of Barber and Lanphier, and perhaps a Zero or two.

The aircraft will all be 1/200 scale and will end up in our Wings Of Glory inventory.

I ordered 2 aircraft from Armaments In Miniature, who have a wide selection of aircraft in this scale, a P-38 D/E (a lookalike for the  G models involved) and a G4M2, which will take some modifying to backdate to a G4M1.

The models arrived in good condition. The P-38 was cleanly molded with almost no flash and negligible parting lines. A little cleanup and it should be ready to prime. The G4M2 had a rather distinct mold parting line I'll have to deal with; and details to be removed to backdate it to a -1, namely the intakes on upper and lower cowl; the radial exhaust oulets; the prominent dorsal turret; and the rear fuselage windows. 

I'd also need to fill in the hole in the belly created when I removed the provided mounting tab and screw. This will be replaced with a Wings Of Glory style post at a later point.

First, file off all the offending bumps.

That's a bit more like the sleek profile that earned it the nickname "hamaki", or cigar, by its crews. On closer inspection, I'll also need to give it a "nose job" as this has a full glass nose rather than the proper glazing for a -1:

I won't be able to make an exact match, but it can be gotten closer with some putty. So break out the squadron gray and get to it.

I also filled on the round depression behind the cockpit, which will be covered by the new blisters I have yet to make. Fill, sand, fill, sand.

A shot of gray primer let's me know if we're ready to proceed.

Yes. For blisters, I raided my parts box and picked up a couple of bombs whose widest diameter was about the width of the gun blisters. These were cut, carved, and sanded to shape, then cut in half.

A little ACC cement and voila!

I wasn't entirely happy with the dorsal blister, and sanded it down some more. The Betty also has an array of distinctive antennae, which I drilled and added, along with a nose and tail gun.

I filleted around the blisters with my Testors Window cement. All the panel lines were rescribed to enhance their detail. Time for paint. Modelmaster IJN Dark Green on top.

She's starting to look more like big sister.

Now we wait 24hrs for drying before we IJN Light Gray on the underside. Stand By!

It took longer than 24 hrs to dry to my satisfaction  (?) but I was eventually able to handle it without marring the finish, enough to allow some detail painting.

I also managed to break, replace, and correct the location of the two rear most antennae

I started the underside by hand, but as i have to hold it while doing do, it will have to be done in several sessions....

White squares masked with Tamiya tape. As my white enamel was thin, I used a nearly dry brush to paint the outside edge of the square at the edge of the tape, sealing the edge to prevent bleeding. After that dried, I went back in and filled in the square. Still got a bit of bleed at one corner where tape went over tape, but this was easily remedied. 

Starting to look like big sister. Now for some yellow ID paint on leading edges. 

Now some flat spray to seal it  and give it an even tone.

A coat of Vallejo Matt Varnish, and...

Time to begin working on Phoebe.

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We set Betty aside, and are now spending time with Phoebe, Tom Lanphier's mount. First, some squadron putty to fill in the hole left by removing the screw and oversized peg. Like Betty, she will ultimately have a Wings Of Glory peg, but that will happen much later.

Gray primer. 

Modelmaster acrylic FS 3R087 Olive Drab.

Looks OK as an aircraft color,  but I'll need a darker shade for that PBR project....

A few notes on the historical aircraft.

Tom Lanphier, originally credited with the shootdown, was flying P-38G "Phoebe", nose #122. Later research gives the victory to Rex Barber in Miss Virginia, nose #147 (ironically a borrowed plane that day) both of the 339th Fighter Squadron, 347th Fighter Group, 13th Air Force.

Photos of Barber's plane along with art and decals; far less so for Phoebe. 2 photos are readily available:

Simple roundels on wings and fuselage; 122 on both sides of the nose; "Phoebe" on the outboard side of the starboard nacelle, both forward and well aft. Also, there is an interesting wavy pattern where the upper green meets the lower grey. Also prominent on the port side of the nose are two Japanese flag kill marks. Decals for early P-38s in 1/200 are available from miscmini.com, which include both 122 and 147, and Miss Virginia script, but sadly no Phoebe(s), so I will have to attempt to print my own.

I found a nice graphic of Miss Virginia in an article reviewing the 1/48 Tamiya kit, which will help with painting and decal placement:

Using this as a guide, I hand painted the underside gray, attempting to reproduce the wavy pattern. 

Next, some of the few other non OD or gray details:

Primarily guns, turbo-superchargers, canopy, and some black wash accent lines for the spinners, control surfaces, and air inlets.

Next the miscmini decals.

Now I have to decide, do I invest the time to create some tiny "Phoebe" decals for nose and nacelles? Hmmmm...

In the meantime, Willi has been building Yamamoto and Barber's planes. Read the next chapter at the link.

On the Bench - 10-13-20 a 1/48 Mosquito Rehab.

 

From out of the storage box comes another aircraft needing an overhaul.  As you can see it was not hard to start deconstruction.  Even more was removed as you will see as we proceed.

This was typical everywhere.  Ironic that the pin and hole glue points along both the fuselage and wings were the reason for the open seams.  They would not allow them to completely close, so as I inserted the xacto blade I cut them off.  I held the seams together (fuselage and wings) and brushed on the thin glue.  Where thin gaps remained I added Cyano and when it dried, sanded it down.

I pulled the bombs from under the wings and filled those seams also.

Here you can see where the bombs were but also the gloss green which will have to be repainted with flat interior green.  This photo also shows the machine gun nose used on this version.  I trimmed the ends of some flash (which was necessary in several places as I explored the plane in detail) and then drilled into the gun ends for some barrel detail.

The process of cleaning off old paint, polishing and hand cut and trimmed masking of the canopy took in excess of two hours.

Friday, Oct. 16, 2020, and I am adding (repainting) detail to the crew (a more appropriate blue etc.), the bombs that have been sealed and sanded and the cockpit seats.  Interior green is also necessary for the cockpit area..

I am not adding the pilots arm until he is in the seat so I can position the hand to the control stick.

The radio has been put back in and the yellow prop tips freshened.

What I need to do now is find my exterior paints - Dark Gray and Sky.  I also need some new putty!  I freshened the crew with the RAF blue, touching up the O2 equipment gloves etc. and put them in the repainted seats and installed in the cockpit.  If it appears that the crew has comfy collars with the uniform jackets you would be correct.  I like the blue!

Now for a little elbow grease- Decals!  The old ones may be cracked but they are very solid, so I scraped, wet sanded, scraped, sand a little, scrape a little, sand a little, scrape a little, cheep, cheep, cheep, sand a lot, scrape a little more (my apologies to Meredith Wilson)....

Ok, where were we?  I know, time to try and seal up the seams.  The wing edges were brushed with thin glue, fuselage seams got window glue.  Wider seams at the back edge of the nacelles needed Cyano which needed sanding.

I guess I should have mentioned that I put the nose back on, and it needed seams filled.

After my brother showed me a larger scale Mosquito on facebook that used the same paint scheme, it sold me on red spinners.

Note the bomb noses are painted to match!

It is time to put a Gray Coat on this bird.  I have to admit, after adding some thinner it brushed on very smoothly.  I added the gray to the canopy, held my breath and removed the masking tape - not bad!

I need some RAF Sky, so off to the store.  I will be adding the invasion stripes and my brother reminded me that for historical accuracy these stripes were hand painted in the field, so I can't get too neat with masking.  I will have to experiment.  They should still be fairly straight but without neat edges.  At 1/48 I am not sure how to accomplish this.   My first thought is to tear masking tape for a "fuzzy" edge - we'll see!

The process does save on masking tape.  I just use the same ragged edge piece over and over.  So this is the realistic, hand painted in the field, version. The only issue is that it is going to be tedious as the white requires 2+ coats. I will also have to carefully weather this "Operation Overlord" mosquito if this is to be a wartime fighter-bomber.

It does look hand painted - realistic? I guess it is so we will go with it.

In keeping with the realism I have been defining panel lines, fasteners etc.  I made a wash of gray and black to further highlight the panels and the molded in fuel ports and access panels.  More weathering will be needed as I proceed.  Also, my brother found a post on facebook of an "Invasion Stripe" Mosquito build that is quite detailed (I appears to be a larger scale) and has some things I may be able to incorporate into this rehab.  Example: The landing gear includes brake hydraulic lines to the wheel hub (at least that is my guess as to what they are).  I tried black thread! 

Here is the facebook post,,,,,

.....my emulation!  Now, do I try and drill holes in the fender fin?  

Of course I do - wasn't as difficult as I thought (fortunately).  I also drilled into the cross brace above the fender, fitted the gear into the nacelle's, marked the location of where the cross brace touched the inside of the wheel well and drilled through the nacelle wall.  Now when the gear is re-attached I can put a piece of reinforcing wire in place to secure the cross brace besides a simple drop of glue.  Oh, did I mention that I repainted the inside of the wheel well with the correct Interior Green?  I have now.😂

It's the weekend and I have done a little painting.  I acquired a Model Master Light Gray acrylic, though I did not realize it at the time.  I had some acrylic green so I added a drop to the Gray.  the acrylic is thin but it flows well and after several coats does not look too bad.  What I don't like is the enamel flat white.  It is as bad as yellow.  Even after two or three coats it looks uneven.  I went for a hand painted look - well I got it!!!😏

I move from section to section while I wait for the decals that have been ordered.  The panel lines can be scribed through the paint as the underlying color is a silver gray, so I won't be using any wash. 

My next experiment was the attempt at adding the red X out (keep off) panels.  There are decal sheets that include these but I did not want large rectangular glossy clear area over the flat gray.  I was not sure that even a dullcoat spray would mask the fact that this was a big decal, so I tried a red wash on the panel lines and masking tape for filling in the "X"s.

  I am not sure if they are supposed to look handed painted, but they turned out acceptable to me! I am proceeding with painting invasion stripes and filling in the Sky color on the underside - as previously mentioned, it is a bit tedious and at times frustrating and the more handling I do the more weathered this craft will look.  When finally done I'm sure it will look like it has been to war.

I glued the bomb bay doors together with the thin set glue, put them in place with a drop of Cyano in the corners, then more thin set along the edges.  Perhaps one more coat of sky on those doors and underside painting is done.  Note the masking tape showing which is for the white stripes on the starboard wing.  I then filled in the black stripes by hand (as I did on the port wing).

This shows that panel lines have been scribed to remove the "over paint".  The canopy has finally been attached with with cyano, then window glue along the seam followed by touch up with the dark gray.

Under the wing shows the rehabbed bomb reattached, plus some exhaust trailing the manifold cover using Tamiya Soot.

The gear goes back in with cyano placed on the installation nubs (to up under the nacelle), but as mentioned above I inserted a piece of 32 gauge wire with a drop of cyano on the tip through the previously drilled hole(s).  Once the cyano is dry I will snip off the wire "tail".  Also note the grayish wash applied to the tire to highlight the tread.

A view of the Port side now that the gear is completed.  It better shows the wheel tread detailing etc.

The remaining work consists of installing and painting the wheel well covers,  the wing tip light lenses, the tail wheel and decals (when they arrive).  Then a final dullcoat.

Ok, a little levity while I wait for decals.  Working on an old very simple Corsair that happens to have a well detail pilot figure.  So this guy is visiting his Brit Buddies waiting for a ride?

Ok, the wheel well doors are back on and painted (interior green and sky on the exterior, of course).

A better picture?  Note the little connecting arms?  Several were missing so I had to fabricate duplicates from bits of sprue parts.  I copied the parts that still existed (which my brother told me may have been replacements themselves back in the day).  It worked out pretty well and the install was not difficult - using cyano gel helps.  The thing with that is you have to get the parts in the proper position since the cyano sets quickly.  Alright Decals, what USPS office are you at today??

Woo Hoo, decals arrived and I started right in.  I ordered a set with four choices.  Based on my chosen invasion stripping paint scheme it was a natural choice to apply the markings of:

Mosquito NF XIII MM465/NG-X of the No 604 "County of Middlesex" Squadron, crewed by W/C H.M. Constable-Maxwell DFC, July 1944 (Whew)!

I still have a wing tip light lens to fabricate and a dullcoat over the upper surfaces and decals to apply, but other than that I consider this wonderful bird done!  Now I have to go watch "633 Squadron"😉