Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune Start-to-Finish Build

[Builder2010]

Unlike my many other entries, this one is a partiulary lower-tech one. In fact, it’s the first kit I’ve done in a long time with only three sprues and raised panel lines. it’s a Cold War aircraft that was one of the first to combine piston and jet engines along with the B-36. I normally don’t do planes unless they’re very special. This one is. My wife recently reconnected with several of her first cousins after a many-years hiatus (no real reason). One of which is Larry. Larry is 82 and was a flight chief on a P2V-5 during the early 60s. He flew the plane that first tested the nuclear depth charge (must less dramatic than one would imagine). His plane was also the first of the series that started using the ultra-powerful Wright R-3350 Turbo-compound, the last and most powerful radial aircraft developed. The 3350-30W produced about 4,000 hp. The addtion of the turbines directly geared to the engine crankshaft added about 500 hp with the aditional of about 500 pounds extra weight.

I found the model on eBay for a reasonable price. It’s very old, but was complete. It’s a Hasegawa kit and represents a P2V-7. Larry’s plane is a P2V-5 and does not have a dorsal gun turret.

Larry sent me pictures of his plane that gave me the customization info. The kit instructions called out Glossy Sea Blue. I bought a bottle of Mission Model paint of that color. Then Larry told me his plane was gray. More research… the later color was FS18061, Glossy Engine Gray. I traded the one for the other.

This is another plane in his Squadron, VP-8, before they painted the upper fuze white. I’m going with the later color scheme.

This is Larry’s plane with the white color.

The kit’s decals were a mess! They were terribly yellowed and didn’t have things that I needed, so i scanned them and re-drew a full set in CorelDraw.

Larry also sent me a photo of his squadron patch which he had mounted on a wood plaque. I couldn’t use this in CorelDraw since it was distorted by photo angle.

After a short Google search I found a great image of the patch, upon which I could draw it from scratch. The patch is embroidered. My drawing more normal line-wise.

This leads to a bigger challenge. I have to produce decals that have white on white decal paper. You can only print white on full ink printing presses or special machines that cost $$$. For simple decals that you can trim easily, white decal paper isn’t a problem like Stars and Bars. However, when you’re dealing with specific lettering like “NAVY”, trimming and applying each letter in 1:72 is an exercise in futility. To work around this I print the decals on a matching color to the base color on which the decal is placed. This is as hard as it sounds.

I start by painting a test article, scanning the color and bringing it into CorelDraw. For some inexplicable reason, I can no longer print directly from CorelDraw. This gremlin appeared when I upgraded to the latest MAC OS Sonoma 14. To solve I would have to upgrade my CorelDraw from 2021 to 2024 for a couple hundred dollars. I don’t need their new “Features”. And I don’t want to pay this money for just one function. The work around is exporting the drawing as a .PNG and printing out of MAC Finder. it works.

After printing out a test patch, the color was way off. It always is. I then had to, by trial and error, keep adjusting the CMYK mix numbers, creating test patches to find the blend that works. When I got what I thought was “right” I colored backgrounds behind each decal that was going over the gray portions of the plane and printed out the sheet. For the test pieces I was printing on Glossy Photo Paper and set the printer to that type. For the decals, I changed to “Specialty Photo Paper”. What I got was way too purple.

I adjusted by reducing magenta, and reprinted.

I overcoated with MicroScale Decal Coating and this happened. It dried terribly!

I think the ink wasn’t fully cured when coated. I’m going to reprint and use something different to seal them. Inkjet ink is water soluable and must be sealed to work as a decal. I will use photo fixative.

I did successfully coat the insignia decals. One goes on each side of the nose. I printed many.

Construction began with gluing fuze innerds. Details are so sparse that I’m leaving out the crew.

This kit is so old that the canopy is in two parts split down the middle. It’s a terrible way to make glazing and is just asking for a gluey mess. I taped one one end and used Tamiya cement very gingerly on the other to tack it. I then removed the tape and finished it off. Any glue damage is on areas that will be painted. It will be an a “fun” job to mask, but as my wife says, “It’s your hobby, not work, so stop complaining.”

I want to deliver this model on our next trip to Philly in less than two weeks, so I will be working on it seriously. I’m also delivering the 5"38 turret model to the Battleship New Jersey during that trip.

[Builder2010]

Moving right along… Painted what I could, masked the canopy, and made another set of decals that could work, although the picture seems to show it’s still biased towards the red end. That said, under different lighting it looks much better. I’m not going to sweat it any longer. My wife’s cousin is not an IPMS judge and will love the model for the thought that went into its creation. The color match will be fine.

Normally, I would go nuts on detailing a cockpit, but I’m usually working in 1:32. In this case, and with the limited view in the canopy, I’m not going to do much. Interior is a dark gray, but not really dark.

I got the canopy masked. I started using Tamiya normal tape, but then switched to Tamiya curvy tape. It’s vinyl and lets you bend it around compound curves without bucklng. I filled the remaining areas with MicroScale liguid mask. For some reason it wasn’t wetting the transparent parts as well as I would like and I kept having to go back and fill in the blank spots.

I also installed all the glazing that needed to be glued in from the inside. These too were masked with liquid mask.

I assembled the simply-detail 3350s which consisted of just two parts. The 3350s are cowled very tightly and you will see basically nothing inside. Even so, I painted the inside light ghost gray as called out by the FS number. I probably will pick out the pushrod tubes, but nothing else on the engines. I’d love to see someone do a model in large scale that had the turbo-compounds fully detailed.

Since I’m not spending a lot of time on this model, I airbrushed the gloss white on the inside wheel well doors, and the wheel wells while on the sprue. And then rattle-canned Tamiya Silver Leaf on the landing gear and the prop blades. By using a solvent-based paint, I can use acrylic for the detailing and not have to worry about color bleed. This will all be nicely dried by tomorrow.

The gear doors need red edging which I’ll do later. The prop blades get black booting and white/red/white warning stripes at the their tips.

[Builder2010]

This post will cover two days of work. Yesterday I spent building subassemblies, and sanding and filling the terrific seams that occur on an old “vintage” kit. I’m a bit spoiled. The kits I generally build these days are current generation of highly detailed and engineered kits, with a zillion parts and generally good assembly (not counting the horror of building the Kitty Hawk Seahawk). I use my Tamiya 1:32 Corsair as the benchmark for how perfectly seams fit and molding is done. This kit was the antithesis. Flash was everywhere, parts are crudely molded, engineering is dubious.

That said, it will be a nice model only because it has huge sentimental value and it’s the only kit available of such a plane. I shared the descrepenicies with Larry between the -5 and -7 versions especially in the canopy shape and placement of the search radar bulge. Larry doesn’t mind. It’s going to be the right color and have all his squadron’s correct insignia.

This shows the challenge.

And this…

And now filled.

Now… the biggest problem with old models is the raised panel lines and rivets. You can’t sand the seams without obliterating them. And you can’t rescribe them since they’re in relief and would have to be applied, and I’m not doing that. The result is smooth seams but no texture around them.

I got the nacelles, both fore and aft, and readied them for install. These parts were assembled without alignment pins or notches making it fussier than it should have been to get them aligned in two axes.

And the rear nacelles which had to include part of the landing gear that was captivated in the assembly. This sequence wasn’t very clear in the instructions and I almost glued the halves together before realizing that it had to trap the gear brace.

I masked all the very-finely raised nose glazing frame and then glued it to the plane with Testor’s canopy cement.

That finished yesterday’s work. I went down to the shop before breakfast to glue on the main canopy so it would be cured for later in the day to do more work on the plane.

Later, I was pressing to get some painting done. I painted the tails of the jets first airbrushed with AllClad “Lightly Burned Metal” and then over-coated away from the tail pipe with AllClad Stainless Steel. I painted the intake side of the jets with Nato Black and then masked them both. I glued the rear nacelle with wheel wells to the wing with Tamiya Cement. I then glued on the front nacelle with engines to the rear with Testor’s tube cement to the attached rear. I also airbrushed the fore portion of the radar blister NATO black.

After the jets dried I masked all the pre-painted engine parts in prep for overall plane painting. I glued the jets on with Tamiya cement. I then glued on the wing tip tanks with Testor’s tube cement to provide grip if the joint was fully flush. The plane is ready for paint tomorrow.

I will start by masking the black area of the radar done, and fill the wheel wells with dampened paper towels to prevent spray entering. Then I will rattle-can spray the topside white with Tamiya white primer followed by Gloss white. When dry I’ll mask it and spray the body color of Glossy Engine Gray.

I hope it’s not tail heavy, since I haven’t pre-installed any nose weights.

[wasthere]

Love your work .l love redoing old kits

[Builder2010]

I’m glad you like old kits. Me… I don’t think they’re worth the effort. If I’m going to fuss around with weird fits, I do my custom models. At least then I have an excuse that the designer didn’t know what he was doing.

I painted the white primer, then Tamiya Gloss white for the surfaces that are white. My wife’s cousin sent a better picture of his plane in flight that I could use for the masking and decal placement.

I had overlooked Larry’s #5 Plane Number. I drew that up today, printed it, and overcoated it with Rust-oleum clear gloss. This stuff really dries shiny and fast.

I got the white surfaces masked. Took quite awhile since it follows the wing roots and I used the White Vinyl tape for that.

I painted all the Glossy Gray. When it went on I almost had a heart attack. It was many slides lighter than the decal color. But after force drying it a bit with the heat gun, it darkened considerably and will work okay.

Like Vallejo acrylic, the Mission Models paint flashes off pretty quickly, but stays tacky for a long time. I like Tamiya better. When it flashes off it’s dry. I left it in this position for while until I could handle it with nitrile gloves on.

I then pulled the tape. Most was okay, but I found the difficulty of masking white paint with white vinyl tape. I missed a spot! Ugh!. I will mask the tail tomorrow and shoot some gloss white to repair. The paint will dry quick enough.

I also found upon further inspection, there were some light gray spots, which I brush painted. I may have to do more of this touchup tomorrow.

I’m finding that the Mission paint does not adhere as well as I would like. Again, I don’t seem to have that problem with Tamiya. I’ve been using Tamiya for 50 years.

The jets look decent. I’m holding off de-masking the clear parts until all the touch up work is done.

I finished the session building (or should I say, “attempting to build”) the propellers. Upon first glance it was nice that the blades and hub assembly were separate parts. In retrospect, it is NOT! The pins on the props are too small and the blades fit sloppily and flop around. I’m trying to find the correct glue to put it together. The spinner is two parts, and the back part fell off during all the fussing. I just put it aside until tomorrow before I wrecked it. For 1/72 a fully molded prop would have been just fine.

[Seanmcandrews]

Will you be at the ship model show they’re hosting ?

[Builder2010]

Sadly, I won’t be. I’m going to the ship on Thursday and then leaving for State College, PA on Friday to visit with our son’s family including our two granddaughters.

Today wasn’t such a good day! I spent more time repairing than building. I had to do my metal pin magic to fasten a prop blade that lost the very weak and tiny pin that was supposed to hold it. I had to scratch-build one of the two nose gear doors after one had fallen off the sprue and may have been swept up and thrown out when I cleaned the floor. I was wrestling with the landing gear and not happy how they were going on. I had no idea how you were suppose to glue on the open gear doors. I re-glued the glass dome over the spotlight three times.

And then things really got bad. I had the model basically complete. I measured the distance from a surface to the underside of the tail to make a clear support stick since the model was very tail heavy. It would have taken more than an ounce of weight to bring the nose down, and since I had forgotten to add weight before closing it all up, options were limited. I was about to turn down one end of the plastic stick and somehow (I really don’t know how), I bumped the model and it hit the FLOOR. I blew off the canopy, the spotlight lens (again!), some of the gear doors, and totally wrecked two out of three landing gears. NOT SALVAGABLE! And you know I can recover from almost anything. Not this time. There was a bright spot. I got all the decals on, AND FINALLY got the color background right. I had to reprint the #5 that sits below the canopy and the Rescue arrows were too big.

To replace the broken prop pin, I had to take a slightly different approach. The cross-section of the prop was too narrow to successfully drill it to insert a pin. Instead, I ground a groove in the back face and CA’d the prop to a much larger pin that fit into the large hole in the spinner. It worked.

After touching up the mess, I had two good props. I find it interesting the prop tips are clipped a la those on a turbo-prop.

I also painted the wheels, but alas, they will not be used.

I had to scratch-build one nose gear door. As I note above, I think I swept it up and tossed it. I used .020" and .015. Later I found that the kit’s outer door thickness is .030".

I didn’t take any pictures will the gear and doors in place. I had a terrible time mounting the doors. There really was no viable gluing surface and it was annoying. Edge gluing thin stock is always dubious and this was no exception. I was warned that it would sit on its tail and it sure did.

This was what the model looked like after gravity had its way with it. I dropped models before, but this was the first time that unrecoverable damage ocurred.

I examined the gear to see if I could work any magic, but could not. Closing the gear doors was not so easy either. There is no purchase to keep them from just falling into the wheel well. First I had to glue the two halves together and this involved sraping all the set Gel CA, and removing any paint where the joint would be. Then I needed to reinforce the joint since gluing 0.030" edges together is a recipe for failure. The lip was .060" across so I used a piece of .060" X .060" styrene to beef it up. For some miraculous reason, the props didn’t get damaged. If they got whacked, I would have to either scrap the whole deal or make clear plastic disks with motion lines to simulate rotating props.

I tried fitting the assembled doors into their respective openings. They sort-of fit, but there’s nothing upon which to attach them.

To that end, I added some structure into the wheel wells to keep the doors from simply falling inside. These little struts will serve that purpose, but they may need more structure to provide enough gluing surface. Right now there’s practically none. MiniCraft didn’t do any engineering about how these doors were going to be held, whether open or closed.

I trimmed the supports so they would let the doors sit flush.

Without landing gear the model’s going to need some kind of stand or else be hung from the ceiling. I think Larry’s going to want to be able to see it. I’m going to design and 3D print an acceptable stand worthy of the model. That work is going to take me past tomorrow and therefore, I will not finish the model on time to get it him for this trip. I was pressing too hard and that’s probably why I was having the problems anyway. I wasn’t happy with the landing gear. They were weak and flimsy and would have broken most likely. I’m not just espousing sour grapes. I’ve done so much touch up painting, the plane is starting to look very real.

[Builder2010]

I think I’ve saved the model. I woke up thinking about how to fasten those now-important gear doors since there was no gluing surface. I came up with a crazy scheme to use thin styrene could be bent to lie at the sides of the wheel wells. I used some 0.010" thin sheet and glue it solidly to the gear doors. When it was sent I trimmed them so they would fit into their respective openings. I glued them in with tube cement.

​

This picture was taken with the door flopped over to show the mounting sheets. I ended up removing all those little supports I put in yesterday. The glue was not holding. I don’t know how well this scheme has to work. There’s no load on these parts so they just kind of have to hang there. The natural springiness of the thin sheets holds them in place even without the glue.

I masked off the areas I didn’t want sprayed and airbrushed more Glossy Engine Gray on the newly replaced parts.

When I pulled the tape, it also pulled of the squadron insignia on the str’bd side. No problem! I always make more decals. Ink jet ink is not that expensive. Well… actually it is, but not to do a couple of tiny decals.

I sprayed AllClad Aqua Clear on the topsides and tonight I will do the sam e on the bottom. I also designed the stand. Didn’t take long on SketchUp.

To mount the plane to the stand I drilled a 1/4" hole in the fuse at what I estimated to be the center of gravity. It was touching since I was drilling right on the seam line and it was complaining and ungluing. I did it very slowly and when it was close used a burr on the Dremel until a 1/4" brass rod slipped in. I put the rod in until it bottomed out and marked its length. I cut the brass off with a mini-abrasive cutoff saw, and then chucked it in the Taig lathe to drill a 5/32 hole to accept the mounting pin. I glued the pin in (a piece of 5/32 drill rod) with CA and then glued the entire assembly into the fuselage with epoxy designed for plastics.

The text at the base of the stand reads “Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune” “Squadron No VP-8”.

I got the clear coat done. There are some external antennas and pitot tubes that shoudl go on now, but due to the fragility and having to transport the model, added to the bad luck I’ve been having breaking things on this model, I’m leaving them off. Therefore, the plane is DONE.

This is the carrying rig I’m going to use to transport. The clear coat (hopefully) will help mitigate the paint peeling I’m noting with the Mission Models paint. It’s very perishable.

​

Here’s some finished model shots. I’m going to ship him the stand after it created.

​The mounting pin is very robust.

​

Tomorrow, when the Aqua Clear is fully set, I’m going to add some weathering powder for the prominent exhaust streaking these planes were noted for. According to counsin Larry, they would adjust those R-3350 so the exhaust was just nice light tan meaning they were getting very good fuel burns and efficiency. Ergo, the streaking was tan not soot colored My wife asked if adding the exhaust streaks was going to damage anything. I sure hope not, as long as I don’t drop it.

[Tank_1812]

With Mission Model paint, did you use thier additive when mixing the paint before spraying?

[Builder2010]

I used their prescribed thinner. Was there something else I needed to do? As it is now, I’m not going to use it again because it is so perishable. The slightest touch took off paint. Delivery is Sunday and Larry is very pleased with how it came out. That, I guess, is all that matters.

[Tank_1812]

@Builder2010

Was there something else I needed to do?

There is this additive that can purchased anywhere that sells the paint.

Mission Models - MMA-001 Polyurethane Mix Additive 2oz

A number of club members have had issues with MM paint before adding the additive and no issues after. I have some MM paint but haven’t gotten around to using it, heck I have had no bench time but I plan to use a few drops in each mix.

[phantom_phanatic]

A brilliant build.

Have enjoyed watching the progress. The Hasegawa Neptune has long been one of my Holy Grail kits, not because it’s any good but because it’s the only one! Would be great to see a brand new tooling of this important Cold War warrior (ICM, Airfix, Revell, Hasegawa - if you’re reading do it!). Somewhere I have got a set of decals for an RAF Neptune I would love to build someday.

[Builder2010]

I didn’t know about the polymer additive and that could answer why I was having a problem. If I use it again, I will add it. I used some two-part urethane paint on a big RC B-17E where the additve cross-linked the urethane and made it tough and fuel-proof. Sounds like the same concept.

The model along with the 5"38 project were delivered successfully to all parties. Larry was totally satisfied with his plane. I also learned that his crew got the “Best Crew Award” in 1961. This apparently is a big deal. He was the plane captain and besides handling weapons he also served as flight engineer. I will start working on the stand tomorrow. I pre-ordered the latest Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra 3D printer at the end of the month. This machine, in addition to be having 60% more capacity, has some significantly advanced features. For example: Instead of pulling the forming part directly up off the FEP film at the vat bottom between layers, the vat tilts simultaneously reducing the vacuum forces and peeling the part off. This reduces sticking to the FEP and increase the speed the printer can work. It also has a camera which watches for during-print failures and alerts me, thereby letting me stop the print before wasting more reesin. I’m going to need the added capacity for the next New Jersey project: the #3 engine room.

[Seanmcandrews]

Saw the 5” turret on Saturday, looks great! Also witnessed firing of the real thing as a people’s choice prize from the ship model show.

[Builder2010]

That’s great! Glad you could get to see it. I hope it didn’t disappoint. I was invited to that show, but we were on our way back home on the weekend. Ryan’s going to put a note about the models in an upcoming facebook post. It probably should be displayed on the bookcase with the big gun, but that model is currently screwed in place. The 5" base sticks out a little from the edge, so the bookcase would need to be moved a little more away from the bulkhead if they decide to put it there. Up higher would make it easier to view the magazine (unless you’re a kid).