Dried pretty perfectly to the panel lines. Will dust off and paint soon.
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Topside great, bottom not so much. It’s still the damn decal film which I never peeled off but couldn’t get a single successful peel when I first started using them.
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Lots of touch ups needed, but not awful. So mad about the decal film. Is there a preferred way to make these not too visible? Feathered sanding to try to get it to blend in when repainting?
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Looks great. Your attention to detail is paying off.
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Thanks! Had to stop micromanaging the slight paint errors as I was worried more paint would peel the more I taped and re taped. I think it is at a level where the mistakes would only be noticeable by me lol.
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That’s the goal! I think every model has some imperfection…just gotta make sure it’s one only the builder will notice.
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Gloss coat was coming along until the Mr hobby clear plopped right out of the cup! Thank god the damage is minimal but I’m pretty bummed. Will probably strip and repaint the tail piece and try my hand at riveting. Obviously the lesson is use the cap. Attempted to cover with SM-201 but not great.
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After a night of settling it looks a little better. Salvageable but still mad.
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Looking good Steve - I’m glad you are liking it as you have put a lot of effort into it.
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Things are “unraveling”. I use the term lightly as after some of the initial swearing, I’m grateful that most mistakes on the model have been fixable and irreparable things have come so late in the build that there is very little “compounding” of the mistakes. Initially I thought this would be my near perfect model; it’s not, but it’s still one of the best I’ve ever done for me. And that is actually the goal, improvement.
Issues that have come up since decaling started:
- Putting the landing gear on and gluing struts resulted in a cementy fingerprint on the bottom of the main fuselage. No rivets there so lightly sanded and repainted and recovered.
- dropped front wheel assembly and hub went flying away never to be seen again. Without a doubt the largest part I’ve ever had go missing to never find again. I’ve found pinhead size pieces before. Used kit part to cut off tire and replaced hub.
- When putting bottom insignia decal on, couldn’t place it without interfering with underwing lamp. Realized only now underside lamp was placed on wrong side. Destroyed decal in process. Ended up using incorrect color decal on wrong side. Don’t look on the underside lol.
One more night of decals and good to seal it all in.
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Steve, the P-38 is looking great to me.
I think you make an excellent point so much of sucessful model building is perseverance. Probably the most important lesson one can learn model building because perseverance scales up in real life.
A+++
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FunnyI I often drop and never find again… but these days I found the main instruments of a S-2! Mind you, I lost it last summer out in the garden. Couldn’t believe it!
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Best argument I’ve heard for scratch building skills today is if a part tweezer launches you just make another instead of spending an hour on hands and knees looking for the PE fiddle bit. 
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