Eduard Bell P39N Airacobra

Started by John vd Biggelaar · 88 ≡ · ↻ 2 years ago
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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 5 months ago:

    For this great group build started by Michael Paquette, @smrjpaqu899, I want to attend with Eduard kit 8064.

    A Bell P39 Airacobra and want to build it with French markings.

    The kit is from 2000 and the boxart shows a Russian Airacobra.

    The kit consists of three green sprues, including a pilot as well.

    A tranparent sprue, masks and a pretty heavy weight to keep the nose wheel down are included as well.

    Ofcourse the building instructions are there, seperate instructions for applying the masks and decals, and a sheet of decals including options for a Russian, US and French variant.

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    Bob Torres said 2 years, 5 months ago:

    Nice choice for this build John @johnb.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 years, 5 months ago:

    Great choice indeed, my friend @johnb!
    Will look awesome in French markings!
    I have the same kit, most probably the exact version, so I am curious to see how it builds. One thing for sure: an excellent model will be produced by your skills.
    Looking forward to it!

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    Michael Paquette said 2 years, 5 months ago:

    Great choice. The Red Air Force really used the Airacobras to their fullest potential.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    @v1pro, @fiveten, @smrjpaqu899, thanks a lot.

    My appologies for keeping you all waiting on the progress of this Airacobra. Today I finally got this build going, although a small step. I prepared some parts of the interior, removing from the sprues and cleaning them a bit. Parts look nice, no flash at all.

    I will be building the aircraft from Lt. de Villars of the French Air Force in the Autumn of 1944.

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    Pedro L. Rocha said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    What a pleasant surprise John, looking forward to see how this one turns out

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    Great that you catch up with the Airacobra, my friend @johnb!
    Looking forward to it!

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    Tom Cleaver said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    This is a good choice. The one thing that has to be done with the Eduard P-39 is to sand down the wing trailing edge from inside the parts before assembly, to thin the trailing edge. It's the one Big Boo-Boo in the kit, the too-thick trailing edge. Do that, and the model comes out perfect just sticking things together correctly on everything else.

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    Tom Bebout said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    Don't bother with the masks Spiros, they're pretty worthless. They don't work on a curved surface and leave glue residue on the canopy. Use Tamiya tape instead.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    @holzhamer, thanks Pedro, so do I.

    @fiveten, thanks Spiros, fixed wings are still my preference

    @tcinla, thanks for the warning Tom, will definitely do that.

    @tom-bebout, thanks Tom, the masks do indeed look kind of 'weird'. Will switch to Tamiya tape.

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    John Healy said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    Great choice, John. Free French Mediterranean subjects are always interesting.

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    Eric Berg said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    @johnB - this kit announced Eduard's entry into the big leagues in my opinion. Good choice. Tom's correct about the leading edge on the wings. The car doors will need a tiny bit of tweaking as well. Other than that (maybe some aftermarket wheels?), it's a fun build OOB and light years ahead of the old Revell/Monogram Airacobra. I did mine using the kit supplied Russian markings. And no, the front nose landing gear has not sagged due to the nose weight and it's been ten years now.

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    capt. R said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    Very interesting theme! I will be watching your build! 🙂

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    @j-healy, thank you John. They really are. Never build something in French before.
    @eb801, thanks Eric. I will keep an eye on the fitting of the cardoors.
    @lis, thank you Lis.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 4 months ago:

    Interior preperation started

    A slow start has been made on the interior. This time I wanted to give the shading effect a bit more visibility by doing some pre-shading. After applying the interior color the results of this are as seen from the pictures. Still some improvements to be gained but some shading is visible. As you can see, I also started with the scratch build seatbelts, made from masking tape.


    In the end the plane that I will be creating is as follows

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