Building And Detailing The Trumpeter 1/32 Scale P-38 Lightning Book Review

By David L. Veres

In his fourth "Scale Model Aircraft Manual", Mike Ashey competently courses, step-by-step, through Building And Detailing The Trumpeter 1/32 Scale P-38 Lightning.

The picture-packed, privately printed, 48-page guide sports 261 sequentially arranged photos plainly charting the whole process.

Ashey backdates Trumpeter's P-38 L-5-LO to a P-38J. And clear, easy-to-follow commentary accompanies each step.

Planning. Parts preparation. Subassemblies. Detailing. Upgrades. Corrections. Assembly. Masking. Painting. Decaling. And more.

Valuable tips, too.

Ashey illustrates, for instance, how to reinforce Trumpeter's thin wing, fuselage, cowling, and boom parts to prevent flexing and cracking. And he shows optimal methods of adding weights to balance the model on its tricycle landing gear.

He helpfully lists all tools, supplies, paints, replacement parts, and references used for the project.

And best of all, Ashey's techniques are applicable to other aircraft modeling projects.

The manual comes printed on heavy stock paper – pre-punched for storage in a customer-supplied 3-ring binder. And front and back cardstock protects contents.

For less than the price of many aftermarket decal sheets, Mike Ashey provides a systematic guide to improving assembly – and avoiding pitfalls – of an expensive, complicated kit. It's well worth the modest price of admission.

Recommended!

My sincere thanks to Mike Ashey Publishing for this review copy!