Revell/Monogram 1:48 P-40B Flying Tiger AVG (Complete)

it is very impressive.  stunning work all the way through.  

joe

Here's a quick update.

All this is beginning to come together.  Just a few more additions and I'll be able to move much quicker through the rest of this.  At least I'm hoping... =]   So far I haven't run into any real issues with the fit of this kit aside from how I'm editing and detailing parts.

Here is a view of the scoops fitted to the front of the engine cowl that the kit offers.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

This is what I settled for in order to maintain the shapes I was looking for on the scoops as well as to keep them matching up with the radiators.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here it is with all the bell and whistles.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here's something I'll have to patch up once this epoxy finishes setting.  This gap is do to the radiator assembly being just a bit to big for kit piece.  Everything is pretty much right on the money to scale but somehow it happened anyhow. Since I've cut the panels out to reveal the engine, I have to leave this gap here in order to preserve the shape of the panels that I've cut.  It was a very snug fit before, but after the addition of the scoops they just stopped fitting.  =/ 

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

One of the last things I'll do is to place the shroud over the exhausts on here to help support this piece.  It's broken once on the back end of it.  The shroud ought to help stiffen it.  Since I'm adding this, I'll leave off the upper and lower Dzus rails right here and just place the very upper and lower to tie everything together.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Any comments at all right here would be certainly appreciated.  I have a fair sense of where I'm going with this here, but I'm definitely in uncharted territory.  =]

Thanks.

FINALLY!

Salvation.  I've finally moved on to this thing called "building the rest of the aircraft."  I first fixed up the gap underneath, sanded and smoothed that shape back.  I played with trying to insert the rear venting duct that fits behind the radiator but there's just not enough room to safely place it in there.  And since I'm trying to reveal the interior, I guess I don't mind leaving that part out.  I admit I would have liked to have included it.

Here's where I'm at.  Fixed the gap/seam.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Backing up a bit, before I fixed the wings to the fuselage I tried fitting everything put together so far and found a tiny space between the undersurface of the flaps.  I came up with this as a solution.  I made a paper mask to make my cuts and applied them to the brass sheet.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Next, before I closed up the rest of the fuselage and tail, I had decided (a while back) that I would fix the tab that would hold the radio aerial line.  I sanded a small strip of plasticard thin and cut it to shape and placed a very small hole for the spring to fit.  I gave it some space so that it would not become weak near the edge and break.  For the spring, I took the smallest piece of brass wire I have and coiled it around the second smallest brass rod and kept it tight so that I could have a tougher spring than the pulled sprue I came up with for the Corsair.  I think this is going to work out a lot better.  It's a lot stronger too. =]

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here's the wings placed up.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

This is where I'm at for now.  It'll have to wait until Monday before I can do anything more. Then it'll be a mad dash for the finish line!! =D

I love watching these big builds. They give me so many great ideas and the bravery needed to explore techniques that are more advanced. Thanks for the motivation.

Where's the exhaust manifolds?

Brandon, thanks!  I feel like I'm in the same shoes with all the impressive builds I see on here.  Each one makes me want to try more.  

B-17Guy, I'm sorry I should've mention it before.  I'm replacing the kit exhausts with a pair of Ultracast resin exhausts.  But either way, since I'm placing it onto the engine I needed to shim the exhausts so that they stick out the exhaust opening properly.  It seems that somewhere along the way either the engine block or the distance between the insides of the cowling of the fuselage is a little off 1:48. More likely the engine.  But still, it's no biggie.  I've included the shroud around the exhausts on the left side to help support the kit parts in between the panels.  So to save a little bit of fussing later, I've left exhausts off for now so I'm not having to mask them later.  Once the painting is complete, I'll pop those bad boys on there. =]

Looking great BV.  As I mentioned elsewhere, I am very appreciative of the effort it takes to maintain an informative build thread.  Kudos to you.

Thanks Blue.  You're right about that.  Some times it does take a bit to keep up with.

I've put some more work in.  Everything is virtually together save for the ailerons.  I am having a bit of trouble with some seams.  I wouldn't say it's really any fault of the kit.  Everything test fitted just fine.  This is more to do with all the modifications I've been making.  I am trying not to ruin any existing surface detail, but that may be inevitable.

Here's where I'm at:

Went to town with the Milliput.  Reshaped the gun ports to even them out and to keep a truer profile.  Reshaped the intake on top since there was a bit of step from the kit part.  Made that to be a more accurate shape.  I sanded and smoothed all this down and I have to say how pleased I am to be able to fix things like this now.  I used to think from only a "continue to cut and sand" vs. "adding something more" to the surface.  Not anymore!! =]  Anyone out there that doesn't already know...you should really check this stuff out.  It was just what I needed to sculpt the top part of the cowl on fuselage.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here's that seam that is mostly cooperating:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

For the landing gear, I notice by further reviewing the walkaround book (I got on P-40Bs from my LHS) that the nubs that are included on the kit parts are crudely representing the joint here.  I meant to snap a quick picture before I cut the other one, but here is a picture of what it is and the hole I drilled out to better capture this.  There will be a small pin with an eyelet for lack of a better term for this piece of engineering. 

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here's a shot with a coat of primer to identify any troubleshooting...there is some.  So I'll be back with that. =]

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

More to come.

BV, I have a question about the pitot tube in this kit.  Does it come it with just the British Tomahawk  "cranked" style or with the US AC/AAF P-40B/C "straight arrow" style?  

richs, they definitely have the British pitot style tube here.  The only thing is...this is one of the parts that makes this kit show it's age.  It is a little "fat" and crudely fashioned.  And flimsy!  I'm not even using it in fact.  I'm going to show it later on how I'm making one out of some Albion tube and brass rod.  =]

Man, you're getting me stoked to start my P-40. It's funny that you primed your P-40 to look for flaws and I  primed my P-51 today for the same reason. But, you have way more work in yours than I have in mine. Can't wait to see this thing all done. It's gonna be awesome!!  

Stunning my friend.  Looks like your almost ready for paint.

Joe

Looking good.  I guess it'll be a race to the finish line.  I'll start shading tomorrow most likely.  Yours look much more impressive, however.  Raymond

Just spent the last 1/2 hour catching up on this incredible build and must say its the best 1/2 hour I've spent on this site in a long time! Stunning work going on here, looking forward to the next update!

Wow.  Trey that actually comes as a huge comfort to hear as I've practically wasted the first part of the day screwing around with the little SOB magnets.  They are the absolute GD bane of my existence right now.  They are perfect for what I what in way of ease to remove the panels, but firmly keeping them on otherwise.  But these little bastards are so close together in the most forward part of the prop reduction box that they keep coming off.  They are so strongly attracted to each other that I can't keep them on there.  It is really beginning to keep me from doing anything else with this build.  And it's REALLY killing my calm.

So now I'm breaking a heavy duty two-part epoxy.  One way or the other...

Anyhow for now I'll drop this picture of the preshading to show where I'm going with this thing.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

This is a concept I'm been trying to improve over the last two builds (excluding the NMF) where I'm varying the wear over the surface of the wing and fuselage.  I've seen Flyinhigh do this to some extent as well dflu78.  I really like the outcome and hope to have some luck with it myself.  Instead of marking every panel line uniformly, I'm allowing for some variety in the darker spaces along joints as well as filling in spaces in between to help with weathering down the road.  Fingers crossed.  I definitely don't need anymore headaches with this one.

Okay! Here's a quick update with more to come later tonight hopefully.

I'm finally able to get these wheels turning over and get moving.  =]  I started painting this Hawk and now it's starting to come to life.  I'll try to be brief here.  Began painting the skidwalk on the wings.  There seems to be some talk as to whether or not these were present, but in many of the photos I referenced these skidwalks were painted over in the camo scheme of Earth and Green colors and worn away somewhat with use and became visible.  So I've included them here with the intent of painting over them and using MiG's product Absolute Chipping to subtly reveal them.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Normally I would wear these a bit more to show the aluminum surface underneath, but that doesn't seem to be the case with them painted over in DuPont colors.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

For the undersurfaces, I'm trying something different.  It seems that due to a lack of communication between US manufacturers and British reps at the time, the color Sky has a shady history.  There are two colors describing a light blueish-grey, but it seems this color may have changed with more colors coming into the palette for the British which required a wider degree of separation.  I have my sources that I've been referencing for this build, but I would certainly love to hear from anybody on the forum that knows a bit of the history behind this story, but for now I'll just get to the point.

Since there is no true FS match for DuPont 71-021, I have come up with a mix of my own.  There are several P-40s showing undersurfaces painted with the -021 and later retouched with a Neutral Grey.  So with the help of MiG's Absolute Chipping I'll be painting the bluer color down first and following up with a slightly warmer grey.  =]  With the help of a phone app (thanks to dflu78) I've put together a mix that approximates FS 36463 which is a bluer mix of -021. I use Tamiya acrylics for everything that isn't metal. =]  For this color I chose Sky Grey [XF-19] and RLM Grey [XF-22] in a 2:1 ratio respectively.  Now...what I actually ended up doing since I'm too impatient to wait 24 hours and get more paint at the LHS...I instead mixed Sky Grey [XF-19], Dark Grey [XF-24], and Flat White [XF-2] in a 2:1:1 ratio respectively.  The actual color came out a little greyer than I wanted, but I think it would've been fine.  I did end up adding Light Blue [XF-23] at about 50% of what the mix was to give it a bluer color.  Even though I haven't personally put together the first mix, I do believe it would be an easier way to get this color. This is where I'm at now:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I'll cover this with the Chipping solution and allow to dry and come back over it with the next color which I'll outline later as I need to stop now seeing as I got a little long winded.  =]

Here's another quickie.

So the MiG Chipping hasn't quite worked out like I thought it would.  I went back through a few tutorials to see if it was something in my application that I did wrong and found that wasn't the case.  Then, I searched around to see how well it works with Tamiya paints.  I didn't turn up much, but it does seem that there are others out there with the same problems.  I never got results as easy as they make it look in the video.  The Tamiya paint seems too tough to want to give and break from itself.  Now granted, there wasn't a lot of separation in color or value from the light blue to the light grey so it was difficult to even see what I was expecting.  The effect came out looking more like a wash than the chipping I was hoping for.  In any case, I went back over some of the preshading I intended to keep with a very thinned darker light grey (added a bit of Nato Black and Hull Red), and hit it again with the light blue color and kept it thin.  Followed back up with the light grey paint I mixed and very lightly dry brushed the light blue I was looking for in places to show the wear.  I varied the blue by mixing Light Blue and Flat White in two dabs and pulled what I needed.  I do this with a lot of my brush painting as it helps to keep things from being too uniform.  There will be some done to the undersurface here later on, but for now I'll be moving onto the upper surfaces.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

This picture doesn't quite do it justice.  I'll have better ones later.  I have gotten back to the color I was looking for originally.  Of course it had to be the hard way...this Hawk hasn't been making anything easy lately.

If anybody has had some experience with the Absolute Chipping, I would more than love to hear about it.

=]

Very nice.  I guess I'll pass on the MIG chipping fluids.  

Joe

I'm gonna try to get the upper surface painted tonight.  Earlier, I did take a moment to test out the Chipping solution again to see if a greater degree of contrast in the colors might allow me to see what's happening a little better.  With a brush, I dropped some NATO Black over a section of Alclad Aluminum (such as I already have on the wing root of my Hawk).  This is a test piece from a Phantom that I scraped to do tests such as this.  Came back over the black with some Hull Red and let that dry before applying the Chipping solution.  When I started working the surface I did notice the solution working as I had expected however, it did begin to remove the black underneath as well.  So, I'm wondering if because the paint was a little thicker (due to the brush) that it allowed the paint to grab better to the solution.  I think I might try testing a Flat coat over the black to protect it so I don't lose any of it.  That's that for now.

I did manage to get the lights on before I painted this time! =] Hoping to minimize all the mess I seem to create late in the game.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I took a match to a small clipping of clear sprue and stretched it.  Selected the diameter I wanted for the nav lights on the fuselage, CAed them in, and sanded them down some to clean it up.  Cut and shaped the lights for the tail and dropped those on.  Easy.  So happy I recognized that beforehand this time around. =D

More to come later tonight.  (fingers crossed)

Last update for the night.  I managed to get the upper surface painted. =D (que Rocky Theme) =]  

So I'll start off with the color. In an effort to tackle the color scheme, I'd been digging deep to find something true and accurate to what was used for the AVG.  

Curtiss Brown - DuPont 71-009:  The closest FS equivalent is said to be FS 30219, and sometimes called Sandy Earth, but from what I've found...Curtiss actually used two colors in their RAF P-40s: DuPont 71-009 for Temperate Land Scheme and 71-065 for Desert Scheme. DuPont 71-009 is known to fade quickly, becoming a lighter color and chalky when weathered. DuPont 71-065 is close to FS 30118 and apparently had more stable pigments and was closer to the RAF color. The 71-065 was used only on later P-40Es, and it's been mentioned that this paint could be a second attempt by DuPont to match RAF Dark Earth more accurately. 

Here is also a great chance to show everyone what I mentioned in an earlier post. The phone app I've used to premix these colors is called "iModelKit."  I first learned of it from dfllu78.  It has loads of color samples from any and everything you'll ever happen to need. Plenty of features that also allows you to mix a color to match what you need from a certain collection of paints.  Normally I don't really require the aid of something like this, but for this project it's probably saved me some money by not having to throw out mixed paint that won't suit my needs. =] 

I've started with a slightly yellower version of FS 30219.  That's gone down first.  I may use something simliar to the 3 color practice that I've seen lawdog outline before.  I meant to make use of some filters but seeing as I haven't made time to purchase them, I'll just being doing it all with paint.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here is a screen shot of the app I used.  It also shows the colors I used and the ratio they're mixed to.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

=]

Very cool.  Where did you get that telly app? Does Droid offer it?

Joe

Joe, I just looked it up on my phone's app service.  It seems this particular company is only iPhone friendly for now.  I'm sure you could find it's equivalent out there though.  It was just a couple of dollars, but it's money well spent.  Basically costs one jar of Tamiya paint. =]  I'll continue to post my mixing ratios for anyone out there who happens to wants to try or modify what I've done here.

But put out a search.  I'm sure there's something out there. =]

The color certainly looks good!

Thanks GAF.  It's taken a lot to get to this part.  =]

Well, I've finally gotten to put some green down on this Hawk.  I'm less than a month out from my wedding so getting to the bench to put some time in has been difficult to say the least.  So without delay... 

I went to work on masking off the upper surfaces to paint the Curtiss Green.  Boyington's Hawk was said to have a slightly different camo scheme along the left cockpit area of the fuselage and along the left vertical stabilizer.  I found some sources online showing this as well as the decal instructions from EagleCals supported this also.  I drew out the masks by hand onto regular printer paper and cut them out with a number 11 exacto blade.  I left tabs for the wings so that I could better attach them.  It seemed to work out pretty well.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Some of this felt a little too sharp. So I rounded off some of the edges where I thought appropriate from other photos of the Flying Tigers.  After it was all said and done...this is what I ended up with:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

As for Curtiss Green (DuPont 71-013): it's generally agreed that FS 34092 is a good match.  FS 34079 is close as well for this medium green color.  With the fading that occurred from weathering and fuel spilt on the planes, it seems that this color ashed up on the AVG Hawks too.  I've elected to start with this mix for Curtiss Green:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I will come back over this with some darker green and weather over that with a layer diluted with some Flat White and Buff.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Next up, I'll put a couple layers of weathering down by painting with something similar to three layer paint method.  Then, she'll get a coat of Alclad's Klear to get her ready for some decals and more weathering.  =]

Thoughts and comments are always welcomed.  =]

Sweet Bv!! Love where you're going with this!!

Steve

Thanks Steve.  I'm beginning to feel more and more like I'm back in my own territory. =]  

I got a little more time in tonight and managed to take care of some weathering with the airbrush.  I started with mixing a little NATO Brown and NATO Black together.  This was made to be very diluted.  It didn't quite have what I was looking for so I added about the same amount of Hull Red to it.  I put this down first from front to back over the wings the same as you'd paint condensation marks.  I took this one out of Lawdog's playbook.  I really like how it turned out.  I didn't add too much here just yet.  I was very pleased with the darker tinge that this color was putting down so I took advantage of trying it out over the Curtiss Green to put more character into it.  It was giving me just what I was looking to end up with down the road a ways so I took advantage of applying it now while I had it up and ready.  I lightly touched up some of the more typically weathered surfaces with this color.

Once I was done with this, I pulled out some Buff and diluted it quite a bit too.  I very lightly added some condensation lines over the wing surfaces and also hit a couple of areas that were highly weathered in photos as well.  This color helps add the chalky, ashy look that the early DuPont paints were known to do.  It was working out pretty well, so again I opted to take care of it some now so that I don't overdo something later.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

The next thing I moved on to was weathering the walkway along the wings.  I tried out MiG's Chipping solution again with some improvement.  This time I put a coat of Alclad's Flat over the NATO Black painted skid walks in an effort to seal it.  This did help some it seems.  After working it some, I did manage to lift some of the paint but these Tamiya paints just don't look like they want to play with the solution MiG's come up with.  On the left side, I did end up having to put a couple of light washes of Tamiya's Flat Aluminum (where I tore up the Alclad underneath some) and a little NATO Black to suggest the skid walk where I wanted it to show and some more Curtiss Brown back to cover what I didn't want to show.  In the future, I'll likely continue to find a better way to do this but so far I'm pleased with the outcome.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here you can see the formation light painted in and the fuel/oil caps painted as well.  For the caps, I didn't want anything too brand new.  I never like painting a warplane with pretty, clean colors so I used Flat Red with Hull Red to dirty this color up a bit.  The other cap has been shown pretty exclusively to be yellow, but in actual photos of the Flying Tigers it seems to be worn completely off to a metallic color.  So I opted for a Dark Grey to start with, Metallic Grey to add a bit of shine, a little Yellow-Green on top of this, and finally a little more Dark Grey to knock it back down to something I liked.  This is all down with a fine brush, very thinned out and these colors are allowed to blend on the cap somewhat.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

And here's one more of the walkways together. =]

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

That's it for tonight.  Thursday or Friday I'll be able to put a clear coat on it and start with some decals.

Nice!

Mike

Very well done BV.  Good idea with the masks.  Thats some of the best wing root chipping I've seen.  Whats that paint app on your telly called?

Joe

Thanks Joe. =]  It's still a working progress.  I doubt I'll ever stop trying to improve something like that. The app is called iModelKit.  I got the full version.  I think it cost about $3.  Totally worth it though.  It does a lot and it's loaded with color swabs from damn near anything you could want to reference.

This plane's starting to come to life for me.  I'll be skipping ahead past some of the boring parts that don't amount to much visually.   I've got a clear coat down.  Alclad's Aqua Gloss goes down real well.  I doubt I'll ever use anything else.  And it doesn't change my colors much at all after a coat or two.  I used EagleCals AVG Flying Tigers decal set that included Greg Boyington.  I did his Corsair about a year ago and I'm in the process of repainting some of the insignia currently.  So I had considered getting to his P-40 one day when I decided to do one...and this is it. =]  The decal set is great.  Plenty of options, crisp in-register decals, and the film is tight around the print.  They took a little bit of playing with to get them to set over the raised detail of the Revell kit's rivets and raised panel lines, but after a nice bath of SolvaSet and they settled down real nice. 

Here's a few close ups of how that went:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

I love this smile. 

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

With the clear coat down, I wanted to tackle the panel lines next.  Now in the past I've often gotten carried away with picking out the panel lines.  There's the never ending debate of how much is too much and so on...so here...I wanted to show more discretion and only very lightly define these lines where they were shown to be from photos of the AVG in the Pacific.  I picked them out with some Burnt Sienna oil paint I have and thinned it down considerably.  When I was happy with the results, I broke out my Alclad Klear Flat to put a coat to seal all this.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here's a better top view:

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Here's the undersurface.  I very lightly picked out some lines with Tamiya's Dark Grey actually.  Never did it like this before.  I was too impatient to wait to drop by Hobby Lobby and pick up a little extra variety of oil paint to use for something just like this and opted for an acrylic wash.  It actually worked just fine.  I will say, be careful not to rub through your clear coat with an alcohol thinner like I started to do.  If you put enough of it on there, it will start to eat through your finish.

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

One thing I thought was nice was that EagleCals included the "Prestone" decal that went over the coolant expansion tank on the top of the cowling of the fuselage.  I was just about to start painting in on when I reviewed the decal sheet once more and caught it! =]  It's the little things, right!? =]

image by brittvallot, on Flickr

Next up, I'll have a few more quick layers of paint to bring out a more weathered and beaten up look that so many of these Hawks had.  I'll seal that and move on to dotting the i's and crossing the t's.  =]

Wow Britt!  She's really coming to life.  I don't know... I may have to revisit this in a year or so, once I feel a little more confident and gained a little more experience :)