P-40B Tiger Shark (WIP) - 4/21/15

I was hoping you'd go for the stretched sprue tip. Scribing would have been great.............if you would of had recessed panel lines. She's coming out great  and looks like the paint will have something nice and solid to adhere to there Jeremy. Good to see this one rolling again.

Excellent....

Thanks guys!

bvallot - Yeah I was pretty pleased with that seam too.  I was half afraid I'd get primer on it and all sorts of flaws would show up.

It looks like you did a pretty decent job of fixing that seam on the front fuselage kit part.  =]

Well done.  She looks like she's ready for paint!

To atomicholiday,

Awesome, absolutely awesome!  Your final P-40 will look fantastic.

Toshi

I finally got this bird in primer!  It's only been a little over a month...

It hasn't been sitting idle the whole time though.  Took me a while (and a few tries) to figure out what to do about those panel lines around the cowl.  I ended up using stretched sprue for the lines in hard-to-reach places and scribing the rest.  They all came out better than I expected, but I think they'll continue to improve as I get more practice.

Once that was done, I shot it with Mr. Surfacer 1500 mixed 50/50 with leveling thinner.

Next step: pre-shade the panel lines.  I may start practicing shooting fine lines on scrap tonight .

Hey Atomicholiday.  Just wanted to drop you a little tip.  The raised lines along the cowling of the plane should be removed.  Those panels were screwed into Dzus rails so the panels would be flush and the lines they make would be recessed.  The rest of the plane would have some slightly raised lines.  So everywhere else would be fine.  I hope that keeps you from extra fuss over some of the gnarliest gaps on the kit.

To reference the stretched sprue:  You can definitely get some better results once you get the hang of it.  The only real trouble is a consistent stretch and keeping the same diameter throughout.  If this isn't coming easy enough on the first attempts you could settle for very tiny brass wire.  "Carefully" take a Q-tip and place a drop of CA on one end (leave the other dry) drag it across the length of wire you're measured out and set it in place with a pair of tweezers.  Use the dry end to secure it.  Make sure the wire is tiny... somewhere between 0.10 to 0.05 in.  This way when you prime it, these wires won't stand too tall above the surface. When it's the plastic sprue...you can always lightly sand down these parts some.  One other tip to help "guide" the tiny wire is to cut a tiny thin line into the plastic where it will set.  That's one other trick you could employ.

Just another consideration for you.  Hope that's of some help.  =]

I haven't put to much thought into which plane.  I'm most likely going to use the kit supplied decals though.

Currently I'm starting to rebuild the raised panel lines that I erased while filling the fuselage seams.  I'm experimenting with stretching sprue (thanks Mustang1989!).  Once I get that technique nailed down I'll start applying them.

Had a little accident last night while working on it.  I dropped it and broke a stabilizer off.

I'm getting anxious.  Really want to start painting, but I keep finding things that need done first.

Coming along nicely....I look forward to the camo scheme...Which AVG plane are you building?

Joe

Jeez !! Sorry for not replying to this Jeremy!! Lookin' good bud!!!!!

Sorry I'm taking so long between updates.  I'm only doing a little here & there when I get time.  Also, I don't want to rush thru it and not be happy with my results.  I'm not in any hurry.

Just a small update.  Got the wing-root gaps filled & sanded.  Really didn't go as nearly bad as I had expected.  I'm just about ready for primer now.

That's a great idea!  I'll keep that one in mind for future reference.

That looks great Jeremy! Another trick to use is to put a spacer/ spreader (like a sprue rod) between the fuselage at the bottom where the centerline of the wing is glued into place to spread the fuselage out to the wings. It doesn't apply here but look out for some of the other aircraft models in the line up like the 1/48 Eduard Fw190 series. These have gaps between the wing and fuselage big time and the spreader trick works great in that instance.

Got the dihedral angle of the wings set today.  I used Tamiya extra thin cement and it seems to have filled most of the gaps pretty well.

Also knocked one of the exhausts loose while I was handling it.  That should be fun to fix...

Jeremy what you have looks very good.  The fuse seam from what I can see in the picture is well done.  That can be a stubborn one.  If I may add about the pastels.  I have been told if you use a flat, like Testors Dull Coat, you can shoot on the flat and then do the pastels and they will stick much better.  I do as Stang does and it does work for me.  I plan to try with the Dull coat as well.  With the wing root seam you could do one of several methods to get the gap gone.  If you have rod styrene find one that fills it out and glue it in.  Once the styrene gets soft from the glue use a toothpick and press it in some.  Stretched spru will work just as well.  If you have some tube glue you could make a pretty good filler with that as well.  Bvallot already shared the best way to get the angle of the wings right.  

Look forward to seeing more.

Joe

Heya Jeremy. I never got back to your question yesterday. It usually takes me several layers to get the effect I want with the pastels. The first layer I rub in with the brush with medium pressure to get the surface stained with the pastel and apply subsequent layers lightly and they will "stick" to the initial rubbed in layer and then feather it as you move further to the rear of the aircraft.

Is that Tamiya extra thin cement basically the same as Testors liquid cement?

They certainly can be a PITA, but with some patience they don't always have to be. =]  For mine this go around I needed to trim up the wing root edge of the wings to keep the proper dihedral for the wing.  Didn't have that problem last time.  When you go about glueing them, I would suggest doing it all in one step to limit the mess.  I used Tamiya's Extra Thin Cement which works to essentially fuse the two pieces together.  There are others out there as well.  Tenax is another I've heard others use a lot and I've found a good bit of success with it also.

When using this though...once you've fixed the two pieces together tape/hold them in place for a few minutes to ensure their bond.  Clean up should be easy.

Good luck. =]

Got the wings attached tonight! 

And it looks like I'll be doing more filling and sanding.  Those wing roots look kinda scary.

Thanks for all the tips and supports that all of you have given me!  I really appreciate it.  Gives me the confidence to keep going with this build and not shelve it.  I know if I get stuck I can get answers that make sense and work.

Joe (mustang1989), Beautiful bird!  I tried artists pastel once (actually on the exhaust for this kit).  Is there a trick to applying them?  I sanded the sticks and then used a brush to apply the powder, but it didn't seem like it wanted to stick very well.  I sort of had to scrub it on to get anything to stay on.  The exhaust tips were done in flat paint, so I thought it would stick better.

Joe (fightnjoe), thank!  This was always one of my favorite planes.  And I'm having a blast working on it.

Yesterday I did a little work on filling the seams at the cowl-to-fuselage joint and the nose guns.  That was a bit of a chore, but I think I'm getting it.  The next thing I want to do is airbursh the seams with some primer (mr. surfacer) to see if they still need work.  I'll get some more pics up after I get the seams sprayed.

Beautiful choice.  This is really one of my favorite kits.  My apology for being so late.

As I read I was thinking about the issues I had with the kit.  You have tackled them brilliantly it looks like.  The seam when the fuse halves join can be a bear, the nose piece, the wings, etc.  It looks like all your questions have been answered so far.  

It really is a wonderful kit to build oob and if you go the aftermarket route all the detail can just take it over the top.  

I do have to thank stang for mentioning me although what I know about Hawks only scratches the surface.  

I will be following now and try to be more up to date on my posts.

Again beautiful choice and it looks great so far.  She will be a beauty when finished.

Joe

I was going to post a pic along with this but somehow FSM is acting up. It's alright , I'll post it later. I do what Groot is talking about but I have my own twist. I have painted my last few tires a Luftwaffe color, RLM 74 and then took some black and white pastels and rubbed them over a sheet of medium grit sandpaper. Mix the two together and you have the grey that Groot's talking about. After this I dry brush the powder mixture on the sides of the tires. You can make the mix as light or as dark as you wish and it being pastel, it's really forgiving. Simply wipe off the pastel if you don't like it and apply a different shade. Don't spray any clear coat over it though. The effects will disappear. I'll be back in a bit to post a pic of what I'm trying to illustrate. Here we go after being away from home most of the afternoon. Pastels also do wonders for exhaust stains. I started with a light brown at the exhaust outlet and faded to a medium gray and then to a light application of black for soot.

For tires themselves my personal preference is to paint them black and then drybrush 2-3 shades of grey over the treads hitting the sidewalls just a bit with the darkest shade.  But it all depends on where the aircraft may have been operating and how much I plan to weather as to how much I do to the tires.

If you are referring to the hubs, I generally stick with a wash and maybe a hint of drybrushing with some black.

Groot

Finally making some progress!  Check it out.

Ok, here are a couple shots of the cockpit.

I've already done some work on the fuselage seam.  We'll see how I did once I get some primer on it.

I got the cowl glued on and applied Mr. Surfacer 500 to fill the seam.  Ready for sanding as soon as it dries.

Flaps installed.  At final assembly they will be open. 

And finally, landing gear ready for assembly.  I still need to figure out how I'm gonna weather the tires though.

Hey guys, thanks for all the suggestion!  I wasn't sure if there was a proven method out there and I didn't want to re-invent the wheel (well, prop in this case) if there was.

Think what I'm gonna do is glue a pin into the prop and install it last.  I like the idea of being able to remove it for storage.

I'll get more pics up soon.  I've been kinda bouncing back & forth between this and a few other projects, but I'm starting to make a little progress here.

When I built mine, I glued a small brass tube into the fuselage and then glued a slightly smaller rod into the prop.  Worked like a charm, allows the prop to spin, and allows it to be removed to prevent damage during transit.  Either way good looking build so far and good luck with the rest.

John

Groot's last suggestion is probably going to be the easiest. My Son is building this kit too and that's how we handled it.

If you don't care about the prop spinning, I would just glue the pin in and then add the prop at the end.

If you do want it to spin, I would suggest inserting the pin and putting a box around the head, or just using a flat piece of plastic to keep the pin from backing out.  Then glue the prop on at the end.

Groot

I always paint the prop separately and attach close to the end of the build thatta way I don't break any blades off in the construction of the model. Additionally it's a beeeeyatch to mask around a prop when painting the whole plane. lol