We have our pilots done.  I am overcoming some shoulder issues which is causing my right hand to be numb, so the detail isn't where I want it, but this is proving to be pretty good physical therapy.  Sorry about the low quality photos, all I have is an iPhone. 

Nice.  I will try to incorporate at least some of these changes into our builds.  As far as the fuselage bands go, where can I find which color we should be using?  The Academy kit is the plane flown by Chuck Older, and the Revell kit is the plane flown by Claire Chenault.

DJinFlorida

Yeah, we noticed the lack of paint info.  Luckily, she can just use my paint instructions.  Of course, after we looked at her instructions, she managed to loose them.  We have torn the house upside down looking for the.  Oh well, I think that we will be able to manage without them.

Revell has downloadable versions of their instructions at their website. The paint instructions for their P-40 are wrong for a Flying Tiger's P-40 anyway. The decals are also from 2 different planes and merged together as well. For a correct paint scheme the spinner should be the brown camo color, the camo should be carried under the rear side windows instead of interior green, also where the instructions show the wing rondels should be a brown circle as this was stenciled around for the RAF rondels. The CAF rondels were closer to the wingtip and with the Revell kit the decals for the tops and bottoms should be reversed as the ones for the bottoms are closer to the right size. The largest error with the decals is the fuselage band that should be red, white, or blue, depending on squadron, instead of yellow and the decals for the wheels should be red white and blue instead of red, white, and yellow.

James: Nice work, you're almost there!

DJ: Cool, looking forward to them, I've heard a lot about these kits.

Well, my P-40N is together. Still puttying and sanding the plugs Hasegawa put in for the tail and razorback. Pics when I'm done fiddling with the seams.

Cliff

Yeah, we noticed the lack of paint info.  Luckily, she can just use my paint instructions.  Of course, after we looked at her instructions, she managed to loose them.  We have torn the house upside down looking for the.  Oh well, I think that we will be able to manage without them.

Becareful with the academy i have done that one but have to post the pics it does not come with paint instructions.

If it's not too late, I would like to join.  This would be my first group build.  My daughter is also building a P-40.  Our kits arrived today, a Revell 1/48 P-40B and an Academy 1/72 P-40B.  We will both be doing an OOB Flying Tigers build.

Getting closer, after several disasters this week. Got the painting mostly done, and glued on the parts I broke previously. Added to that was one of the main gear struts that I managed to break in two places. Twice . Now for some final touch ups, decide on if any weathering, flat coat, and canopy. Hopefully in the next couple of days....

That's coming out to be another nice p40 MJames, looking forward to the finished product

Warts and all photo included. Finished major assembly and most painting. I need to touch up my many mistakes to get things to the ready for decal stage. And reattach the radio mast and (1) .303 I have managed to break off so far .

The Model Master paints worked well, except the Dark Earth. After much mixing it was still thin and runny, so Humbrol 29 went on instead. I had complained about the Humbrol US Interior Green before. Found it works better over another paint color. It was very poor on bare plastic. Hopefully later Sunday I can get in all my touch up painting. Got to get some better photos taken, too. 

nice P-40 Law !! Sweet job !

Well, cockpit is done, sealing up the fuselage now - and yes the plug parts for the tail are annoying...

That P-40 looks amazing Joe! I'll add it to the front page ASAP.

  Outstanding P-40, lawdog114.  Ditto the base.  Just beautiful.  Also, I'll add my congrats on being the first to finish.  You have set the bar way high.

Joe: Looks great!!! If I may nitpick you might take some dirt colour pigments and work a little around on the gear, drop tank, and tail.

James: Coming along great!!! I have to concur- the stupid tail plug on the Hasegawa kit is really annoying, I'm sanding on it now.

Congrats to Joe on being first to finish, and an impressive job, too! And yes, the old Matchbox P-40N I looked at a few pages back did have a 'skull' option. 'Miss Frances III' also had a pic in the old 1970s Squadron P-40 in Action title.

I filled my nasty wing root gaps with some 0.3mm Plastruct styrene rod and wrestled it into okay condition. Then moved off to painting Model Master Azure Blue, and Middlestone. Made a hash of that, though. Wasn't paying enough attention and got a sloppy spot, and managed to touch a wet spot and left a nice print :(. So had to let it dry and sand, try again.

This is the result. Sorry for the bad pic; my camera seems to want to focus on everything but the subject! Off to the Dark Earth to finish the camo up....

Amazingly good P-40 and base, Joe. I love the weathering. I might try a few of your techniques, I think.

I think the 'skull' markings might have been featured in the old Matchbox 1/72 kit, which I built eons ago.

I built the Hasegawa P-40E in desert markings a awhile back, I concur with your findings, I think they tried to squeeze to many variants out of one set of molds. Whilst its inconvenient, at least they're available I suppose.

Red Baron - I'll sign up with a TBD. I've got another Hasegawa 1/48 in the stash, but I'm thinking 1/72 at the moment.

Cheers

Tony

First of all, Redraider, I'm terribly sorry to see what happened to your home.  I'm glad you and your family are ok. 

Well, I think I'm finished with my P-40N, which I wrapped up last night.  I built it in the markings of the 80th FG 89th FS, also known as the "Burma Banshees".  They were assigned to protect "the hump" supply operations over the high Himalayas from Japanese fighter attacks.  The 80FG is one of the lesser known units and didn't spawn many aces that I am aware of, but needless to say, they were just as important as the others.  Besides, the skulls are bad .  To recap, the Hasegawa kit was nicely detailed but challenging with all the inserts and plugs.  Its certainly not their best engineered kit by any means, but obviously not unbuildable either.  I built it pretty much out of the box except for the decals and the seat belts.  Heres the finished product and thanks for looking.

Joe

Matt: Gee that looks horrible! Glad to see no one was hurt but what a mess!

Lawdog: Love it!!! The skull did come out great and a nice change from a shark mouth. If I saw something like that coming at me I think I'd surrender right then and there!

*duplicate*

Sorry I havn't had any updates recently.  We had a little accident here a week and half ago in which our  35x45 ft shed decided to relocate during a storm and my mind was taken off modeling.  A funnel cloud picked it up out of the ground and cartwheeled it 30 yards into our front yard.  We lost 3 cars that were parked in the driveway, yet nothing inside the shed was even scratched.  Thankfully it only clipped a small portion of the house.  We were the only ones in the area with any damage so the news crews were out all day and more people than usual drove by just to look.

Insurance took care of the cleanup and everything, but it still took us a bit to get over the initial shock because we were all still sleeping when it happened.

So now that I'm "back in the mood" I should have some pics sometime this week.  I got the wings on and am working on rescribing the fuselage.  The right wing root had a perfect fit but the left one had a sizable gap that I'm working on now, too.

Hello all, its been a while since a post.  I've been busy with other family/summer time things.  Over the last few nights, I did manage to make some progress on my P-40.  I did get her decaled and the panel lines washed.  I used Sky Decals and they went on beautifully.  I must say, I've used several of these for various projects over the years and I have never had a problem.  I anticipated a problem with the skulls, but they snuggled right down under Micro Sol.  Since I can never get the wash to stay in panel lines that pass through decals, like the skull or insignias, theres a little trick I have discovered.   I use a VERY sharp #2 pencil and draw these in.  This also helps push the decal deep into the line, so you can go back with a wash on top of the pencil if so desired.  I find the graphite color is fine and works for me.   The lines were washed with Windsor Newton acrylics in the Payne's Grey range and a dullcoat of Testors to seal it all.  I just have to finish the final assembly and it should be finished soon.  Heres were I'm at.

Hans von Hammer

 

Stretched-sprue's free.. Plus you can make it thinner than Plastruct or Evergreen rod.. IIRC, Plastruct is ABS, not polystyyrene, so you may have a hard time melting it, unless you're using Weld-On or straight MEK or something equally hot.. Be careful with it on the wings..  You might lose some of it, lol.

Thanks for the tip...don't know for how long, but several years Plastruct has offered regular styrene. One of my somehow still open local shops has the "Styrene Super Center' pictured on their homepage http://www.plastruct.com/

If anyone should need a cement for ABS plastic, Tamiya Extra Thin works also....but not the regular Tamiya Cement.

I have several bags of Plastruct styrene rod of different sizes; probably lay an appropriate size one in the gap, melt it in, and go from there.

Stretched-sprue's free.. Plus you can make it thinner than Plastruct or Evergreen rod.. IIRC, Plastruct is ABS, not polystyyrene, so you may have a hard time melting it, unless you're using Weld-On or straight MEK or something equally hot.. Be careful with it on the wings..  You might lose some of it, lol.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the advice. I had considered the 'spreader bar' approach, but the opening is pretty small and the Airfix plastic is pretty thick and rigid. I have several bags of Plastruct styrene rod of different sizes; probably lay an appropriate size one in the gap, melt it in, and go from there.

Depending on mood and how lazy I am feeling, I have used Squadron green/white putties, Mr. Surfacer, and super glue as fillers. Squadron works okay when fresh, but tends to flake away if you have to scribe a line over a putty filled area. Super glue works better in that situation, but you don't have long before it becomes rock hard. I've found Mr. Surfacer good for small blemishes and such, but it 'sinks' a lot for general filling. Good though for reducing the size of panel lines, like on the Airfix P-40. There is no step where the lower intakes join the fuselage piece. It is right on a panel line, and Mr. Surfacer was perfect for blending in the slightly 'off' fit that left a little too big gap.

I've got a few days to think it over. It is the week for an infusion I have to have every 4 weeks, for 4 days. That and trying to get to work will keep things busy until next weekend. Hope everyone else is making good progress!

Well, my two cents would be to fill the larger gaps with sheet plastic and/or sprue as has been suggested. Then if you have any Mister Surfacer you can lay it over the remaining gap, wait about ten minutes or so and then rub a cotton swab moistened with lacquer thinner over it and it will remove the excess Mister Surfacer without affecting any of the surrounding detail- no muss, no fuss.

Yep, the ring 'n bead.  Thanks for the suggestions!  Think I'll try the q-tip deal, and/or the replacing of the molded hairs with my own ... were they grey?

Lol.. Call it "Steel-colored", lol..

Anyway..

This's the flip-down sight on the aircraft .50 cal flex-mount... 

But, here's the P-40E ring-sight, which is probably not much different than the B/C's..

Hans von Hammer

You talking about "Ring and Bead" open sights?  If so, I'lll be honest and tell ya that I ripped off the .50-cal ring-sights from the ProModeler B-24D and B-17G kits, since the diorams for both of those are of aircraft that have had the guns removed (One of a crash-site recovery team getting the gear down on bellied-in Fort, the other is a B-24 Assembly-Ship dio)...

However, all is not lost if you find some styrene or metal tubing, or my personal fav, Q-tip tubing (also the esaiest to slice).. You just "salami-slice" piece of the tube off, then creat the cross-hairs with your own hair.. A dad of paint, lay the hairs across the ring and then, when dry, trim the hair off the outside.. You can also use finely-stretched sprue for the toss-hairs...

OR: Get the molded-on cross-hairs offa the kit-sight, and add the scaled down cross-hairs to it..

Yep, the ring 'n bead.  Thanks for the suggestions!  Think I'll try the q-tip deal, and/or the replacing of the molded hairs with my own ... were they grey? (LOL).

DoogsATX

MJames70:

 Still haven't decided how to tackle the poor wing root fit yet, though. 

 

You could try using some styrene rod as a spreader inside the fuselage. Seems to be the most elegant solution for the Hasegawa kits, and I imagine it'd work the same here...

If the wings are at a dihedral you're happy with, it looks like a job for some stretched sprue filler & liquid cement, followed-up with some wet-sanding..

MJames70

 Still haven't decided how to tackle the poor wing root fit yet, though. 

You could try using some styrene rod as a spreader inside the fuselage. Seems to be the most elegant solution for the Hasegawa kits, and I imagine it'd work the same here...