Old Ordie

Thanks, I'll ask him.  I was hoping for a fret full of optical sights, I guess, like you can get a fret full of seatbelts.  Not high hope, but hope ...  though, now that you mention it, I don't know what I'd do with the extras, LOL.  If I have to live with the kit sight, I can ... I guess ... if I have to... I guess ...

Thanks again!

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..

MJames - looks great!

That's the same putty I use, have you used any others? How does it compare?

Here was my Airfix P-40.

Producing gunsights might be an idea for one of the companies out there that can work with clear resin and etched brass, perhaps.

As far as the wing dihedral angle on the P-40, I could not find any actual measurements of it. Using the 5 view plans in Detail & Scale, a very old protractor, and eyeball Mk.1, it looked to me to be about 6/7 degrees.

Got most of the major components stuck on, and took this picture before I started hitting my mistakes with putty and Mr. Surfacer. Still haven't decided how to tackle the poor wing root fit yet, though. In case anyone is wondering, the pilot did not fit very well into his seat, or the cockpit in general. Had to adjust the instrument panel to get everything more or less happy. 

Thanks, I'll ask him.  I was hoping for a fret full of optical sights, I guess, like you can get a fret full of seatbelts.  Not high hope, but hope ...  though, now that you mention it, I don't know what I'd do with the extras, LOL.  If I have to live with the kit sight, I can ... I guess ... if I have to... I guess ...

Thanks again!

Matt: You might try getting some head-on photos or plan drawings and try to figure it out from there.

Ordie: Afraid I don't know of one, not sure how many aircraft had the old style sights in addition to the reflector ones. Hans would probably know.

Question:

I've got my kit on the bench, an HSG 1/48 P-40E (see in above post).  I bought the True Details P-40 diamond-tread tires, as I want to use some resin, however little, to see what that's like.  I also bought the Eduard canopy mask, as I am still not too good with those and want my P-40 to turn out nice for this GB.  I have some Eduard WWII USAAC and USN seat belts as well, and will use one of those in the build.  I will agree with some of your comments that the gun sight in front of the canopy is a little weak as it comes from the kit, but I'm not interested in the full Eduard cockpit PE. 

My question is:  Is there a PE fret for sale out there with just gunsights of the type?

Thanks for any help.

Joe - excellent shading work! I'm tempted to say it looks a bit too pronounced, but in my experience subsequent weathering and clear coats and such always tends to knock down the contrast anyway.

Had a ton of spray work to do on the B-25 last night - dozens of exhaust bits, cowl flaps and frames, gear struts...but also found time to take a deep breath and start hacking into the P-40.

I would like to thank Dymo tape and my MDC razor saw for pulling this off cleanly, if not exactly easily.

I'm also now somewhat concerned as to how I'm going to get everything properly aligned up front. There's some warpage in my kit somewhere, and without that big ol' cowl to wrangle things into position, it could be interesting.

Of course, I still have a ways to go before that becomes an actual concern-needing-solution.

i got a few more of the P-40.. and some of the other craft... if anymore peeps speak up.. I'll throw em in here..

James: Nice work there! I too have wondered about the pose of pilots including I think more companies than Airfix of having him with his hands folded in his lap like taking a nap in the cockpit.

Joe: Great work on the streaking! Love the different shade on the control surfaces, I don't know if its right either but it sure looks good!

P-38: Super photos! Looks like you had a great time, I love air-shows!

pssst.. for you OD over NG gray fellas.. ck this out..

I took this yesterday... :550:0]

:550:0]

[yours truly in this pic... lol     :550:0]

they also had a Corsair, P-51K, and a B-25 Gunship... got to meet to vets who were pilots.. one was a Corsair pilot,, Marine detachment on Okinawa.. and a B-25 driver.. shook their hands..

Thanks for the comments all.  My week vacation from work culminated last night in a nice relaxing painting session...of course after miscellanous home repairs and putting up my 5 year old daughter's new swingset (BTW...harder than any model I've ever built), which was a 5 day affair.  Anyways, I continue to experiment with Olive Drab shades.  On this one, which will be an 80th FG bird, I am going for a faded brownish hue. I started with standard Tamiya Olive Drab then added Khaki Drab until it took on the faded brownish-green color I was going for.  Once applied, I lightened this color with straight Khaki and streaked the finish with a technique I developed on accident a few years ago.  I tend to overdo it at this stage because the clear coat, decal, wash, and final dullcoat seem to tone it down considerably and render it "just" noticeable on completion.  The control surfaces were then sprayed a different variation of the shade.  Its been brought to my attention that fabric control surfaces don't fade faster than the rest.  With this information, I have since decided to just "change" it from the rest of the plane by adding more Khaki.  To my eye, OD over NG planes tend to be overly monochromatic and I like to look for ways to break this up and add interest.  To me, this is done effectively with the control surfces.  Heres the results...

Joe        

Not a total lost weekend here. I did manage to add the rudder, stabilizers, and tail wheel bay to the fuselage. Fit of all of those was good. Still have not gotten to any of the filling/sanding. Want to join wings to fuselage before that.

Added the stick and the instrument panel decal to the wing/cockpit section. Also started to do some other miscellaneous work. I primered the spinner and backing plate, plus the prop with white. I then painted the prop with a couple coats of Humbrol 24 trainer yellow. Now to mask off the tips and get the black on. Humbrol 60 scarlet did not cover as well, and is probably too light. Back to the paint locker for the spinner, it seems.

I needed to do the pilot, as past experience has been they have been difficult to fit once everything is all assembled. So I whipped up the result in the picture. I am not a master figure painter by any means, but it should be adequate under a closed canopy. And I realize the life vest is pretty unlikely in the desert! Maybe our pilot here flies over the Med a lot, or is just afraid of water It is very much a typical Airfix pilot, right down to the hands clasped protecting the family jewels, and not really appropriate for the desert theatre. But again, under a closed canopy, it should be adequate.

Probably all for this weekend, as it is back to work soon. Hope to have it together and filled, ready for paint next weekend. Hope everyone else's projects are going well!

Joe - LOVING your work on that P-40!

Finally made some progress on my -F conversion last night - I soaked the parts...

Need something to break up the B-25...especially since I'm trying to slow that one down to wait for some Eduard aftermarket that's coming out in August. P-40 seems like just the right speed.

That looks brilliant, looks like a perfect balance underneath to me.

Hello, I thought I would post an update.  I must say it was challenging getting the inserts previously described to look right, but by priming and re-sanding several times, I think I finally did it.  I've pre-shaded the lines and then sprayed the underside Tamiya Neutral Grey.  The upper OD will soon follow. 

Joe

hmmm - interested enough to keep track of what's going on, but I can't sign on until I have other GBs cleaned up & kit in-hand. Just lurking for now! 

James: Nice work there! And thanks for the review of the new Airfix kit, I'm not much of a 1/72nd person but it looks like a sharp kit there.

Looks great everyone, keep up the great work.

I hope you work things out with that exhaust Hans, let me know if there's a definite change.

Looks good MJames, I built that same kit a while ago. I positioned the sir brakes open, which was more work than I bargained for.

Got started with a parts wash and some interior painting prep. Was not too happy with Humbrol 226 US Interior Green. It was not covering well. Took 3-4 coats to get decent coverage.

I then started some basic assembly. Here we have the wings with the cockpit floor and some details attached to it. Fit of the wing pieces to each other was pretty good.

I also assembled the fuselage halves. Their fit, and the separate upper cowling & lower intake was pretty good, but not perfect. I removed the radio mast to reinstall later. Got to watch out for those delicate wing guns too!

Now it is time for some detail painting and touch up. Not planning on doing a lot, as I will be using the pilot and closed canopy. So there won't be too much to see. I did test fit the wings to the fuselage, but forgot to take a picture - the fit there was pretty poor, worse than any of the other major components. The sprue attachment points were pretty heavy, and even being careful there was some damage that will need at least a bit of filler to recontour things. Now it's time for bed and the weekend is over....back to work :(

Hey Hans, good luck with finding it, been there done that, got the T-shirt.

Anyone got a spare left-side exhaust stack for a 1/24 scale P-40? *Grumble"...

FIRST assembly, page one, second step (after assembling 11 of the 12 individual stacks, and I lose one stack's bottom -half..  This doesn't bode well for the way this bird will go together, if I get stopped by the carpet-monster,  right outta the chute...

I may change to a 1/32 Revell P-40E, Red...

Gamera

I've picked the Eduard ZOOM set for the cockpit and will be using it though honestly I don't think the Hasegawa kit really needs it.

Belts and placards are really all it needs.  I'm not sure if the N had the ring and bead sight like the E did, but that is better done in P.E. too.

Question for anyone.....what is the correct dihedral for the wings?  I've read some other forums and keep hearing 6 degrees.  Is that right?

Matt: That looks great!

I've picked the Eduard ZOOM set for the cockpit and will be using it though honestly I don't think the Hasegawa kit really needs it.

This is what I got so far.  I added Eduard's instrument panel, placards, belts and then added 'glass' to the gunsight with clear film.  I tried a wash for the first time and I liked the results I got.  The fuel gauges on the floor got Eduard instrument faces and a drop of Testors clear parts cement.

Joe, looking good!!!

Matt: looking forward to your photos.

Applied the wash to the cockpit of my N last night and am going to wait a few days for it to dry. Hopefully I'll be able to get some other stuff knocked off and get more time with the P-40 soonish.

redraider56

The plugs are a real pain on the E too.  I took advice from a couple reviews and attached them to the fuselage before gluing the halves together.  This got rid of the steps but the panel lines still didn't match up quite right and there's gaps on the top and bottom of the fuselage.  Furthermore, where the little vents are in fron of the exhausts on the N, this is yet another place to fill and sand and re-scribe on the E .

I know bro....its the same exact kit as the N...just different plugs.  Its Hasegawa's way of trying to stretch mileage out of one mold for different variants.  I didn't realize P-40 E, N, M or any other appropriate model (sans the F/L) had different tails making this plug necessary.  In my opinion, the designers of this kit dropped the ball because "nothing" fits right.  The plugs seem to be a tad shy of fitting flush....just enough to aggravate us .  That said, its still a nicely detailed kit.   

Anyways, I did get her primed today and it seemed to have turned out halfway decent.  I do have to go back and rescribe some panel lines on the fuselage that were obliterated in all the sanding.  My trusty Alclad II micro filler primer does wonders for hiding stuff..heres some pics.. 

Joe

The plugs are a real pain on the E too.  I took advice from a couple reviews and attached them to the fuselage before gluing the halves together.  This got rid of the steps but the panel lines still didn't match up quite right and there's gaps on the top and bottom of the fuselage.  Furthermore, where the little vents are in fron of the exhausts on the N, this is yet another place to fill and sand and re-scribe on the E .

I'm putting the finishing touches on the cockpit right now, so I'll get some pics up later.  Wheel wells are installed and wings glued together, so this is a quick little build aside from the dang fuselage.

Joe, thanks for the warning! Just airbrushed the cockpit parts last night so haven't gotten to putting together the fusilage and wings yet but thanks for the heads up on what to look out for.

Cliff