Alrighty, for those who may be skeptical that I've actually got something together...
This is the AMT P-40N I've got going. Nothing special going on with this one... yet. I may add a few things here and there but this is just a slammer to get me back into the swing of things.
I'm beginning to like the AMT kits the more I work on this thing. It's a nice old-fashioned kinda kit that needs a bit of work...
The cowl pieces were finicky and I put in some bracing behind each panel so that they'd sit right. I also put in some backers so that I could leave the exhausts off until final assembly.
For those not familiar with these kits, you have to do a bit of surgery if you're building a P-40N. The area behind the cockpit must be cut out and the clear piece for the greenhouse is then inserted. Inevitably there will be gaps with this kind of thing and this was no exception. Nothing major but somewhat unavoidable unless you sit down, give it a small bit of thought and take your time. Needless to say, I didn't do any of that!
I'm building this thing canopy closed and the sliding hood fits not too badly. Unfortunately it sits a bit low (or the other pieces sit a bit high?) and I've added some extensions to raise it up.
I find all of the above to be just another part of modeling and alotta fun. However, there is one thing about this kit which I don't think is all that much fun...
In order to maximise their mold usage, AMT used multi-piece tooling so that they could swap components and mold either a long or short fuselage depending on what variant they were going to kit. The problem with this is that the separate components don't always mate evenly.
The result, in this case, is that one of the fuselage halves has a big 'ole step just forward of the vertical stab... which is not a fun fix. Simple, yes. But not quick-n-easy and it will require mondo sanding and then rescribing. No big deal really... just a pain in the ass. Oh well, I'm a modeler... I can deal with it!!
Still haven't decided exactly what subject I'm building, but I think it's gonna be a 25th FS, 51st FG Hawk. I may just do a generic bird. We'll see what it looks like when I get some paint on it...
Now, on to the important part of this post!
I've added a page for this GB onto the
The Hawk's Nest. You can see it
HERE...
The Duty Roster is there along with a gallery of progress photos...
IMPORTANT!!!
If you have visited the site before, you may have to hit refresh in your web browser because the site doesn't auto-refresh. At least it doesn't for me. You may have to do this for each page unless you've ditched your temp internet files since visiting last.
More to come...
Fade to Black...