China-Burma-India Theater GB 2006-2007

Nicely done Scott.  Once you start using PE, there's no turning back .  The cost of modeling just went up...

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

Nicely done Scott.  Once you start using PE, there's no turning back .  The cost of modeling just went up... Regards,  Rick

Aye laddy, that it did.  I must say, PE seatbelts really make a difference! 

Thanks for the comments guys.  I'm really trying to push myself and learn new things so I can improve and get my skills to the next level.  I learned a lot so far on this one!

I love PE seatbelts.  They make a world of difference.  The really tiny PE levers and such, yeah not so much.  They always look two-dimensional and are just too fiddly.

By the way, yours look great.

Thanks for the positive feedback Arki30.  I'm going to try to use PE seatbelts on every build from now on. 

P-40E update - It's starting to look like, well, a P-40E!  I have the wings taped up and glued, hopefully I got the dihedral correct.  There is a small gap on the left side where the wing attaches to the fuselage which is going to require a bit of filling and sanding. 

Good progress Scott.  Won't be long & you'll be spitting paint on her .

Regards,  Rick

Scott, that's a great looking cockpit with the PE belts. I always use them now. I use to thread material through PE buckles, they look better than all PE, but was a killer on my eyes and patience.

The Dan Ford book is great, controversal, but a great read. He's coming out with a revised edition soon.

waikong wrote:

Scott, that's a great looking cockpit with the PE belts. I always use them now. I use to thread material through PE buckles, they look better than all PE, but was a killer on my eyes and patience. The Dan Ford book is great, controversal, but a great read. He's coming out with a revised edition soon.

I'm really enjoying the book.  I've always known the basics on the AVG, but this book is filling in all the blanks for me.  It's amazing how much the accomplished having started out with so little!   Their logistics were a nightmare!

You may like some of the AVG memoirs too. I just finished Tex Hill's memoirs. RT Smith and others have books out too. I had the pleasure of meeting Tex Hill a few years back, he signed a print of his P-40 flying over the Salween river, Burma for me. A really nice gentlemn, even still remembered some Chinese.

Whew!  Been busy with my Hasegawa 1/48 P-40E today.  In theory all the seam work is done, cockpit and wheel wells masked and the primer has been sprayed.  Hmmm... just noticed in one of the photos I still have a bit more filling to do at the back of the left wing root. 

Anyone know how long you should wait with Tamiya Primer before doing more filling and sanding?

Here are two update photos.

Looking good Scott.  I've never used Tamiya primer, so can't help with your question.

Regards,  Rick

Looks ready to go!!

I started painting the cokpit on my P-51. The base color is down, and I've strated the detail painting. I'll post pics when I'm finished with the 'pit.  

Scott, I use Tamiya Primer. I usually let it dry overnight and haven't had any problems.

sand... fill.... sand... check... fill... sand...... check...... 

I really want to try and up the ante on my P-40 so I'm trying to make all the seams perfect.  Just need to do a bit more sanding after work then I should be able to move forward with the paint job.

We got hit with a big snowstorm last night, 10 inches up at my house, in addition to the 6 inches we got on Sunday.  I love it! 

You can have it!  I'm so sick of winter right now, ugh...

Hasegawa 1/48 P-40E update.

Finished up the seams last night, just going to do some very very light sanding to make sure everything is smooth and move forward with the painting.  I scanned two pages of the instructions to point out a couple areas that needed seams cleaned up.  If I had to do it all over again I would have done things just a bit differently, and I noted that on the scans.  Just click on them to see a bigger view of them.  Sorry about the typo in the caption regarding the machine gun inserts.  fush = flush 

Scott, I agree with your suggestions marked on the assembly instructions.  I've built 3 of these kits.  The first, I followed Hasegawas' instructions, but the last two I did as you suggest.  I would add that it's best to sand down the rivets in the inserts D1 & D2 in order to get the rear windows to fit flush.

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

Scott, I agree with your suggestions marked on the assembly instructions.  I've built 3 of these kits.  The first, I followed Hasegawas' instructions, but the last two I did as you suggest.  I would add that it's best to sand down the rivets in the inserts D1 & D2 in order to get the rear windows to fit flush. Regards,  Rick

Good to know as I hadn't dry fitted those yet.  Thanks Rick for saving me some serious trouble down the road!! 

Couple questions for you Rick.  The directions call for the area behind the inserts D1 and D2 to be painted the interior green color.  Almost every photo I've come across of Flying Tiger P-40's has that area painted in camo like the rest of the fuselage.  What did you do with yours?

Also, I'm having a tough time matching up the underside color with the Tamiya Acrylic paint range.  The instructions call for "Neutral Gray" however Tamiya's neutral gray color is way too dark.  I was thinking of going with XF19 "Sky Gray"... what do you think?  Tamiya's sky gray looks like this http://www.colorserver.net/showcolor.asp?fs=36473

The rear windows were removeable & usually added after painting.  While I've seen pics showing that area in Interior Green or Green Zinc Chromate, most seem to have been painted in the top side camo color, which is how I do mine.

Neutral Gray is FS36173, which is darker than your reference.  However, the AVG P-40's were factory painted with Aircraft Gray undersides, which is a much lighter shade of Gray.  I don't use Tamiya paints, but the Sky Gray looks like a pretty good match.

Regards,  Rick

Glad to help Scott.  Of course you're assuming I'm giving good info .

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

Glad to help Scott.  Of course you're assuming I'm giving good info . Regards,  Rick

And you know what happens when we assume..... tee hee 

The seam work is FINALLY finished.... whew!  It was worth it though.  This is the first time I've really worried about seams and wanted to actually do something about them.  Good learning experience and one you get the hang of the ins and outs of seam fixing it's really not that hard.  Just requires some patience, delicate handling and elbow grease. 

I put the final primer coat on so I'll let it cure overnight.  At the rate I'm going I'll have this P-40 finished sometime next week, so I hope it's ok that I slide in just a little past the deadline.    I could have finished this by the deadline if I hadn't messed with the seams, but I really wanted to do a good job on this one. 

Tankmaster7 wrote:

A guy in my club brought in the hase P-40E. Man that thing has a detailed cockpit straight OOB.

I agree, the cockpit is very nice and the photo etch bits and seat belts really take it up a notch. 

Overall I'm pleased with my seam work, first time I every really did anything about seams.  I need to rescribe a couple of very small panel line sections so I'm going to go by the hobby store today and see if they have anything that might help with that.

Rick, thanks again for the heads up on the rivets behind the back windows.  They were fairly prominent so I just sanded them down a bit. 

Looking forward to some pics Scott .

Regards,  Rick

Question for you Rick. 

When you built your Hasegawa P-40E's did you spray your topcoats with the canopy attached or did you do them seperately so that your camo airbrush job included those rear window recesses? 

Just curious how you handled that as I'm debating whether to just brush paint the camo in the rear window area first then mask and attach the canopy parts to spray the plane.

Scott, I painted the air frame & clear parts separately & then added the clear parts as one of the last steps.  They fit well enough to get away with it, although on some kits,that require some filling to blend in the clear parts,  you have to add & mask the clear parts before painting.   Many modelers always put the clear parts on before painting, but I don't like leaving masking on that long.

Regards,  Rick

I managed to get some time to mask and spray the Flat Earth top coat.  I tried to do some very subtle post shading to break up the monotony of the brown a bit as the sun in China and Burma was pretty brutal.  I stuck with philosophy it's better to be too subtle than too bold with it, which is fine as I'm trying to depict a recently arrived P-40E that hadn't been beat up yet.  The pictures don't quite show the variations as they appear in person, but you get the idea.

Tomorrow I hope to mask for the green, which based on past experience will take at least an hour or two to pull off.  Once the green is done it will be a fast ride to the finish line. 

Oh, and I finished Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group by Daniel Ford today.  It was an excellent read in my opinion.  I don't think the book was nearly as controversial as some people seemed to make it, and I believe Ford wasn't trying to be disrespectful in any way.  Victory claims are always inflated, most of the time unintentially as it's difficult in the heat of battle to be able to pay attention the the plane you just shot at while still engaged in combat.  It's easy to glance back over your shoulder and see a flaming plane going down and assume it's the one you just shot at, when it could have been one that was flamed by someone else.  That happened all the time, Axis and Allies alike.  In fact he proved that the Japanese victory claims against the Flying Tigers were horrifically over inflated.... with claims totalling several times over the actual total number of AVG aircraft that were ever even in the theater!    I think he very tastefully tried to portray the truth on both sides and don't feel that he in any way was trying to discredit or debunk the image of the Flying Tigers.  I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the subject.  

Scott-very nice work.  Making me want to pull my Hase P-40 out of the stash.

Tanky-please put me down as a DNF.  The Acadmey kit just has enough little things bugging me that I don't want to fininsh it at the moment.  The addition of the resin interior, although very detailed, didn't help matters.
thanks