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As most readers who are familiar
with WWII aircraft will know, the Curtiss P-40 was the result of
a successful attempt to mate the body of a Curtiss P-36, which
carried a radial engine, with a 1700 hp Allison inline engine.
The switch from radial to inline engine required numerous
problems relating to weight and balance to be overcome.
Additionally the inline engine required many items not demanded
by the radial engine. The result, the XP-40, was a much sleeker
looking aircraft, with its long pointed nose and large chin
radiator air intake.
The P-40 that I modeled is a -F
model. According to the Squadron/Signal Publications Curtiss
P-40 In Action book, the -F could carry a heavier bomb load than
the -E model. Later model -Fs had a slightly lengthened fuselage
(approximately 2 feet), which improved directional stability
during takeoff. Late model -Fs also saw the addition of a radio
mask directly behind the cockpit.
The kit instructions indicate
that this aircraft was flown by Lt. Richard Lander of the 315
Squadron, 324th Fighter Group, and that it was based in the
North African desert in 1943. The presence of the radio mast
suggests that this is a late model -F.
On opening the box, I was
impressed by the cleanly recessed paneling and good detail of
the model. There was quite
a bit of flash, as can be seen in the photograph. The cockpit is
somewhat simplified, but can still yield a nice build up
straight out of the box. In fact, the only thing I added were
photoetched seat belts and shoulder harnessing from Eduard. As
usual for me, I started with the cockpit. Borrowing on a
technique I learned from Brett Green on Hyperscale,
I airbrushed the cockpit floor, sidewalls and seat flat black. I
then airbrushed these with Tamiya XF-5 Green lightened with
white. When airbrushed from an angle of about 45 degrees, the
green filled in the highlights, but left recessed and
"shadow" areas darker. This provided a nice simulation
of depth and color variation which would not have been present
otherwise.
In fact, in finishing up the cockpit, I really didn't
need to apply a wash - see photo. The kit instrument panel did not
seem to match with photos in the In Action book of a P-40F
cockpit, but since I was trying to do this mostly OOB I left
well enough alone. I did add Reheat instrument face decals, then
touched up various knobs with a dash of artist oil red or
white here and there.
The fuselage halves were glued
together. Before slipping the radiator facing (A4) in through
the bottom of the fuselage, the seam line along the inside of
air scoop was filled and sanded out. The fit of part A4 was not
that great, requiring a bit of maneuvering to get it right.
(This part was painted with a hand brush later in assembly after
the main exterior painting. I carefully applied a coat of
Floquil Acrylic Steel, and then drybrushed highlights with a
medium gray). After part A4 was in place, the cockpit assembly
was inserted through the bottom of the fuselage and glued into
place. The fit was generally good, although there were small
gaps between the cockpit coaming and the top of the instrument
panel.
The wheel well areas on the
undersides of top wing pieces B1 and B2 were airbrushed flat
black, then lightened XF-5, as I had done with the cockpit
sidewalls. Wheel openings in the bottom wing were also
airbrushed green. Each top wing piece was glued to its
corresponding half of the bottom wing. When I fit the wing
assembly up into the fuselage, there were large gaps along the
wing root/fuselage joint. These gaps were a bit too large for
modeling putty. Since I was going to rescribe the joints, I
elected to use a filler which would lend itself to that. I had
recently purchased a product called Magic
Sculpt, which is a
two-part epoxy putty. This stuff is GREAT. I have been using
Milliput White for years, but Magic Sculpt is definitely finer
grained, less sticky, and dries rock hard in about 4 hours. If
you use epoxy putty in your modeling, I highly recommend this
product. One other tip about using
Magic Sculpt (this applies to any epoxy putty): You can clean up
any excess on your hands or the model with a disposable diaper
wipe. That's right - diaper wipes. Once the putty was dry, I
sanded and rescribed it (unlike other epoxy putties, Magic
Sculpt can be drilled or scribed with absolutely no flaking or
breaking apart). Before turning my attention to another
subassembly, I drilled out the 3 machine gun barrels in each
wing. Next, part A3 was attached to the bottom of the fuselage
directly behind the radiator scoop. The part fit was not great,
and once again, I used a small amount of Magic Sculpt to fill in
the seams, which were later sanded and rescribed.
Exhaust stacks were drilled out
and glued to the backside of engine access panels F1 and F2.
Their fit with the fuselage was slightly short on both sides,
requiring styrene sheet to fill the gaps at the front.
It was about this time that the
clear parts disappeared. In case you don't know, I have a knack
for losing kit parts, and this modeling project was to be no
exception. Try as I might, I could not find the plastic baggy in
which I had oh so carefully stored the clear parts. I finally
decided that I must have thrown them away inadvertently. This
was a major bummer! Thank goodness for the Internet, Hyperscale,
and rec.models.scale newsgroup. I posted a beg-o-gram on both,
and eventually received a reply from a kind soul who sent me the
needed clear parts.
While I was waiting for these to
arrive, I went ahead with the major painting. Cockpit and wheel
well openings were stuffed with tissues. Fuselage seams were
primed with airbrushed Mr. Surfacer 1000 (thinned with lacquer
thinner). A few problem areas were found, which were puttied,
sanded and resprayed. When I was satisfied with the result, I
airbrushed Tamiya Light Blue XF-23 onto the underside and along
the sides. The demarcation line between upper and lower colors
was then masked off using drafting tape. I pulled up the edge of
the tape just enough so the line when airbrushed would have a
slightly feathered look. The upper surface was painted the
lighter color with a custom mix of Tamiya paints to simulate
Sand. Don't ask me which ones or how much of each - I just kept
mixing paints until I got something that looked similar to the
box art! The darker brown color (Dark Earth) was mixed in a
similar very unscientific manner. Once the Sand color was dried,
I applied paper masks which I had cut out from enlarged images
on the instruction sheet. I attached these cutouts with poster
tak so that they sat very slightly over the surface of the
model.
The Dark Earth color was airbrushed with careful
attention to point the spray directly only the model, not at an
angle (this helps prevent airbrushed paint from creeping too far
under the edge of the paper mask. Masks were removed and some
edge areas (there some underspray - oh well, and a couple of
places where the demarcation line looked too sharp) were
airbrushed freehand using my Iwata HPb. I could have left the
finish alone at this point but decided to experiment with a
shading technique described by Gregg Cooper in his excellent
3-part article on building the Tamiya Gekko at Hyperscale.
Basically, this involves going back over each camo color with a
much lightened, much thinned version of the original, working
from the center of each panel toward the outside, then finally
going back over that each color with a very thin mix of the
original color. Gregg recommends using Mr. Color Thinner (an
acrylic lacquer thinner) to thin Tamiya paints for this. I agree
that the effects achieved by using Mr. Color Thinner are more
desirable, and leave a translucent, satin finish. With practice,
you can get just about any gradation of color and shade. The
effects are much more subtle than preshading. In my opinion,
this is when modeling really does become an art project as much
as a construction project.
After the fuselage was painted to
satisfaction, a coat of Future was applied to serve as a base
for the decals. I would have to give the kit decals a rating of
8 out of 10. They were durable, in good register, and of
appropriate color. The only slight negative was that several
coats of Solvaset were required to really get them to snuggle
down in the panel lines. For the smaller decals, I applied
Future as a base. This ensured that there would be no decal
silvering.
Weathering was next. Panel lines
were highlighted with a wash as described in the next paragraph.
Exhaust stains were airbrushed using acrylic artist's black ink
highly thinned with alcohol. Paint chipping was simulated using
a Prismacolor Silver pencil, and SNJ aluminum powder applied
lightly with an old 3-0 paint brush whose bristles had been cut
back to a stub. Gun powder stains were added around the gun
barrels using blacks pastel powder.
Landing gear were painted using
Polly Scale Acrylic steel. A wash of brown pastel
powder/water/dishwashing liquid was applied around highlights
and in recesses. This was allowed a couple of minutes to settle,
and excess wash removed using a slightly dampened q-tip or flat
brush. Wheels were painted flat black, then airbrushed with a
very thinned coat of gray. Parafilm was used to mask the tire
leaving the wheel exposed. Then both sides were painted Steel.
The wheel cover was then airbrushed red to match the color of
the spinner (this was not indicated in the kit instructions -
purely artistic license on my part). The tail wheel was hand
painted and attached. Landing gear doors were airbrushed the
appropriate interior/exterior colors. Landing gear and doors
were then attached in their appropriate locations using gel
superglue.
Other underside parts were
painted and attached, including the centerline external fuel
tank, and bombs. The bracing structures for these pieces looked
overscale and clunky, but I used them anyway. I might also
mention that one of the bomb fins was missing due to poor
molding. This was replaced with a small piece of sheet styrene.
Now the clear parts had arrived,
courtesy of USPS. Fuselage side windows were fitted and glued
onto the fuselage using Micro Kristal Kleer white glue. The kit
canopy and windscreen were masked off using Bare Metal Aluminum
foil, trimmed with a NEW #11 hobby blade, and sprayed with my
custom Sand mix. As usual the Bare Metal left a slight adhesive
residue which was dealt with using a little lighter fluid on the
end of Q tip. These parts were then attached to the fuselage
using Krystal Kleer. Unfortunately, the sliding canopy is molded
too thick to settle down onto the fuselage spine when posed in
an open position. The longer I looked at it and the windscreen,
the less I liked the look of it. The frame lines just seemed too
heavy. I decided to vacuform a new set. After several screwups,
I finally was able to create a usable set using the "heat
and smash" method. This is a simple procedure requiring a
candle, a sheet of butyrate (.010" thickness recommended)
and a firmly mounted master (i.e., the kit parts). Once formed
and trimmed, windscreen and canopy were masked with Tamiya tape
and airbrushed. The result was a definite improvement over the
original kit parts.
A couple of final touches. The
gunsight was "upgraded" cutting off the styrene sight
and replacing it with a small piece of clear styrene. Eduard
photoetch ring and bead sights were installed in front of the
windscreen. The attachment point along the spine of the fuselage
for the radio mast was carefully enlarged to provide a solid
foundation. The mast was painted Sand and attached using a small
amount of gel superglue. Monofilament clear sewing thread was
inserted into a small hole previously drilled out in leading
edge of the tail. A small drop of superglue was applied. After
this was dry the thread was pulled taught and glue to the top of
the radio mask.
There you have it. Not the
easiest model to build due to excess flash, and occasional fit
problems. Still the result is a good looking aircraft which I
will be happy to find a place for in my display case among my
other WWII model aircraft.
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