Thanks Mopar. Along with Eduard canopy masks, I will now be looking for these as well. If there’s one thing I hate, well two if you count masking canopies, is painting or decaling instrument panels.
Thanks Jim, it’s one of my favorite American fighters too.
Seriously just fantastic work. I love the scale. Of all the paint schemes of the second world war, I think the flying tigers pretty much topped it, would be my personal favourite topping the Big Beautiful Doll P51-D. Im looking foward to seeing you progress .
Thanks Josh, and I agree, there’s nothing like the shark nose and it fits that airframe perfectly. Glad to have you.
Sometimes a kit comes along which really tests your modeling skills, or perhaps in my case reminds me how mediocre I am at this hobby. This has been an exercise in my patience so far. As you may know, Hasegawa likes to use inserts or “plugs” to get more mileage out of their molds. This would be fine and dandy if they actually fit correctly or landed on panel lines like Tamiya thoughfully does more often than not. I figured since the kit was large the sanding would be easier. I got busy and started out by adding the inserts to each fuselage side taking care to make sure the panel lines lines up.
As you can see this area is a total abomination. Who ever came up with this idea should be fired. Lots of sanding, filling and rescribing. This is about as good as I could get it to look and was pure torture. I still need to go back and add the rivet detail. For those curious, I use the superglue/accelerator trick for most of my gap and seam filling needs. I apply it with the tip of an old exacto blade which gives me great control.
The cockpit and radiator fit great. Nice design here.
On to exercise in patience #2…the rear windows. The idea was great where they used a clear insert and integrated the windows into it, like Tamiya did with their Storch. The only problem is Hasegawa isn’t Tamiya. Like the tail inserts, they don’t fall on panel lines and require alot of careful sanding. This took hours to make presentable. I ponder, would it have been that hard for Hasegawa to mold two separate fuselages instead of having these turn out like a bondo’ed Buick?
I got it sanded and then added the windscreen assembly. This was a clever design and fit nice. The area was taped off and is ready for some primer to check the seamwork.
Time for the wings. More inserts for the machine guns…joy. I remember these being a nightmare on their 1/48 version. I glued them to the top first and made sure they were plum. I figured I could fare in the bottom later. These seemed to be easier to deal with fortunately.
I did have more trouble with the underside seams. I needed some filler using the CA method.
Wings together.
Test fit. Looks like there are some wing root issues. I guess I need to be challenged evey step of the way sometimes. Or I’ve been spoiled by Eduard and Tamiya…talk amongst yourselves.
Here’s how I deal with wing minor issues. It usually works for me. I use making tape to pull the roots together with lots of tension. Like a clamp if you will. Don’t worry about dihedral, it will level out later.
A little glue along the seam…
Let that turkey dry…
Perfect wingroots (usually). I needed a touch of putty at the leading edge. Starting to look a little like a P-40.
I forgot to mention this nightmare. The wing root fuselage joint is comical at best. Lots of sanding filling and rescribing. This took hours to get presentable. I got here and gave up. I truly have no idea what they were thinking. Perhaps it’s just a difficult area to recreate on a scale model of a P-40. After Primer I may have to go back and touch up more.
Looks ok from afar…
I ordered the AK Real Colors RAF day scheme paints. I look forward to trying these out on this kit.
I here you loud and clear regrading the “problem” projects. But as the old saying gose “You cant polish a turd but you can cover it in glitter”.
Your doing a great job, you are the model king! All hail the king…
Outstanding work!!! I’m learning a lot from this. [Y]
Jim [cptn]
Nicely done Joe, I appreciate what that took to get right . Makes it nice to get a good fitting kit after dealing with that kind of surgery.
Oh man. They make you chop the fuselage?! Shame, shame Hasegawa. Just think of how much satisfaction you’ll get when you look at the final product!
Thanks Damian. Actually they did polish a turd on Mythbusters I believe. Don‘t know about the king part, more like court jester…
Thanks Jim
Thanks Trey
They chop it up for you, poorly at that. Like I said, the genius who designed this turkey should be fired. Way too much uneccesary work.
It seems the worse is over. I figured I’d share my marathon painting session last night as I binge watched Ghost Hunters (which scares me). After check seams one final time, I preshaded the panel lines.
I broke out the Montex masks and got painting. It was easy as it only consisted of two stars and “104” on the fuselage. I also threw down the blue fuse band at this time. I used XF-8 Blue cut with white until it matched the decal. I wish they would have included the shark mouth. Quite frankly, the use of the kit decal worries me.
As I continue to wait for the AK Real Colors to arrive, I did some research on paint colors. Like the earlier B/C AVG planes, this particular subject seems to have been painted for RAF use by Berry Brothers, who were sub contracted by Curtiss. They called them “Dupont RAF equilavent”, as Dupont was the paint brand. I read the paints varied in shades. Rather than continue to wait for my AK paints, I figured I’d mix my own concoction with Tamiya paint. I get impatient sometimes. The undersides were apparently done in light grey instead of Sky or Duck Egg. I went with half XF-53 Neutral Grey and half XF-19 Sky Grey. I added white to marble it up in a reverse black base technique. Control surfaces were lightened too.
For the Dark Earth I went more brown. I used 75% XF-52 Earth with a 25% XF-64 Red Brown.
I added some XF-57 Buff and faded that turkey out a bit. I used the same marbling technique.
I used blue tac worms to tape off the camo pattern.
Cheap masking tape eliminates overspray issues.
XF-81 RAF is then fired down. I know, what a mess. This was also faded with the marbling technique using XF-57 Buff.
Everything removed. I‘m pleased so far.
I presume these had RAF markings at one time which were painted out. I simulated this here and on the top starboard wing.
Next I will start the weathering process with a postshade.
I dont belive a court jester could pull off a result like this! [;)]
Great work, as usual.
Sure they could. Most specialize in magic tricks.
…and thanks Damian.
Those colous look perfect to my eyes. Could you please explain to me the marbling technique? The effect is brilliant!
Josh
Hope you’re enjoying the painting process more than the painstaking rework during the build. Looks outstanding! Thanks for sharing the details of your painting sequence. Very interested in the marbling technique.
I love, love, love the cockpit. [:D]
This one is an E-1 from the British order taken back by the US. The markings were US stars with the red center when it was picked up by the Tigers in Africa from the USAAF. The 49th FG in Australia and New Guinea also used E-1’s, besides the RAAF.
https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Hawk-81A/USAAF-23FG.html
104 photo. Notice it has had an engine change as it has the later fishtail exhausts: