Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
I really am sick of looking at the P-40, and it’s one of those that I consider among my favorites.
The Hasegawa was easily the best of these kits. It almost fell together (and like I said, I would consider building another one of these kits regardless of variant). It had a lot of detail right out of the box. No construction problems on that one other than one of the side windows seemed a bit too large to fit snugly into the recessed slot (probably more me than the kit). I did the scheme as an Adak Warhawk with after-market decals (the kit was actually the USAAF Flying Tiger, not the recently-released Adak Warhawk); the decals didn’t quite meet under the chin so I got out the trusty bottle of Testors red and filled in the gap. Can’t see that in any of the pictures and even by looking closely.
The Eduard was next best. It was one of those Profi-Pack kits so it did actually have everything I needed in the box. Some PE, some resin stuff. And that allowed me to pirate some of the original kit parts for the Monogram. I chose the scheme, a RCAF Warhawk, based on photos in the P-40 Warhawk Detail & Scale, vol. 2 book, plus the decals for this bird were actually included in the kit. I really liked the look of that nmf in the pictures in the book. There was another one I could have modeled that was a USAAF bird, but it had some orange and black stripes on it (and this Aggie is not going to model any warbird with Oklahoma State colors!) The paint is Alclad, my first attempt using it. Even those it’s costly, I think I’m saying goodbye to the MM metallics and foil. Stuff is easy to use and looks great (and it doesn’t pull up with tape). The kit went together pretty well but the sliding portion of the canopy did not fit well at all. It was too wide where the rails should meet the fuselage. I first tried to correct it by clamping it to the fuselage while the white glue dried but the clamp slipped and the part went flying. I heard it hit but for hours I could not find it. I finally did find it in (a) the last place I thought it would be and (b) the last place I looked!
The Monogram (surprisingly) was next best. Perhaps I’m biased, I don’t know, but I have always loved this kit. It was the first model I ever built, way back when I was 3. Perhaps this kit is my (Linus) blanket; I just like to keep 'em around. With as many times as I’d built it I was well familiar with its shortcomings, so nothing surprised me about it. And I had recently completed another vintage Monogram kit, the Hu-16 Albatross, and scratch-built the interior which Monogram largely ignored, so I was anxious to expand on my scratch-building skills. I used the Detail & Scale vol. 1 book religiously for this effort, and I think I largely captured the detailing.
These 3 are clearly my favorites. I like the way they look, I enjoyed working on them, and I’d recommend them to anyone wanting to build a P-40.
Next is the Trumpeter. It was not a bad kit, not by any stretch of the imagination. I was instantly impressed with it when I first opened the box. But what looks good in the box doesn’t always go together smoothly. I had a few construction issues with this kit, namely with that piece where the fuselage machine guns are mounted. It is a smaller piece with the two long guns sticking out of it; you have to line that piece up with the forward fuselage engine cover and align the guns through the prongs up front. My alignment was not all that great. I think I did a serviceable job in smoothing it out with filler but I wouldn’t win any awards with it. I think the scheme looks great even though I still can’t get over how baby bluish that underside is.
Last is the Academy. My impression was that there was very little detail, and some of it, such as wheel wells, wasn’t really accurate. To Academy’s credit the kit went together with few problems (the only real problem I had was in attaching the wing guns - I really thought they needed a bit more support in the wings and I think if you look closely they don’t line up correctly). This one I built as a Flying Tiger - if you’re going to have a squadron of P-40s, one of them absolutely has to be a Tiger! The wing roots didn’t line up very well and I did a poor job of getting them to look right.
I am very happy to be finished with these builds. I doubt that I’ll tackle anything this ambitious again, but I expect to be building multiple kits at the same time still, just not as many (and definitely not the same warbird).
