P40N Warhawk - Another Update WIP

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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The last update for this Eduard 1/48 P40N was back in mid-February right before a one month trip to Ft. Bragg for work. I wanted to post this much sooner but many things have been keeping me busy. Below is a link to the last update, it’s pretty far back in the forum so I posted it here.

/forums/1092136/ShowPost.aspx

I attached the wings filling the significant gaps in the wing roots with styrene strip and filing, sanding and filling again with CYA and touching it up with Mr. Surfacer 1000. When that was all done I rescribed the panels lines along the fuselage. The fit around the wing root and at the fuselage just in front of the wing wasn’t very good, there were large gaps or or the pieces didn’t line up very good. So I had to fill, file and sand quite a bit.


Once I finished the wings I moved to the tail and tail planes but before mountingthem I wanted to add the trim tab actuator rods and assemblies that are missing from the kit mold design. I cut the pieces from the thin foil seal of a Smokehouse Almonds can, it worked pretty good and the rods are from thin wire. I had to made four complete assemblies so this step took about three weeks. Since I was working on trim tab actuators, I also made one for the rudder trim tab. When these were all done I attached the tail planes and filled, filed, sanded the seams and rescribed the panel lines around them. The rudder isn’t glued in yet, I just attached it for fitting. I also drilled and fitted an elevator control rod from styrene rod.



The next big step was fixing up the main landing gear struts. The kit main gear strut has the oleo scissors legs attached directly to the oleo hydraulic cylinder. After I cut the scissors legs off the hydraulic cylinder was too long, more representing the strut in a gear up while in flight configuration than the plane resting on the wheels and landing gear. So I glued a small strip of styrene aound the cylinder to fill in and make it shorter. Then I made new oleo scissors from brass rod and thin foil pieces. This process took another couple weeks and it was only the lower part of the main gear struts.

I’ve since done a lot of work on the upper main gear struts, almost completely rebuilt the tail gear, attached the rear canopy piece, and put together the Eduard lower wing flap pieces as well as a few other smaller things. But I don’t have those photos posted on the site yet and am trying to get that done in the next few days.

It’s coming along pretty nicely but taking a long time because of the time I spend on detailing. I would like to start attaching all these smaller assemblies and paint soon but there’s a lot to do yet.

As always I solicit, encourage and welcome comments, suggestions and criticism, I’m not thin skinned, I can take it. Thanks for looking.

Steve

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Steve, I admire all of the small stuff you do…the wires, levers, etc. all of that scratch built stuff is inspiring.

I’m a little surprosed to see the wing-root fit is so poor…in retrospect is there anything you could have done differently in the assembly process to correct this? I ask becuase I have the Eduard profi-pack kit in my stash and the P-40 is one of my all time favorites.

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Very nice work- thanks for the detailed pictures and explanation!

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The Eduard kit is actually a rebox of the Mauve kit. I built it a while back and discovered the same kit flaw. What has happened is the fuselage is slightly pinched in around the cockpit area causing the large gap at the wing root. To bad you have already gone this far on the kit because there is a quick and simple fix for this. If you insert a piece of sprue right behind where the instrument panel is in the cockpit that is slightly larger than the opening it will push the center of the fuselage out and they meet up perfectly with the wings. Other than that it is a great kit and if you have the photoetch it really builds up nice.

Soulcrusher[oX)]

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Brilliant fix! Thanks for the tip, SC. That will definately come in handy

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Jon taught me this trick when he had a similar problem on a Spitfire. I was surprised with the how bad the fit was on this nice kit and posted a pic of the nasty gap. Thats when Jon saw it and told me to wedge the piece of sprue in there to tighten up the join. On this kit it makes the wing seam almost perfect. I can only assume its some type of warpage after the fact. Every kit seems to have it. Other than that its a sweet kit!

Soulcrusher[oX)]

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You’ve got to love these forums… between Steve’s WIP pics, you and Jon, literally thousands of people who haven’t built the kit have found a way to make their build better!

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Thanks for the comments and tips.

I did use the sprue tip inserting a piece into the fuselage up front, I also put a little piece aft about even wth the trailing edge of the wing root. But the piece up front couldn’t be too big or the resin cockpit floor wouldn’t fit right, so I had to compromise and work with a mid sized gap. Without the sprue the gap would’ve been much bigger.

This is the Eduard ‘Shark Mouths Over China’ kit and is a rebox of the Mauve kit (I have a couple Mauve kits on my shelf). The kit comes with a True Details resin cockpit set and Eduard’s color PE set as part of the kit, also has a small PSP base. It has some nice goodies. Besides the stuff that came with it I also got the Eduards P-40N PE set for the Hasegawa kit, Eduards PE flaps and Squadron vac-formed canopy. As you can see, I scratch built a lot of stuff, too.

Thanks for looking.

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Glad to see you’re still working on this one Steve. Your work so far is quite good, and I look forward to your WIP pics. Keep 'em coming! [:P]

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Yeah !!! Oh Yeah!!! P-40! Whoop WHooop ! Love it! [#toast]