WIP - Hasegawa P40E 1/32 - First WIP

[bruce bay]

 

After jumping in with my first 'Ready for Inspection' post, here's my first WIP. 

 

My enjoyment of the extra details and interior bits-and-bobs with the Tamiya 1/32 Corsair led to this, my second, 1/32nd scale build. It was a gift, and if I am honest - I have never been a lover of the P40 in any of its variants, and I really don't know why. It's an amazing looking aircraft, huge spinner, shoulder heavy, and so on... It's just never really grabbed me. But either way...

 

Here goes. 

 

I will, as usual, be working with brush paints and rattle cans - as I do not (yet) own an airbrush. Sadly this means colours - both interior and exterior - are likely only vague approximations, and not mixed to historically accurate levels. 

 

As far as after-market add ons, I plan to use a mask for the canopy, and I have ordered the CMK resin undercarriage bays with canvas covers... This will be my first time using resin add-ons. So any advice regarding these particular items is welcome. From colouring (seems like a dark grey / green is best), to the fit and so on. Just seemed worth adding a bit of pazzazz to this kit. 

 

First up, I added some extra wire to the cockpit walls. This stuff is cast offs from by fuse-boxes on the pavement. I always see so much of it, and just pick it up and pop it in my bag. Anyway - stripped it down, and drilled some small holes to house the ends, then glued it down. Not sure how accurate, but at 1/32 I wanted to add some more visual detail. 

 

 

Then parts were primed with flat grey, as was the cockpit floor and rear cockpit wall.  These were then sprayed lightly with aluminium silver before being lightly blotched with artists' watercolour masking fluid, which was left to dry (25 mins) before being sprayed at an angle with something close(ish) to an interior green. Then surfaces were brushed with an old toothbrush... (NB - A new fancy toothbrush with rubber nubbins seems to make this task significantly easier than doing it with a bristle-only brush).

 

 

 

I then brush painted some details onto the side walls, added some spurious decals from past kits (once again - for visual effect at the expense of accuracy), did an oil wash of mixed black and brown,  and finally made a mixed pigment from mainly 'mud green', with a touch of 'sand' and 'dark brown' which I splodged all over the foot-end of the floor. 

 

 

Next up is a matt varnish on it all, and then on to the instrument panel.

 

Thanks for looking, and any comments most welcome. 

 

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Excellent start. I'll be tagging along for this build if you don't mind. I like your style. 

 

John.

[JohnT]

Nice and will be following as I have one of these too.  

 

From what I have experienced and read resin inserts whether cockpit or wheel wells can often be bigger than the space they go into so test fit and be prepared to reduce the resin part thickness of walls and the kit part too in order to get a proper fit of the kit parts.

 

And always take precautions against inhaling resin dust when sanding by wearing a quality mask.

[bruce bay]

Thanks both for the comments and encouragement, and for the heads up on resin.

 

This build was on hold a little while - due to my dropping the horizontal stabilizers out of the window when priming them. Took a while for the neighbours to return them. 

 

I rather typically got ahead of myself and celebrated getting a new archimedes screw drill by drilling out the instruments from the instrument panel. I then filed the back of the panel flat, laid the decal down, and sealed with some varnish. Then dropped in small bits of gloss varnish from the front with a toothpick.

While all that was very satisfying, I hadn't realised the windshield on a P40 allows for a decent view of the back of the instrument panel. Serves me right for rushing on.  

 

 

Anyway - was happy with the cockpit which came together fine. And the two fuselage halves went together nicely. 

 

 

After some sanding and filling and priming the seam along the joins was removed, leaving on the tail join to be sorted out. This was a bit more work than I had anticipated. And frankly - even by the end I wasn't thrilled, as there's a minor step visible. But I think it will do for now. 

Edited January 15, 2017 by bruce bay

[bruce bay]

Sorry - somehow posted that a bit early... Here's pt.2. Getting to grips with the site. 

 

Next up I did the basic wing assembly and pre-shaded panels / areas with white and grey primer. Likely won't come through on the top - but I think it's worth it for the underside, and in some lights gives a subtle variation on control surfaces... For now. 

 

Next up - all the 'big bits' went on, and after a primer coat on went some Tamiya olive, followed by the usual fun of masking with tape and plasticine before a light coat of Tamiya dark earth. 

 

 

 

 

Pretty happy with how it's looking now. I used the Eduard canopy mask - and though it was perfect for most panels - the 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock sections (as pilot would see) came as two pieces - with a considerable gap between them. I fully intended to fill this will Tamiya tape - then totally forgot and sprayed away... very annoying indeed. 

 

Thanks for looking. 

 

 

[bruce bay]

Having looked at this again tonight - I am tempted to try and remove the erroneous glazing bars.

 

Has anyone here tried taking a layer of rattle can primer + Tamiya paint off transparent parts before? I was thinking of carefully scraping away with a fresh scalpel blade, then polishing with Future on a cotton bud, but I am wary of making a mess... Would rather neat and erroneous to opaque and accurate I think.

 

Any tips on this would be most welcome.  Many thanks.  

[Bell209]

Despite the error, it's looking great!

[Uncle Uncool]

On ‎16‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 8:09 PM, bruce bay said:

Has anyone here tried taking a layer of rattle can primer + Tamiya paint off transparent parts before? I was thinking of carefully scraping away with a fresh scalpel blade, then polishing with Future on a cotton bud, but I am wary of making a mess... Would rather neat and erroneous to opaque and accurate I think.

 

Any tips on this would be most welcome.  Many thanks.  

 

Hey, Bruce.

A new scalpel bIade might work, but due to its sharpness, it may as well dent the clear surface. I once used a 2mm-wide chisel blade to scrap paint from a vac-form canopy; stroke the paint carefully from top to bottom - or viceversa, but not from the sides - tryin' that the minimum surface of the convex chisel blade surface got in contact with the clear piece.

Sometimes I also used an eraser of those who are useful for both ink 'n' pencil lead, use the former in order to strike 'em paint. But I'd first see whether I could get rid of most 'em paint by stickin' some tacky tape to then carefully unstick it against 'em paint.

Hope it works, mate.

Cheers,

 

Unc²  

Edited January 19, 2017 by Uncle Uncool
"Stroked?" Well, "stroke" is nay a present verb, either

[spitfire]

I usually cut a chisel edge in a cocktail stick and that normally does the job.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[bruce bay]

4 hours ago, Uncle Uncool said:

 

Hey, Bruce.

A new scalpel bIade might work, but due to its sharpness, it may as well dent the clear surface. I once used a 2mm-wide chisel blade to scrap paint from a vac-form canopy; stroke the paint carefully from top to bottom - or viceversa, but not from the sides - tryin' that the minimum surface of the convex chisel blade surface got in contact with the clear piece.

Sometimes I also used an eraser of those who are useful for both ink 'n' pencil lead, use the former in order to strike 'em paint. But I'd first see whether I could get rid of most 'em paint by stickin' some tacky tape to then carefully unstick it against 'em paint.

Hope it works, mate.

Cheers,

 

Unc²  

 

Hi - thanks so much for the suggestions. Hadn't thought of any of these - will definitely start with the tape route, which hadn't crossed my mind... I take enough paint off with masking tape accidentally - hopefully due a bit of intentional removal! 

[bruce bay]

4 hours ago, spitfire said:

I usually cut a chisel edge in a cocktail stick and that normally does the job.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

And thanks for this tip too - this will be my second approach, should lifting it off with tape not work out.

 

Cheers again

[bruce bay]

No joy with the tape, or the toothpick - sadly. I think I will err on the tidy side, and leave the error in place.

 

This build hasn't been quite as much of a 1/32 romance as the Corsair. The more I look at it, the more I am unhappy with the joins on the wing/fuselage line. I also just saw a youtube build of this kit where someone smarter than me glued the wing uppers to the fuselage before attaching them to the lower wing section... Which would have helped me. 

 

Similarly - the gap behind the rear cockpit section is upsetting...

 

I suspect the perfection of the Tamiya 1/32 Corsair rather flattered my building skills. It threw itself together really. 

 

Anyway. Onwards... 

Onto the landing gear, added some wire using superglue and small drilled holes, as well as some tamiya tape. Never tried adding wire to undercarriage before, quite happy with how it came out.

 

What's the best wire to use for things like this? I am using fuse wire, but it can be quite hard to work with - is there another type of wiring that's softer, or easier to fashion into the shape desired? Sorry if this is a obvious one. 

 

Anyway - I will be doing this as standard from now on - for not much effort it certainly makes these parts look a bit more interesting. 

I also applied a very light dusting of Humbrol poweder pigment to take the shine off the black I used on the tyres. Once the wheels are on and the rest of the kit is complete I plan to add a bit more muck to the wheels, but don't want to yet as I will likely just knock it off before the build is done. 

 

I completed the spinner / prop too. Brushed some thinned gloss onto the props to help the decals settle, then applied a little micro-set before spongeing on a little Valejo aluminium for wear. Getting there. 

 

 

Thanks for looking. Any comments or criticism welcome as ever. 

 

Bruce

 

 

 

 

[woody37]

No criticism from me, looks lovely

 

[S48]

On 15.01.2017 at 8:23 PM, bruce bay said:

 

 

Edited January 21, 2017 by S48

[The Spadgent]

Looking great. I've run out of likes but I really do LIKE what you are doing here. Bit late to the party for the canopy paint removal thang but if you do want to remove it you could use micro mesh pads. Basically sanding pads that go from high grit to polish in about 12 ish steps. Great for removing seams in canopys.

strange a cocktail stick didn't work. Are you using acrylic paint? 

 

John.

[Thom216]

Looking real good. Liking the paint work in the 'pit!

[Mr B]

Really nice

 

rgds

 

[bruce bay]

On 1/22/2017 at 10:30 PM, The Spadgent said:

Looking great. I've run out of likes but I really do LIKE what you are doing here. Bit late to the party for the canopy paint removal thang but if you do want to remove it you could use micro mesh pads. Basically sanding pads that go from high grit to polish in about 12 ish steps. Great for removing seams in canopys.

strange a cocktail stick didn't work. Are you using acrylic paint? 

 

John.

 

Thank you very much for the encouraging words, and the micro mesh suggestion... I will look into those - sounds well worth having a few about.

 

The cockpit situation is as follows. Once masked off it was given a thin layer of this stuff - https://www.darksphere.co.uk/c.php?c=299 in it's dark grey primer colour. And on top of that a fairly light coat of Tamiya acrylic.

 

I almost feel like it might have come off if the paint had gone on thicker... I will give it another crack with the toothpick, and after that sign the error off under 'will know better next time'. 

 

 

Cheers again 

 

 

[bruce bay]

Thanks again to everyone for the encouraging comments, and tips. This is now being signed off to the 'completed' bin. 

 

It was, as I mentioned before, a bit of a come-down from the 1/32 Corsair - which I do feel was so perfectly designed that it made tidy construction almost automatic. I am not unhappy with this build, but am quite excited to retreat back to 1/48 next. 

 

Since the last updates not a great deal happened. I brushed on some gloss varnish before putting down the major decals, which were then given some MicroSol. I have never tried a shark mouth decal before, and was pleasantly surprised by how easily it settled down. Shark mouth was brush painted over the leading edge of the air intake.

 

Once decals were set I did a few filter washes of burnt umber and lemon yellow to create a general air of bleaching, before putting on a pin wash for panel lines - both oil washes. Then, with the canopy parts masked off I applied a light coat of matt rattle can varnish. Which left a less than uniform patina on the paintwork which you can see in some images, but all in all I am not too disappointed by that. 

 

Navigation lights were painted white, before being given a lick of watered down Valejo acrylics, which I think looks a little more translucent than straight Valejo on a dark colour, though that might be wishful thinking. 

 

Then some dust and dirt was brushed on areas of likely footfall, and more heavily over the wheels - before being set with drops of white spirit. 

 

I finally tried (four times) to get the antennae on - but had a real shocker with it. I tried stretched melted sprue, cotton thread, and my own (all together too long) hair - none of it worked out well, and it was making a mess of the paintwork at attachment points. So I conceded defeat. 

 

Once again - thanks for all the comments. Much appreciated. 

 

Bruce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Spadgent]

That looks good enough to eat.

great shark mouth too. 

 

johnny

[John_W]

Beautiful.

Wish I had the room for 1/32

[bruce bay]

14 hours ago, John_W said:

Beautiful.

Wish I had the room for 1/32

 

14 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

That looks good enough to eat.

great shark mouth too. 

 

johnny

 

Thanks to both of you! 

 

I do love the interior detailing fun one gets with 1/32, but as mentioned - more than ready to shuffle back to the 1/48 world after this one.

 

Thanks for the comments and encouragement.