Old Man

Here's how things stand after the weekend: Most of what I did was improvised, and in increments, so not conducive to pictures. Once the mouth of the radiator tunnel was put in, I re-built the rest of it in sturdier plastic. The angle is better, and the rear matched to the 'slots' accommodating the main land-gear struts. The cockpit opening is properly dressed, the headrest in place. My 'stub' method for fillets did not pan out, I built some up with 1mm x 0.5mm strip (uppers only). The tail is only temporarily on, as an aid to alignment. The P-6E had smaller elevators than the earlier Hawks, with straight trailing edges. I have extended the kit piece to the proper trailing edge 'wedge'. The balance area of the rudder on the P-6E was smaller than the earlier Hawks, and the kit piece is re-scribed accordingly. I don't know what the tear-drop thing on the starboard side is, but it was there....

I claim no credit, sheer good fortune. It's a new wrinkle to incorporate so many major kit parts. Kind of like an old 'Body Shop' conversion fuselage.

There's actually a bit less here than meets the eye.... I had intended to do cowling detail, but figured I should nail down cabane locations first. I tacked together the fuselage and lower wing of another kit, using it as a jig to attach the interplane struts to the upper wing (painted and decaled first). I put the lower wings to the fuselage with a couple of easily breakable dots of CA gel. I did not expect to find at this stage the struts fit squarely in the locating holes. However they did. So I went ahead and made the wing root attachment permanent. I sawed the cabanes off the donor kit's fuselage, and tacked the whole thing together for the moment with white glue. The cabanes meet the fuselage where they should, by measure from the stern-post, and relative to the exhaust stacks. I'll take it apart to finally do surface detail on the fuselage. That will be a little trickier with the lower wings on, but serendipitous fit is worth it.

This is shaping up great!

I have got back to this after finishing another project, a simultaneous build of a USS Ranger Wildcat and a Vichy Hawk 75 during Operation Torch (they're the last entries in the Revell/Monogram Classic GB Gallery). The front decking before the cockpit is a layer of 2mm and of 1.5mm sheet, trimmed and shaped. A notch has been cut to accommodate the tail assembly, and stringer indications scraped in.. My intent was to do surface detail on the cowling, and I started by marking where the exhaust stacks and wing roots would be, so things would be in proper relation to these. I decided to scribe a marking line for the exhaust, Near the very front on the starboard side, things had got too thin and crumpled. I had at least got the lines at the same height (marked by tacked in rod). I started trimming away the crumple to put in a patch, and realized I'd do better to just remove the whole 'section'. I could build up to the slot with squared rod, and the lengths of rod representing the pipes could attach to the 'spine' of the cowling. So I did that on both sides. The twelve exhausts go into a length of 13mm. The front two have to do in a notch and hoe arrangement into the front plate. The projections on the starboard side remain from sighting in to see the slots were the same length and at the same height on the cowling. I used 0.9mm round rod. Here both runs are in, and trimmed level (they will be shorter, though). I decided I had a technique, and when I marked wing-root position, went ahead and pierced through deliberately. It opened between the cockpit floor and the structural bottom of the fuselage. Here's the wing roots into the slots for positioning. Once I squared the slots, I found to hand a strip of 2mm sheet just the right width... It passes clear through, and will provide material for the dillets at the wing root. This is where I'vee stopped for now. The pass-through is fastened and trimmed down: it projects 2mm from the fuselage sides. Rear cockpit decking is permanent, the sides are just roughed in at present, enough to show I can slip in the plot later.

Certainly, Sir.

If I recall correctly, Sir, the pigment was rust, iron-oxide if we're being fancy.

Thanks, Jean. It came right in the end. I scuffed the stripes up a bit with some washes. It is a snazzy finish. I'd like to do a Vichy Morane 406 in Indo-China, that was an odd bunch with some history behind the machines.

Thanks, Noel. I worked with the raised lines and rivets. I brush on acrylics cut with Future. Between each thin coat I go over everything with a 5000 grit pad. By the time the color is solid, there's nothing too proud of the surface left. I use the raised lines/ rivets as a guide, drawing in the lines in ordinary pencil before each coat, and it shows through nicely, I think. I've always wondered how much use squadron emblems were, whether things like that could be noticed in action, but in some of the radio chatter I've seen quoted, somebody called out 'Hey, didn't that used to be an American squadron?'

Thanks, George. It is an odd little passage. Probably the P-40 is a bit more contemporaneous than the P-36 with the Wildcat, but they were pretty close. The Hawk really got around, fighting on just about all sides of the Second World War.

Thanks, man. The Hawk is, I must say, a better looking aeroplane than the Wildcat, even without the gaudier finish here.

Thanks, Steve. It was easy to miss, it got put aside a while, and only finished in a deadline press.

Nicely done, Paul! Good to see it finished.

That's quite something.... How big is it?

Wonderful model, Russ!