AML 1/72 Armee de l'Air Curtiss P-36

[Peter Lloyd]

The battle continues. Progress is steady but I must admit my enthusiasm is running down a bit.

It was time to attach the cowl. Start by offering it up to the fuse and it looks like his:

I looked at this for quite some time, and even glued it on so I could move it around to get the best compromise fit. This revealed the cowl is too wide (bearing in mind the back of the cowl is a 'normal' panel line, as the cooling flaps are in the middle of the cowl, chordwise). So out came some rough emergy boards:

This thinned, the cowl was clamped the help the sides sit flush. At this stage the gap underneath the cowl was the worst part, but not too bad:

But, oh dear, returning the next day, my Curtiss thought it was a Bloch MB152:

The cowl was prised off again, and the mating surfaces judiciously sanded and shaved, and even a small shim was put in on one side. I didn't get it perfect but it's pretty close now. Time to take a couple of general pics:

I decided to add pushrod tubes to the motor, which required one valve cover to be added as it was short-shot in the mould. No big deal. I am too cowardly for ignition wires.

I then inserted the firewall from the front, it fit quite well, but was too far forward. I carved the engine mount boss down with the Dremel:

Bringing me to the current state of play:

In between the photo taken with the airframe on pegs, and the engine, I completely assembled and interior painted an Academy Me-163, just to clear out my head a bit.

[dazdot]

That is looking lime one he'll of a build well done keep going we've all had builds like that

[Wolwe82]

nice work so far i was tempted to go for P-36, but only available to me is the old Heller/Smer tooling :/ this one ll look great in the end

[Procopius]

I really want to build a Mohawk IV, but this thread is a reminder that all of the more modern kits were tooled by the hand of Lucifer in Hell itself.

[Cookenbacher]

Agreed, I don't think my skills are ready for this level of challenge yet.

But obviously yours are Peter. This is going to look great.

Also, loving the engine detail.

[Tom Hall]

I am happy to see that you are not reluctant to grind and file the surface as needed.

[Peter Lloyd]

I hate filler so a lot of this work is carried out in the name of trying not to use it. So far nothing has been especially hard, just very time-consuming. I think if one were to be hasty to apply glue and press on, this model could be a really bad time.

The cowl lip went on okay, some sanding back needed and I couldn't persuade the panel lines to match up with the cowl in the best position.

Canvas bags in the wheel bays, from tissue painted on with diluted white glue.

Vac canopy, one is for the P-36, the other for the P-40. I cut mine out with small, sharp, expensive scissors:

It should work, but there is no fuselage coaming behind the windshield at all. I don't really know what to glue this on with, yet. I'm not sure about white glue with the sharp edge:

Took a little too much off this side. I have used vac canopies a couple of times, always with poor results:

The 'back windows' are a bit large, I just kept sanding them down until they dropped in. This is before sanding:

Paint at last. A pre-shade:

Some camo. Gunze paint kept drying on the airbrush needle despite drying retarder, so getting a tight demarcation was a bit of a battle. Most French P-36s show a quite soft-edged, bu new-looking or well kept-paint finish. The grey colour is not as blue as it appears:

This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

[dazdot]

I like that a lot nice work on the colouring

[Peter Lloyd]

Forgot to mention that seam where the cowl was fitted to the fuselage, that is not an 'ordinary seam' but should be a bit open to vent out gasses. So the post beginning 'the battle continues' shows parts that are engineered that way for a reason.

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning Peter

Very good work so far

I have this on in my stash but my modelling skill is not ready for building it ..

[Skids]

Another cracking build there Peter

[Peter Lloyd]

The battle continues! And of course the closer we get to the objective, the more desperately our implacable enemy fights!

I was sorely tempted to repaint the model. The surface has scratch marks where I didn't finish sanding with a nice, fine grit of paper. And the last parts to be fitted, the resin cowl gun fairings and exhaust fairings, did not look good enough. And my camo demarcation was a bit blurry. Normally I'd cover a lot of this under weathering, but heavy weathering is not appropriate for a P-36 from the Battle of France in my opinion.

But in the end, I couldn't bring myself to repaint, so it was on with a coat of Xtracrylix gloss (which seems like a tub of PVA glue and always seems to go on 'pebbly'). This was buffed a few hours later with Mother's Plastic Polish and a piece of cotton rag.

Now, it would not be the first time my effort at a Britmodeller Group Build has derailed in a disastrous decal debacle (I'm trying to get a job in tabloid TV news). The motorcycle group build of about 18 months ago was a case in point.

The kit has decals by Tally Ho. I tend to look forward to the decaling stage on Czech kits, but experience has taught me that these decals seem to have a shelf life, and with this kit being about 12 years old, I expected 'issues'. And despite my caution, I got 'em:

[Peter Lloyd]

The decals were basically extremely fragile. I've had a very similar experience with a Pavla decal set, also about the same age. Perhaps a spray of some clear coat would have helped. The smaller decals were okay, as long as one was very patient to allow the decal almost fully separate from the backing paper. I dipped and waited, then kept returning the decal to the water, immersing half the design until it was starting to visibly separate in the water. Even with this treatment, the larger designs would fall apart just from their friction/weight on the paper. As you can see I persevered, returning soapy water to the model surface and making sure the decal did not get to settle in one place without having some moisture underneath. Once that happens, it's impossible to get them moving again.

The pieces of the black serial number were carefully assembled, and the 'X' was returned to the water, allowed to flatten out, then a piece of decal paper was put in the water and the decal 'scooped' onto it such that it laid flat. Very tedious, but all in all, crisis averted. The decals will be 'repairable' with masks and paint, with any remaining blemishes simply taking their place among the many others I have come to accept will afflict this build.

I guess I'll have to again wait before I can produce one of those stunning models like the really good builders make.

[Procopius]

Self-weathering decals, I'll be damned.

[dazdot]

Like pc I quite like the effect of those certainly hasn't ruined it

[AnonymousDFB1]

Looking good, great recovery with the decals

[Tom Hall]

Ouch. What tools did you use to get the decal bits into alignment? I'd say you've done quite well in your decal repair.

You've got an excellent camera for this. May I ask what kind?

Edited March 7, 2015 by Tom Hall

[Peter Lloyd]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, which certainly does help. Perhaps a key to the recovery was to not panic.

Tom, I just pushed the pieces into place with the sharp, curved tweezers in the pic, my favourite modelling tweezers. I have some straight ones as well that I use often but the curved ones are just that bit handier. For decals, they also have a useful 'flat' for pushing them around. They're probably a bit too sharp for fragile decals but this is asking for perfection. The other 'tools' were water and a tissue, the tissue to control the amount of water. These pics are taken with a Canon G10. It's a very nice camera in terms of optics and features (if rather big), it accepts full manual controls, and can make RAW format pics (ie, enormous files that can be heavily edited, and produce a virtual SLR-quality image). BUT the zoom on it has stopped working, and it has a very occasional habit of just 'losing' photos from the disc. My girlfriend spent six days walking the Overland Track, an iconic Tasmania wilderness walk, and this happened when she got home. The other very useful time it happened was after a family wedding. I wouldn't buy another, but it could just be mine.

[Tom Hall]

I have an old Canon SD600 which also had the zoom fail, but I had it fixed. Thanks for the info. I may look into buying something like that.

Glad you kept a cool head. But did you say a naughty word when the decals were uncooperative? I would have!

[stevej60]

Great work especially with the decal issue,love the paintwork.

[Cookenbacher]

This is looking great Peter, I don't know how you managed to get all those reluctant decals in the right place.

[Old Man]

This is looking very nice, Sir.

Great to have a reconnaissance report on the kit.

[Peter Lloyd]

Sorry for the lack of recent progress, annoying Other Life Committments getting in the way.

I think I left things in the (apparent) closing stages. The kit maintained its guerrilla warfare right to the end. The resin undercarriage doors and some other details went on not too badly. I got to a stage of apparent near-completeness:

But the canopy is moulded too narrow, and is under pressure to spring upward. Also, without carefully cutting a small right-angle in front of the canopy rail and below the windscreen, the rail on one side would not sit properly, a situation exacerbated by the springiness. So the white glue I used did not hold. I went in again with two-part epoxy, and fought the gap that results from the windcsreen edge following exactly the coaming over the instrument panel:

Eventually got this, with epoxy mess unfortunately contaminating things:

There are decals for the rudder tricolour, but I painted mine. I should have brushed something on the decals to stop them disintegrating, but time was now pressing hard to finish. One side exploded, the other went on okay. I left off the very small lettering under these stencils:

And because I have to get on an aeroplane and travel interstate in a few hours, that is it for me for this group build and for this kit. PE ring-and-bead sight and perhaps those fin-to-wingtip antennae might follow before I put it in the cabinet. This kit did go beyond the usual short-run kit trials, although the plastic, resin and PE itself is well-executed. It would be interesting to try this with aftermarket decals and perhaps an Airfix P-40B canopy, appropriately re-shaped and polished.

I guess this is as good a place as any to thank everyone involved in administration of the group build, those who have posted such inspirational models, and especially those who have helped me or taken interest in this project. Final pics in the gallery.

[mirageiv]

[dazdot]

Great work that nice one Peter