AVG P-40B

[CheshireGap]

I haven't done a WIP for ages, and this seemed like a good candidate; it's the second iteration of the Airfix P-40 and like many recent Airfix kits there is much to praise, and some to criticise. The design and the parts breakdown are ambitious and in some places clever, but the mould-making is a let down, with too much cleaning up required to get the parts to fit as the designer intended. There are some inaccuracies and omissions but they are in the main easy to fix, or simply ignore...

I opted to for the AVG scheme, but rather than the aircraft supplied, 47, I wanted to do number 68 as there are a number of good colour photos around, not least this one:

 

 

That is RT Smith in front of 68, though I believe this was not his aircraft, rather it was flown by Chuck Older; weathering will be a challenge, look at that dust, particularly where it has been caught in the fuel stains

 

Starting at the usual place, the cockpit, Airfix have done a good job with the detail, but the side panels need a lot of cleaning up, and some of the supplied decals are simply never going to fit over the large rivets that adorn the cross members, so I picked the ones that would and ignored the rest; I also didn't bother with the supplied instrument panel decal, it too looked like far more trouble than it was worth

 

 

 

Next up, wings: these git well by and large, but I took issue with the undercarriage housings. Photos like this one show that there should be a continuous contour with the wings for rather than the rounded "knuckle" supplied, very clear in this photo amongst others:

 

 

Bigger versions of this shot clearly show covers on all the gun muzzles, I might be trying to reproduce those...

Anyway I opted to use the old 3M putty to sculpt the front of the undercarriage housings to alter the contour

 

 

 

At this point I decided to use the RB Production River-R I got for Christmas to apply some rivets all over the airframe - probably the least accurate modification I have done as unlike many WWII aircraft they appear to be simply invisible on the real thing!

 

 

This is a quick build, there are not many parts and most of the time is spent fettling the parts to get the best fit, and before long wings are done, fuselage is wrapped up and the two are together

 

 

I added a small triangular tab on the leading edge of the fin, again this shows clearly on the contemporary photos, although the precise wiring arrangement of the aerials is unclear, and I may be controversial about this later, and not add a wire out to the port wing as it simply is not apparent in any picture I have seen of 68

 

 

Primer on and the rivets look subtle at this point - the Rivet-R is a big improvement on the Trumpeter tool I was using previously, much easier!

 

 

Next up, marbling

 

 

I auditioned a number of options for the camouflage colours (colour balance is off, so you will just have to trust my eventual choices!):

 

Based on this shot amongs others I opted for the Humbrol Dark Earth 29 and the Tamiya Dark Green 2 (RAF) XF-81 as a good match - basically the brown should be lighter/more faded than the standard RAF version, and the green darker

 

And then the both colours airbrushed somewhat lighter than they brushed! (Colour balance is off again on the second one, it looks worse than it is)

 

 

I have gone for hard edges as again that matches the original aircraft.

This catches up with my progress to date, I am hoping that the colours can be taken down a bit with pastels, weathering and some varnish coats. I am pleased with hose the panel lines and rivets are showing through with the black primer to the extent that I doubt I will be using any washes to highlight them further.

 

[f111guru]

Looking good and a great subject. I have quite a few p-40's in my stash in all scales. Some new most old and lacking in the amount of parts. But we do with what we have to start with and progress from there. Again great subject. Watching with interest

 

Ron VanDerwarker

[CheshireGap]

Time to finish off this WiP...first I started the weathering with some fairly heavy chipping along the leading edge, which was very noticeable on these machines

 

 

The riveting still looks subtle, no wash here it looks right to me as it is

 

 

Then it's on to the decals and here things get controversial...I could only find one after-market set still available, by Kits-World, though there was a SkyModels set out of stock/production, and it disappointing:

- the Airfix Tiger motif is too orange, and having the  blue chevrons associated with 47 is not appropriate for 68 but the Kits-World Tiger is too big; I went for the Kits-World as I did not fancy my chances of removing the blue chevron from the Airfix, so my Tigers are inaccurate in size

- Kits-World supply only one angel for the port side, but photos of the starboard side suggest there is one there too, also walking right to left rather than the traditional mirror image. I wasn't willing to spend nearly a tenner on a second sheet just for one decal so I went with an inaccurate one

- the Airfix Chinese star is one star point short, but the Kits-World versions are again too big, and do not have a faded blue for the upper roundels. That faded appearance is again signature for these birds, so I went with the more correctly sized and coloured Airfix version with the inaccurate number of stars for the upper and the Kits-World for the lower as the colour is correct for there

- Controversial Comment #1: There is no star on the starboard wing! I know, every profile and build out there has one, but this photo (I enlarged a section to make it clearer) seems unequivocal so I left it off:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TGazVua2JFVY6kV6A

- Controversial Comment #2: for 68 it seems to me that everyone has the shark mouth wrong: Kits-World has the inside painted blue, which I could find little evidence for in the colour pictures which seem to show the camo demarcation line showing clearly between the teeth and only one b+w picture of the starboard side that appears to show a solid colour

- but worst Kits-World and SkyModels (and every build I could find) has a thin black line outlining the sharkmouth but pictures clearly show a thick black line:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RYuNXsDtXN45ziCcA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/a2FghcTmrtz8MTVi7

 

Given then that there are no correct sharkmouths out there, and my masking skills are not up to it, I decided that I would use the Airfix sharkmouth from 47 rather than the Kits-World version with its blue inner; this was probably a good choice as the Airfix one fitted remarkably well with little trouble outside of my own clumsiness

 

 

But overall how disappointing! All my attempts to create an accurate 68 scuppered by a Hobson's Choice of inaccurate decals, and a fair amount ofmoney spent to boot!

 

Onwards regardless...I had bought the Master cannon barrels as they are more accurate: the wing guns have slots rather than holes, the nose cannon have the angled blast tubes. The holes in the wing had previously been filled and drilled to match rather than the over-sized half-moons Airfix provide for their parts. Also included are the ring and bead sights, so these also went on.

 

 

Brake lines:

 

 

And the seat goes in with some Eduard belts (sorry for the poor sharpness)

 

 

Finally it was time for the remaining small parts and glazing, the aerial wires from invisible thread (Controversial Comment #3: study of photos left me convinced there was no wire out to the port wing, and given the radio non-standard configurations on many AVG machines, I thought this was plausible and only fitted the starboard wire). I added the white aerial insulators on the upper rear spine that Airfix do not provide, although I think they are overscale and may knock them off and replace, and it was finished! Photos to appear in Ready for Inspection soon...

 

Edit: Apologies, the photos are staying as links and not displaying properly as I hoped, I am now using Google photos instead of Flickr so this may be the issue

Edit 2: Fixed at least some of the photos now Flickr is letting me back in

 

Edited March 25, 2019 by CheshireGap
Photo links not working

[John_W]

I notice you put in shoulder straps. There is some debts as to whether or not AVG aircraft just had lap belts.