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A Pair of P-40Ks (Sword 1/72)


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Hey all,

 

Well according to my profile it's been a good 3 years since I lasted posted here. It's mad to think in that time I've finished a Post-Graduate degree, bought my first home, got married and expecting my first on the way later this year. Amazing what you can do when you have a few years off the hobby eh ;)

Anyhow as with a lot of these things I've had the calling to come back (I can only pre-occupy myself with ConflictMallet for so long) and atleast try to make a dent in my stash, starting with this Sword kit. I've always loved the P-40, not entirely sure why but it's definitely up there with my favourite fighters of WW2, so when I saw this peeking out at me from the cupboard I grabbed it.

 

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Nice boxart, note to self: must build an IJAAF Oscar at some point.

 

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It's a simple kit, not many parts and a little bit of detailing inside the cockpit. It would likely scrub up well with a few aftermarket items but I'll be doing this 100% OOB.

 

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A nice decal sheet with a varied number of subjects. I'll definitely be going for the USSR scheme (it has the Red Stars on the upper-wings which is not very common), however I'm not sure between the New Guinea or North African USAAF options. I'm always a sucker for Desert schemes but I can't pass up the opportunity to have an aircraft called "Nick Nichols' Nip Nippers" either.

 

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Oh yes did I mention you get 2 in a box? Great value for money I think (I got this for about £14 I think a few years back). It would be rude not to do them alongside each other, so this is a double build.

 

I'll hopefully not disappear for another 3 years this time 😛

Edited by Dynamo11
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Welcome back to the hobby!

 

I've recently moved my stash to a new home and this kit bobbed to the surface.  I also seem to have picked up a decent aftermarket set for one model, the idea being to do one OOTB* with closed canopy and one with the etched bits opened up.  Will be following this build, best of luck and have fun!

 

* Except for that rudder control horn on the port side, I can never seem to leave those alone. 🙄

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I’ll tag along if I may! I do love a p-40.

 

welcome back to the hobby after a busy 3 years! Now you can have some peace and quiet  and relax building a few kits.... oh wait you have a kid on the way 😬

 

Rob

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I'll follow along if I may, I have developed a liking for P40s, having done a couple as a tandem build recently. Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

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I have the same 2 in 1 box P-40K  release and will be following your build to see how they turn out- they look good in the box! The short fuselage K is my favorite P-40 next to the P-40B/C/Tomahawk. Welcome back- you were a busy little buckaroo during your sabbatical!

Mike

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15 hours ago, Dynamo11 said:

3 years since I lasted posted here.

Welcome back but I think your time being back will be curtailed upon the arrival of your first, so enjoy the time you have and get building. :poke:

P-40's, what's not to like.

 

Stuart

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Built the Airfix Tomahawk kit earlier this year. It's a lovely and somewhat underrated airplane. I was certainly pleased with the results (although I do seem to gravitate towards schemes that were applied with a  4" brush in real life :) )

 

 

Edited by Marklo
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Hey all,

Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement with this project, it's definitely got me more excited to get stuck into some more advanced projects. For the meantime it's time to start on the P-40s.

 

First up was the cockpit instrument panel, it's a nicely moulded part but I am not even going to attempt to actually paint in the dials (not that you'd see much in this scale anyway).

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I gave it a black basecoat to work off of then I heavily drybrushed it with Vallejo "Black Grey" from all directions. I applied a wash of GW "Nuln Oil" to help darken the highlight before then reapplying the Black Grey but only from the top this time to give the dials a sense of depth. I finally added a few spots of red in various places for a bit of colour. I really like the final result and should look good when it's in the cockpit. It was at this point whilst adding the gunsights that one decided to ping off and was promptly eaten by the carpet monster, which is unfortunate but I'll hope the canopy hides it well enough.

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It was onto the rest of the cockpit and the sidewalls, here I found a pretty interesting discussion concerning the cockpit colour. The instructions call for US Interior Green, and indeed I've used that before on various US aircraft. I painted the sidewalls Vallejo "Interior Green" but it struck me as being quite dark compared to the reference images I had seen on the internet. I went on a quest and discovered that, although Interior Green indeed was the official colour for most US fighter aircraft interiors, before 1943 this was not standardised. In the case of the pre-1943 P-40s it appears Zinc Chromate Green was used, and sure enough the Vallejo equivalent I had of that more closely matched the references. So Vallejo "Green Zinc Chromate" went on which I then followed with a heavy wash of GW "Agrax Earthshade" to dirty it up. I then went back over and edge highlighted the more prominent surfaces with the base colour. I also picked out some of the black areas with Vallejo "NATO Black" before highlighting them with Black Grey.

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I then drybrushed Vallejo "Silver" going particularly heavy on the floor where the paint would be most easily rubbed off. References to the seat in the P-40 suggest they were either painted the cockpit colour or just bare-aluminium, I decided to go for the aluminium to add a bit of colour to the cockpit. I painted the seat Vallejo "Gungrey", washed it with Nuln Oil and edge highlighted with Silver.

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With all the cockpit parts completed it was time to add them, and the front air filters, into the fuselage and bring them both together. The fit of the fuselage is pretty dodgy, don't expect Tamiya engineering here. On both examples the only way I could get the tail and rear to line up would leave a gap at the front of about 2-3mm. Not a massive gap by any means and an easy job to fill and sand but for such a recent kit I would have expected it to have fit slightly better.

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And here's the two together:

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It's coming together quite quickly, even doing two at once, soon I'll put on the wings and getting ready for painting. At this point I'm considering buying some PE seatbelts to place on the seats, they are just so prominent that it looks a bit too stark for my liking.

Edited by Dynamo11
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Hey all,

Got a bit more done this afternoon, I filled and sanded the fuselage halves down and then set about adding the wings. The fuselage wing root was far too wide on both sides needing copious amounts of sanding to get it to fit onto the wing correctly. I knew I'd have to fill the gap anyway so I sanded more off than needed to ensure a smooth transition. Again it's not the biggest job in the world but if you're after a quick throw together kit for a weekend then this ain't it (the Academy and Airfix P-40s however, practically fall together with no fit issues to speak of in my experience).

 

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Once the wing was set I went about adding the undercarriage and tail planes. There's no slots for the tailplanes, just smooth roots so you have to hold the stabiliser for a bit to ensure it's on straight which is slightly annoying.

 

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Just a few more bits and bobs now and they'll be ready for painting. I've decided to do the Desert USAAF scheme, "Nick Nichols' Nip Nippers" will have to be one for the future.

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14 hours ago, Courageous said:

Quick question 'coz I don't know, why are internals at the side windows different colours to th interior green? :shrug:

 

Stuart

Ah yes I meant to address this. The consensus on the colour of P-40 side windows seems to be mixed. They were either the same interior green as the cockpit or repainted over with the camouflage colours. I've decided to do the USSR P-40 with the interior green whereas the Desert USAAF scheme will have it over-painted with a Sand colour. Whether this is accurate or not I'm not sure but this seems to make more sense to me seeing as the USSR plane was directly delivered from the USA whereas the Desert P-40 was repainted in North Africa. The darker green is the Interior Green I mentioned earlier which I initially applied before realising the dark shade was only standard after 1943 and replaced it with Zinc Chromate Green.

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Quote

 the USSR plane was directly delivered from the USA 

I wouldn't necessarily assume that as my Tomahawk came to the USSR via the RAF and had the roundels crudely overpainted before (some) stars were applied.

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On 5/20/2019 at 9:57 AM, Marklo said:

I wouldn't necessarily assume that as my Tomahawk came to the USSR via the RAF and had the roundels crudely overpainted before (some) stars were applied.

From what I can tell the P-40Ks that the USSR received were an order placed by the RAF but were then diverted onto the USSR. As such they were painted in RAF colour schemes at the factory in the USA (with American paint equivalents), I think the Tomahawks were a lot more hasty as the USSR were dying for any kind of modern fighter aircraft when they received those.

Edited by Dynamo11
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey all,

 

Found some time this morning to finish off the construction of the P-40s. I added the props, undercarriage doors, wheels and the canopy. Of course it was only after the canopy went on I suddenly saw a headrest shaped piece on the sprue. I double-checked the instructions to see how I could have missed it and sure enough they miss out adding the headrest to the cockpit. Something to keep in mind if you build these Sword kits.

 

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They're all ready now for a coat of primer and painting so stay tuned for that.

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