P-40M, Burma Banshee, Hobby Boss 1/72

[opus999]

My next build is the Hobby Boss "Easy Assembly" P-40M, which will be a Burma Banshee.

 

 

I'm waiting for my AK Interactive paint to cure on my F-80C so I thought I'd start something else.  I need to whittle down the stash.  I'm trying to achieve equilibrium (that is 1:1 build to buy ratio) so I wanted to start something that wouldn't take a long time.  The kit is relatively straightforward, the paint scheme is basic, and I have all the paints on my bench -- so... Hat trick! Plus, I've had P-40s on the brain lately.

 

I decided to do the Burma Banshees because the first model I finished by myself was this old snap tite gem:

 

 

It's still at my parent's house and I have a warm spot in my heart for it, so I thought I'd make another one! I sourced these decals:

 

 

I have a love/hate relationship with the Hobby Boss easy assembly line.  The outer detail is usually pretty good, the inner detail can be really bad, the fit can be good or bad depending on the kit. But, in many cases, they do subjects that are not readily available from another kit maker.  In this case, it was this kit or the Academy kit, and when I looked at the atrocious shape issues on the Academy kit, this was definitely the winner for me!

 

Every HB easy assembly seems to have one major flaw and in this case, it is the insert that allows them to box either an "N" or "M" model with the same sprues. 

 

 

I thought I'd sand the bottom of it to drop it down, but luckily I dry-fit it and found that the canopy would hold it in place, so any sanding on the bottom would just make a bigger gap.  So I had to sand down from the top.  I cut off the antenna mast (to be reattached later) and sanded away. Once I had it roughly where I wanted it, I worked on the cockpit. A little paint, silver dry brushing and oil wash later:

 

 

 

 

 

I had to mask the canopy, which took hours, because I couldn't find a way to attach it after the insert was in place, so it would need to be all attached in one piece.

 

 

I put the piece in place and used a LOT of CA to fill in the gaps

 

 

I sanded away, and then rescribed all the detail I wiped out.

 

The wing assembly snapped very securely into place; I wouldn't be able to get it off, so thankfully I didn't try dry-fitting it beforehand.  The gaps were pretty bad and took quite a bit of CA, and a little putty in places.  When all was said and done, it was about 3 hours work after finishing the cockpit.  I have some rescribing to do, but it will have to wait as I am out of town for the weekend. On the whole this really wasn't that much more work than the Hasagawa F-18 I built.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It may not look like it, but those seams are very smooth.

 

 

[opus999]

Incredibly hectic week since all 3 of my kids started school.  Still I was able to grab a few minutes here and there for some work on this kit.

 

I re-scribed panel lines I had removed by sanding and glued the Antenna mast back on, then gave it a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1500 Black.

 

 

Wednesday night I did the marbling on the top and sides.  Unfortunately, the Olive Green paint I had in my paints was Testors Enamel, and it really didn't want to make a fine line no matter how much thinning I did, so it really ended up looking like pre-shading more than marbling because the panels came out pretty uniform.  I used some Mr. Color Dark Earth and Mr. Color FS34102 to provide some tonal variation in the under coat.  I tried to focus the Dark Earth on places that there might be dirt.

 

 

 

Also Wednesday night I was able to spray the Olive Drab on, first filling in the panel lines a bit with O.D. to cut down the contrast:

 

 

 

Unfortunately I forgot I was going to do the Medium green splotches around the edges of the wings and empennage first.  That would've made life easier because masking over those before doing the O.D. would've been easy.  But instead I got to mask the O.D. for the medium green last night, which was considerably more time consuming.

 

 

When that was painted I used Mr. Color RAF light sea gray and Mr. Color Dark Earth to marble the bottom, which went much better than the marbling with the enamels.

 

 

And when it was done, I had to mix my own Neutral Gray since I didn't have any.  I tried to match the Neutral Gray I had on a B-25C I'd done a long time ago.  I think it came out OK, but I might have put it on a little thicker than I would have liked

 

 

I'm waiting for the enamels to cure today, and I think I might be able to start decals tomorrow.

 

 

 

[clive_t]

Looking good

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

 I knew about this build but for some reason my mind blanked, good work so far. Always did like the banshees and their sister Squadron the Assam Dragons. 

 

Dennis

[opus999]

Not too much to report -- yesterday I hand brushed Alclad's Aqua Gloss on and let it cure for 6 hours while I helped with a Scout orienteering class. Last night I put all the decals on and this morning brushed more Aqua Gloss on to prepare for dot filtering.

 

 

 

 

I am disappointed in the finish.  The surface is quite rough in spots even after 3 coats of aqua gloss.  I believe it had to do with the enamel Olive Drab.  I think there was some coarse pigment or some other junk coming through the airbrush.  This roughness will ruin the look from dot filtering, so I will need to be very careful to avoid those areas.  

 

So why am I doing dot filtering?  Well, I've found it to be the best way (for me) to re-create paint oxidation from  sun exposure and also to recreate dirt that has been smudged into paint (e.g., from walking on the wings).

 

I'd really hoped to finish today, but I think there is still way too much to do (both on the model and around the house).  

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

3 minutes ago, opus999 said:

why am I doing dot filtering? 

Do you use oils for that ? Ive read about many times and seen it done before. Im curious enough that i want to give it a try. What colors would you recommend earth tones or some random mix ? Then what to do about cleanup ? 

 

 Dennis

[opus999]

28 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Do you use oils for that ? Ive read about many times and seen it done before. Im curious enough that i want to give it a try. What colors would you recommend earth tones or some random mix ? Then what to do about cleanup ? 

 

 Dennis

I use my wife's oil paints (shhhhh.....!) which are Winsor and Newton in a tube. She has a full range of colors, which is nice.

 

I really have to "wing it" when choosing colors. When it comes to paint oxidation, I'll do a random placing of dots, mostly close to the paint color (that is, light brown on a brown, light green on a green, etc.) with just a few white ones. For dirt or oil I might use burnt umber or burnt sienna.  The key is to not make it too dark -- it really needs to be subtle to work right. 

 

I do this on an acrylic clear coat so if I guff it up (which sometimes happens ) I can remove it with paint thinner (the mild stuff).  the gloss can make it hard to see the effect, since the oil paint looks matte or flat, but holding it in the light just right will overcome that. The oil takes, maybe, 12-18 hours to totally dry, at which point it is very hard and can be difficult to get off.  It stays soft for 2-3 hours which gives plenty of working time to get it to look right.  I just use a soft, broad bristle brush (or sometimes my finger) to just keep working it around until it looks natural, but you need to watch out for streaks.

 

A couple of examples where I used this technique:

• Spitfire Mk. IXc -- I think this was my best attempt so far.  I purposely put it on a little less subtle because I wanted more of a desert sun fading/oxidation look
• Ji-2 -- It may be hard to see in the photos, but I used a greenish-yellow on the spine and in some places on the wing to give the paint a little tone and then some white for a little sun-fading.  It is pretty subtle though.

When I get to this stage of the build, I'll post some photos.  Good luck!

Edited September 15, 2019 by opus999
spelling

[opus999]

Almost finished.  Last sunday night I did the dot filtering.  I put random dots of white, yellow ocher and burnt sienna on:

 

 

Then used a brush to rub it in:

 

 

It didn't take long for me to remember that a finger works better than a brush.  I also went back and looked at it on Monday and decided that the white was too stark, so I rubbed it off and re-did it with more yellow ocher.  That looked more like faded olive green to me, so I was happy.  Once the oil dries in a day or two, it can be rubbed off pretty easily, which I used to my advantage.  The fading looked too uniform, so I very very gently rubbed some off so that it was a little more spotty, which made it much better. 

 

I also made sure to get a little burnt sienna or yellow ocher on the white decals (like the skull), so they didn't look so freshly painted.  Also a very small amount of white randomly on the US insignia to make the blue look a little worn. 

 

I worried that the fading was too much, but forgot that when you dull coat it, it really diminishes the effect, but remembered when I dull coated it today, so now my fading may be "not enough".  Oh well, the paint still look suitably worn.

 

There are a lot of great photos of the Burma Banshees on the internet and some are very close up, allowing me to be pretty accurate with my weathering and wear.  There wasn't a lot of paint chipping on the panel seams and corners, but the fasteners that keep the engine panels on were all completely silver on most of the Banshees' P-40s I looked at. Also, there wasn't a ton of oil leakage, but there was some behind the cowl on the underside.  I used an oil wash to make those oil streaks -- A mix of black and burnt umber, heavy on the oil paint and light on the thinner.  Then I used a brush and a toothpick to streak it back.  I also noticed that the oil would drip on the top of the drop tank and get streaked so I tried to copy that:

 

 

 

Since it's on the top of the drop tank it likely won't be seen very easily, but it can be seen if you try...

 

I painted and washed landing gears, painted the wheels and used RAF Dark Earth to drybrush them to make it look like mud, since a lot of the photos showed muddy conditions.  I used Tamiya Royal Blue to paint the spinner, which came out super glossy and required quite a bit of dull coat to get it looking right. Painted and washed the wheel wells too. 

 

A couple other things that needed work were the grilles just behind the spinner on either side of the aircraft.  They have several prominent looking holes and, AFAIK, this is the defining feature that allows you to tell an 'M' model from a late 'K' model.  There are indented holes molded in, but they when I used a wash on them, the holes ended up looking very small.  Pictures I've seen of 'M' and 'N' models show these holes to be large enough to be noticeable from quite a ways away, so I decided to paint the holes. I was able to do this by trimming a toothpick, dipping it in black paint and making dots.  It took a while to get the size of the toothpick right and to get the hang of making the right sized dots, which you can see on my paint mule here:

 

 

But I got the hang of it. Another benefit was that my clear coat is acrylic and I was using enamel paint, so if I goofed it up, I could wipe the dot or dots off and start again.  Which I had to do a couple of times.  But I'm happy with how it came out, because it  matches my reference photos now!

 

 

 

You can't tell in these photos, but the black dots are noticeable on the green, which wasn't the case with the wash.

 

So I did some assembly today and a lot of details, but with just a couple little things to finish tomorrow morning I should be able to get an RFI up.

[opus999]

Finished! A couple things to note:

• The sun fading came out pretty subtle, so I still have some to learn about that technique, especially how the dull coat changes it.  So I'll be doing more experimenting!  
• I was at the hobby store yesterday, and on a whim bought Testors burnt iron metallizer for the exhaust.  It came out looking just as good as the more cumbersome methods I've been using, so I may be using more of it in the future
• This was the first time I used a 0.2 mm mechanical pencil to go over the panel lines.  Where the panel lines were deep enough, it was really easy to run the pencil lead through them, where they were more shallow, I used 3 layers of Tamiya masking tape stacked on each other as a guide.  The nice thing about the pencil is any goofs can be removed with the eraser.  I find this to be an easier and more reliable method for panel lines than a wash.

 

RFI up soon. 

[billn53]

Well done. With a bit of care & attention, these “easy assembly” kits can come out looking quite nice. 

[opus999]

10 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Well done. With a bit of care & attention, these “easy assembly” kits can come out looking quite nice. 

Thanks!  I found that once you accept there will be a major flaw to be fixed somewhere, building these easy assembly kits can be quite nice.  And you're right, they have the surface detail to brush up nicely!

[opus999]

RFI is here