The French Connection, P-40F Warhawk G.C. II/5 Tunisia 1943

[modelling minion]

1 hour ago, ModelingEdmontonian said:

Gosh I wish I could paint stripes that crisp.

 Well done.

Thanks, just Tamiya tape pressed down firmly and it still needed a couple of very small touch ups.

[81-er]

I've got a Games Workshop/Citadel texture tool that I find invaluable with masking (it's also not bad at applying filler either). I use the smaller end to burnish the tape down, and if you turn it on edge, it gets right into panel lines nicely. It's really cut down the amount of paint leakage I get.

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/M-Texture-Speader

 

You can probably find something similar searching a bit cheaper on eBay or the like too.

 

James

[modelling minion]

Whilst I was finishing off The Scorpion King I was able to spend some time getting this one more in shape. As I mentioned earlier in the thread their was no dihedral with this kit and a very bad gap where the wing joins the fuselage so I set about fixing that, the first thing I did was to add a spreader into the fuselage just like I did on the K but this one needed a slightly longer piece of sprue;

 

As you can see the cockpit has also been fitted;

 

To help get the dihedral and better fit at the wing roots I removed some plastic from the front of the wing section to help it to bend;

 

That gave me a much better join, far from perfect as there will need to be some sanding;

 

The piece for the front lower section has also been fitted, not a particularly good fit but some sprue goo is sorting that out;

 

As you can see in the picture above I also decided to fill the holes for the bomb racks on the wings as I wanted this one to look different from the K, I have yet to touch up the paint in that section as I plan on doing it when I give the other parts that should be Azure a coat of paint.

 

The undercarriage got the same treatment as the K;

 

Thats it for today so thanks for looking and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[Wings unlevel]

Some nice proper modelling here Craig!

[modelling minion]

3 minutes ago, Wings unlevel said:

Some nice proper modelling here Craig!

Thanks Gerard, it certainly does involve some old fashioned modelling but I am enjoying it.

[Geo1966]

Fantastic work and a nice fix on the wing joint Craig. Coming along very nicely.

 

George

[modelling minion]

6 hours ago, Geo1966 said:

Fantastic work and a nice fix on the wing joint Craig. Coming along very nicely.

 

George

Thanks George, a long way to go yet but at least she looks like a P-40 now.

[81-er]

Nice progress mate

 

James

[modelling minion]

6 minutes ago, 81-er said:

Nice progress mate

 

James

Thanks mate, probably won't make much progress this week as I need to get stuff ready for Telford, doing a base for my Norwegian Leopard at the minute.

[81-er]

I'll definitely look forward to seeing that then

 

James

[John Masters]

Catching up to this now.  Beautiful work.  And a nice bit of surgery!

[modelling minion]

22 minutes ago, John Masters said:

Catching up to this now.  Beautiful work.  And a nice bit of surgery!

Thanks John, with the Tomahawk pretty much done I am finally going to be able to give this some more attention.

[modelling minion]

Time for an update with some pictures.

I have been slowly plodding along with this one and am conscious that the end of the GB is rapidly approaching, even with our extension until the 31st, so I have pulled my finger out and got the paintwork completed. This consisted of the standard RAF colours of Middle Stone, Dark Earth and Azure which was applied and then weathered a bit by going over the panel lines with a very thin dark grey and then went over the centre of the panels with a very thin light grey which gave me the look I was hoping for. Next to do after that was to do the areas which had the original US markings over painted which was not as straightforward as it might seem as there is some debate as to what colour was used for this with both Olive Drab and fresh Dark Earth being mentioned but after a great deal of looking at pictures of the aircraft, including colour ones from the handover ceremony, I have come to the conclusion that they were repainted in a different colour which could possibly have been Marron Fonce so I mixed up a colour which looks like the one used and then used it in the areas it was used, there are some good clear pictures of this, well the port side of the aircraft anyway. So without further ado here are a couple of pics of the current state of play;

 

 

 

Gloss coat next and then its onto the decals!

 

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[Wings unlevel]

Beautiful paintwork so far Craig, some nice variation and weathering. Another good looker in the making!

[81-er]

That's looking cracking mate  Really nicely done with the paint there

 

James

[modelling minion]

10 hours ago, Wings unlevel said:

Beautiful paintwork so far Craig, some nice variation and weathering. Another good looker in the making!

 

2 hours ago, 81-er said:

That's looking cracking mate  Really nicely done with the paint there

 

James

Thanks guys that is very much appreciated, just back from work so I hope to get some of the glossing done later.

[Muchmirth]

That’s a fantastic paint job there Craig. I really like the panel shading effect you’ve achieved. 

[modelling minion]

41 minutes ago, Muchmirth said:

That’s a fantastic paint job there Craig. I really like the panel shading effect you’ve achieved. 

Thanks Paul, the pictures don't show it off particularly well, I will have to take better ones in the future.

[franky boy]

Lovely work Craig. The P-40 looks great in French colours. I hope Eduard include a French option or two when they get to the F/L. 
 

It’s interesting in regard to the colours but I guess it makes sense that French colours were used to paint over the original stars. 
 

Look forward to more progress. 
 

James

[modelling minion]

19 minutes ago, franky boy said:

Lovely work Craig. The P-40 looks great in French colours. I hope Eduard include a French option or two when they get to the F/L. 
 

It’s interesting in regard to the colours but I guess it makes sense that French colours were used to paint over the original stars. 
 

Look forward to more progress. 
 

James

Thanks James. I spent quite a while trying to decide which colour to use for the darker brown and originally thought it was just fresher paint but the contrast was too much even on black and white pictures and on some of the colour ones it had more red in it so I went with the Marron Fonce, though I can't say 100% that I'm right it looks right to me.

[modelling minion]

With another burst of activity I have made more progress on my final P-40 and she is getting pretty close to completion now. I added a couple of layers of Klear for the gloss coat and then started adding the decals. I have used the national markings and Indian head from the Berna sheet and the number 7 and aircraft name from the Skys Models sheet, the yellow aircraft numbers on the tail came from a generic set and this is how she looks now;

 

 

 

As for the decals I am afraid that I wouldn't use Berna decals again by choice, I found them to be very thick and the roundels have separate centres (I hate that) and the yellow numbers for the tail are out of register which is why I had to use others. The Skys Models decals were nice and thin and settled down very well but their roundels were way off the right size. Hopefully the next pictures posted will be those of the completed model.

 

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[Muchmirth]

Lovely crisp and clean work their Craig. Coming along and looking good!

Paul

[modelling minion]

1 hour ago, Muchmirth said:

Lovely crisp and clean work their Craig. Coming along and looking good!

Paul

Thanks Paul, very much appreciated.

[franky boy]

Now that’s looking very tidy Craig. It’s making me want to build something French!

 

James

[modelling minion]

3 minutes ago, franky boy said:

Now that’s looking very tidy Craig. It’s making me want to build something French!

 

James

Thanks James, if you fancy building something French then there's always this proposal to sign up for;