BiggTim

News coming in of a crash off the East Coast of Yorkshire approx 74 miles out into the North Sea.
F 15 from RAF Lakenheath.
Pilot is missing and search is underway.
Prayers and thoughts for the pilot.
 
Live link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-suffolk-53051437
 

I remember the build. It’s an option for sure. I kinda like the decal options that come in the Eduard kit. I remember the N tail plug being a pig so might avoid doing an N version. Depends on if I can get a corrected windscreen for the E kit in the stash. I have a request in to the U.K. importer who has contacted Hasegawa. So we shall see. 

I fudged a K out of the E kit a few years ago by reshaping the tail with plastic card and Miliput. 

You can do an F or L with the Grey Matter Merlin F/L conversion; the only difference is the tail. F had short, L had long. I think the only one you can't do is the K as Thierry mentioned.
The N requires a lot of different parts with the extended canopy and revised fuselage required, but it sounds like you have the covered.

I sanded mine out with a find nail file then polished it out with progressively finer Tamiya sand paper then polished with white tooth paste.  A final dip in future and it turned out great.
 
It's easy to do and like you say, the part is garbage anyway so nothing to loose. 

Yeah. All the parts for an N are in the box Eduard released as an E. I think they just bought a load of sprues from Hasegawa for all versions but the K. It’s the same bag of sprues as came in the earlier N limited edition kit from Eduard, just different decals and resin. My choices all hinge on getting the replacement windscreen from Hasegawa without the extra frames they added for some reason. If nothing comes of the request the UK importers put in to Hasegawa for me then I may have a go at sanding the extra frames out and polishing what’s left up. It’s a useless part as is anyway so I’m nit at a loss if I break it in my attempt. 

You could always convert it to a Russian P-40E Klimov M-105 engine version!! (shameless plug for my conversion set)   There's only been one built so far, ever, so it would be very unique!
 
Tim

So today I scrachbuilt the FRIES release handle using some leftover PE and some evergreen stock.  Pretty cool I think. I also finished the cabin roof by adding a clear styrene cover for the overhead breaker panel.

 

 
Tim

A little bit of an update. I glued down a piece of styrene, painted it and weathered it to represent the aluminum plate that the C2 console seats (UH-1 Huey seats) were mounted to.
After that I glued on the crew chief sidewall armor to the cabin walls and began to layout how the MH-60L would have been equipped.  I'm sure it will change once I hear from its crew chief.

 
 
Tim

Thanks Thierry. I need to look more into the M variant. I’ve seen some nice Ventura decals for Geoff Frisken’s Wairarapa Wildcat. I know there was a boxing of this a while back but Even if I could track one down the decals would likely need to be replaced anyway. Then there’s Fundekals for Lulu Bell. I think from what I can see though the M had the same style windscreen as the E which gives me a problem again in having the original erroneous windscreen in my E kit. So it’s looking like an N will be built from the spare parts in the Eduard kit. Was a pleasant surprise to have all parts in the Eduard box though. Might order another next time they have an offer on as I got it for around the same price the E cost here anyway by the time I add the price of masks and resin wheels and exhausts and replace the Hasegawa decals. 

You can build all of them except the K that used a different tail fillet. No Merlin-engined P-40 was ever released by Hasegawa. Grey Matter released a quite accurate P-40F resin conversion. There is also the Trumpeter P-40F but I would not recommend it when there's a better option. 

So, I took delivery this morning of one of the Eduard Bunny Fighter kits of the P-40E, I bought it when they last had some offers on as I fancied another P-40 to go with the E in the stash, this has also solved the problem I had in that the one in the stash had the early Hasegawa faux pas with the windscreen frames, not the later corrected one so Now have a correct screen for that one, I was already a member so got it for a nice price. Now, it’s arrived just like the P-40N I got a while back and sold on and regretted it, Eduard seem to have bought a generic P-40 pressing from Hasegawa. The P-40N clear parts are there as is the longer tail. But say I wanted to build a P-40K or M what bits would I need? Was the Kittyhawk Allison engined or Merlin? I’m not up on what P-40 had what tail and all that kind of detail. I know the Merlin engined versions weren’t different up front to that option is out. Only ever seen the P-40E and N kits on he shelves so the possibility of being able to make any of the Alison engined variants from this box would be nice. Here is a majority of the sprues. Any help appreciated. 
 



 

Finish at last...
Great model, there were some problems with engines fit but this had no effect on overall assembling experience.
The model is painted with Tamiya and Mr Hobby paints as usual. I've tried a bit of color building by putting shades of blue and grey as a base, which then were covered with Rubber Black paint. The model has no decals,subtle weathering was done with Tamiya and Vallejo pigments, as well as AMMO oilbrushers. Wash is neautral gray.

First major disappointment happened this morning. I painted the feathers on the spine and CFT tanks last night, and filled in the blank areas with black in preparation for the decals. 
 
Was all excited this morning to peel and reveal the artwork underneath as well as get an overview of where I’m at for the upper surface finish. 
 
 
Not too bad you might think, looks impressive from this angle. 3 layers of coloured feathers, cool as a cucumber one would think. 
On the contrary........

I’ve lost a few small patches of paint, right down to the primer. Head scratching moment as I know I followed the same cure times and masking procedures for the flag painting, yet this time, I have peeling paint.
At this point, I’m loathe to strip it and start from scratch unless I REALLY have to. So I’m going to attempt touch ups. I can recall the mixes for the varying shades, I may even embellish the feathers with some highlights and shadows to make them look more realistic. 
First plan of attack is to get me a gloss coat on to protect whats there and enable me to remove mistakes with no damage to the underlying paintwork. 
 
For now though, it’s back to the aggressor jet. 

Looking good, Bill! Worth the effort, for sure!
 
I would have fixed it, too, so don't feel bad.
 
Tim

Found a better vantage point in my neighborhood this morning.  Hoping the Sky Crane comes back over to this side of the mountain...
 

 

 

 

 
Dude, you got a leak in your bucket!
 

 

Hmmmm, my little vise bolted to my workbench may be just the right height. It has a solid flat area for hammering on it which would hold the scriber flat.

Looking good, Bill! Worth the effort, for sure!
 
I would have fixed it, too, so don't feel bad.
 
Tim

Well we had a bit of a setback..Had the Fus. stars and bars in the wrong place...don't follow the decal sheet instructions if you have an actual photo.
Now I wouldn't have done this a few years ago,I'll just call it age related screw up.One of those GRRRR! moments.
So we fixed it (first pic) with several choice words.LOL.
Cheers.Bill.

A friend over on a car forum posted a pic of one of these circuit board holders Last week and was wondering if it would work for holding car frames. I looked at it and remembered one of the guys here making a custom setup to scribe drop tanks and I thought, oh yeah this could work. It’s aluminum frame, heavy plastic arms and a medium strength spring I feel. I've got a 7-1/2” 1/32 tank in it for scale and you could go slightly bigger. $14 shipped from ebay. Just tighten down the arms, fix your scriber in 1 location and rotate the tank. I’ve got a big spring clamp i used to hold it to the table so the frame didn’t move.



 

Thanks for the quick review. At under 100 USD, it looks like a good bargain too.
 
Rich

I just got done using my new 0.2 mm Mr Hobby dual-action airbrush for the first time.  This is only the second airbrush I've used - I've owned an 0.5 mm Iwata dual-action brush for about 2 years now.  The My Hobby brush is a *really* nice tool.  The trigger action is smooth and beautifully balanced - it's very easy to control.  The brush also has a nicely executed needle travel control, which I immediately found to be very helpful.  I am going to immediately get a larger one of these (0.4 or 0.5 mm) and retire the Iwata.  It's that good.
 
Here's the specific model: https://spraygunner.com/gsi-creos-mr-airbrush-procon-boy-ps-267-0-2mm/
 
 

One last pic!
 

 
Cheers,
Wolf

As my time being laid off of work comes to an end I needed to get as much done on the Corsair as I could.
 
With the engine, cockpit, and fuselage complete I had to get cracking at the centre section of the wing including the main landing gear and wheel bays. I had some excellent photos of the wheel bays that I found on line so I decided to add the hydraulic lines that run through the wheel bays. These hydraulic lines operate the flaps, wing folds, landing gear, and gear bay doors. I had originally planned on using lead wire but went with copper wire instead. The copper wire was much easier to keep straight and lead wire is too soft so kinks easily and looks a mess for this application. The copper wire, however, was more of a pain to work with given the number of bends I needed to make to run the lines as per my photos.
 
I found that if I glued the wheel bays together except for the upper forward section, which the MLG fits in to, I could slip the gear bays off and on the main spar without any trouble. If the front upper section had been glued on the bays wouldn't have had enough flexibility to slide on and off. That made the initial copper wire runs and painting of the canvas covers much easier to accomplish. I added brass 0.5 mm nuts to detail the hydraulic manifold and hydraulic sequencing valve for the MLG and MLG bay doors as well as scratch built the small angled fittings at the top of the hydraulic manifold that run to the top of each hydraulic cylinder for the main gear doors.
 
Hopefully the following photos will show well enough what I've tried to accomplish.
 
Cheers,
Wolf
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test image,
 
Trying to see if I can get a sharper image. This one is better I think but it still needs work.
 
Cheers,
Wolf