KUROK

P-38  !!!!

They’ve been smelted down and turned into Krugerrands.

Here is my recently completed Hasegawa Bf109K-4.  I started it in April, took a long break during the summer and finally finished it eight months later. I added a bit of aftermarket stuff to this build including:
1. Eagle Editions 109K-4 Resin Cockpit Set
2. Henri Daehne 109G/K Resin Prop Set
3. RB Productions 109K-4 Wheel Well Detail Set
4. RB Productions 109G/K Erla Canopy
5. Barracuda Studios 109G/K Resin Wheels
6. AIMS Late War 109s Decal Sheet
7. Eagle Cals 109K-4 #32-74 Decal Sheet
8. Airscale Luftwaffe Instrument and Placard Decal Sheets
9. MDC resin ammo chutes
10. Eduard masks
11. Resin/metal landing gear replacements
 
For the exterior colors, I used a combination of Mr Hobby Aqueous and AK Real Colors paints.












 
The build thread can be found at:
 

and more pics

 

 


 

 
and together with Me 262
 

 

 

 
thanks for looking
jan

Hi All
Here my last built, the Hasegawa / eduard P-40N in LuluBelle markings: not unusal markings but really beautifuls ones
I built it from the box, hope you likte it

 

 

 

 

 

 

P-38  !!!!

Got my computer back from repair much quicker than expected and it looks like it's working well.  Thankfully, I can put that old laptop away.  I hate laptops almost as much as I hate mongrel idiots who have nothing better to do than write virus's for unsuspecting innocents like me.    I'd expected to have more to show for the next update, but then I also expected it would be longer until I was able to make said update. 
 
 
Next job was to paint all the interior bits.  I like to do this all in one hit, though something usually gets forgotten .  So all the small bits were sticky taped down to a piece of paper and sprayed with Curtiss's idea of interior green which appears to be applicable to P-40B's in 1940 and '41.  As I have three pots of chromate green, I added some raw umber and yellow to one of them and came up with what I think is a reasonable facsimile.  From my research, it seems that Curtiss colours varied because they bought from the cheapest supplier, hence the variation between aircraft batches.
 


 

 

Incidentally, you can see the exhausts in the picture above.  These come in two halves, to be glued together.  For one side, each half seems to fit well, but the other needed some adjustment with files before they fitted properly.  As with my Trumpter P-47 build, the parts fit is very inconsistent.
 
The engine was then mounted into the engine mounts and the radiator attached and allowed to dry.  Next, the coolant piped between the engine and radiators were attached and allowed to dry before the next one was added.  They're a bit fiddly, especially the ones that come off the cylinder heads which need to go on first.  In all cases, the locating lugs need to be thinned down as they don't fit into the slot provided on each radiator.  The last of the kit piping was added next, but one broke so I made a replacement from electrical wire.  This is the long one at the bottom.  Lastly, a little more piping was added from copper wire between the top of the reduction gear to the tank on the top of the bulkhead, and a second larger pipe from the same place to the oil cooler was made from 1.0mm brass wire, painted flat aluminium.  These pipes were located with strips of wine bottle lead.  I'm presently adding the exhausts, and have done one side.
 


 


 


 
The exhausts were painted before adding them carefully.  Like the radiator pipes in the kit, the locating tabs also needed to be thinned down before they'd fit.  I painted them a base of burnt iron, then toned that down a little with a dry brush of aluminium.  I'll do a bit more on them once the model is painted.  Once the other bank of exhausts are fitted, I'll fit this into the fuselage.  The removal of the cowling on one side means that only one of the kit locating tabs is still in place, so I have added ribs to the fuselage to help with the location of this assembly.  I've also added the rudder and tail wheel mount on one side.  On the other, I've added radiator intakes and front fuselage closing panel.  This will further help with locating the engine.
 

 
The cockpit is a long way off finished, but here's a few progress pictures.  The rudder pedals have been attached to the CMK resin front bulkhead.  I've used the Trumpy kit rudder pedals as they seem to fit properly and in correct proportions to the floor.  Also, the CMK resin bit was in pieces in that box, so NBG anyway.
 

 
A little touch up and scratching with a dry brush of aluminium will see that finished, after which it will be attached to the floor.  The cockpit floor is finished.  After paint, I scratched them up a bit to reveal the Eduard steel etch below and added the reserve and wing tank gauges.  The left and right sides are very much a work in progress, however, I've added the etch switch panel to the left side and painted the elevator and rudder trim knobs.  On the right side, I removed the radiator lever from the resin and added the etch rad lever before painting, and have painted some of the detail such as the pilot's oxygen hose and rad lever handle.
 

 
That's it for now.  Hopefully, for the next update, I'll have the cockpit finished and in place and the fuselage buttoned up.  Don't ask me why, but I seem to be enjoying this one more than the previous Trumpeter P-47 build, which is a bit wierd considering the kits are about the same in terms of quality, fit and errors.  The things we get used to... 
 
 
Cheers,
Michael

Finally got this one finished and also tried my hand at building a base. 
 
AK Real Colours
Eagle Cals
Barracuda Wheels
Barracuda Cockpit stencils
Ultracast Pappy Boyington
 
AK Terrains
Palm Tree - from Ebay seller in Thailand
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
It's a great kit.  I have another in the pile for a later date.
 
Thanks for looking.
Simon

Your work is just amazing!!!!
 

 

This is 1/32 Eduard (Hasegawa) P-40N Warhawk finished with the markings of 89th FS 80th FG in India during 1944.
Paints: Gunze Sangyo acrylics
Decals: Nose art (Skull & shark eye) and numbers (61) are made by customhobbydecals.com
Happy modelling
 

Just finished this AMT Havoc.  A somewhat difficult kit because of warped parts and sketchy attachment points.  Aftermarket wheels and gun barrels.  Some stenciling by Foxbot decals.  The main markings are the poor kit decals that are dot matrix printed and off register, but appear accurate.  Overall not a bad shelf model of a under-recognized aircraft.
 

 

 

 

 
Thanks for looking.
 

More update on the Big Falcon.  I continued with subassemblies and started working on some weathering, panel lining that sort of thing.  The first photo is showing the rear deck area as I finished all the small part assembly.
 
This next series shows some not so well done Night Shift style chipping.  The idea was I was going to practice on these as the owner was going to wall mount it.  However, I think you will see that when I pull together washes pigments and oil staines they actually came out really nice.
Again we are going to revisit these a bit later and I think you will see a huge improvement.

Here are some more updates.  I built up the various bay inserts.  I then added various pigments to give them some of the filth and weathering that seems apparent in the movie.  I also put together the cockpit cone, however it is just snapped in as I intend to add a couple figures still.  This is a insert painted up no weathering.
 

Each build step comes with a magazine and a small plastic bag of parts.  It is okay, it can be built in this matter but it is not so great.  It is meant to spread out the cost of an expensive kit as you can buy it over a subscription.  It is also designed to create a kind of "excitement" so instead of a logical step by step you jump around in weird ways.  For example a issue might come with a small sprue of parts.  In one case there was a tiny circular part left on the sprue.  I don't even remember what magazine it was from.  Well that piece did not go on until the very last stage.  It was one of the last pieces that went on the model.  So you had to keep that tiny piece where you could find it until the model was completely done.  Here are a sample of the magazines.  As instructions go they are okay, however there are some inadequate bits.  They tend to give you a small bag of screws in each issue.  They could just give you one big bag of all the screws.  Then you are not dealing with dozens of tiny bags of six screws.  Also sometimes they just say use a screw to attach the part and it is not clear what kind.  There are at least 5 different kinds of screw in the kit.  
Here is a shot of the recess ports for one of the Mandibles.  I weathered them with various shades of pigment, some rust tones, some soot, maybe some earth.
 
 

The kit is packaged with the Pearl Harbor venue in mind, although it contains alternate cowl and windscreen parts to construct an export version Hawk 75, as operated principally by France in WWII, but in small numbers by a host of other air arms during and after the war.
 

 
This is the plastic you get:
 

 
With a pretty-decent clear parts sprue:
 

 
Note the three windscreen versions.
 
You also get a few resin parts for the landing gear:
 

 
And decals, which I will use as templates to make painting masks when I get to that stage...
 

 
And they provide a small PE fret:
 

 
The only aftermarket thing I have is these canopy masks, which I will scan and copy with my Silhouette to make a second set for the inside:
 

 
The molding is if anything a bit rougher than the last SH kit I built (the Ki-27 Nate).  It's going to take some significant work to get the fuselage joined up in a way I'm happy with.  Check out the XL sprue gate on this cowl part (guaranteed to avoid short shots, I guess):
 

 
Yep, it's a but rough.
 

 
(the other half was actually worse).
 
So I started in by joining the correct forward fuselage/cowl pieces to the main fuselage halves, and then began poking at the engine.  I don't want to start the cockpit yet because I need to do some research (i.e. waste hours grazing the internet for photos) to see what enhancements I can make to it, and make a plan for building those, before I start.
 
The challenge of getting the SH plastic all nice and pretty on the outside will of course be enhanced on this kit because I need a smooth enough surface to do a credible NMF (which I am barely qualified to do on the best of days).  But I want a 1:32 P-36A, so, since this is the only game in town, here we go.

Faded on some US Olive Drab using SMS paints, the dark green marks are tamiya IJN Green. Gloss coat and decals next




 

Arm still hurts, but not as badly, thankfully.  Both hands, and eyes , are at varying stages of operational capability, so back to the model.
 
I've not got the engine to a point at which I need to mount it in the engine mountings, but one set of ignition wires have repeatedly eluded completion, so rats to them.  I just won't display that side of the engine.  As you can see, eighteen plugs have wires, which I think will be visible after the kit is finished.  The kit inlet manifold is very poor, but I've gone with it as I think it's likely better than my scratch building might be.  This part is complex as the manifolds then to snake all over the place.
 

 
I've also modified the engine mountings and added detail to the firewall.  The top mount is, I think, mounted too low, so I've modified them, moving the top part of the mountings about 3mm up on the firewall.  If I go any higher, I'm sure they will fowl the exhausts.  Here it is with one side done, so you can see the difference.  You can also see that I've added a cross brace to the firewall itself.
 

 
After doing the same to the other side, I've also added a brace to the left side, but not the right as I won't be opening that side of the cowling thanks to the problems encountered making the right side outer plug wires and harness tube.  Next, I've added some plumbing and a bottle made from scrap resin to the left side.
 

 

 
The left side mounting tab has been removed too as that mount is now redundant thanks to cutting way the left side cowling.
 
Next up, I've added some more plumbing and photo etch to the wheel wells, as well as opened up the front of the wheel well walls.  There will be a little more plumbing to add before I close up the wings.
 

 

 

 
However, most of my work since the last update has been on the cockpit.  After some head scratching (must stop doing that as one day, I'll go through, then both brain cells might escape ) I've decided to use the CMK resin allied to some of the Eduard etch.  I may use some kit parts, or not.  I'm making this up as I go.  After looking at all the bits, I've worked out that both the kit cockpit, as we know, but also the CMK resin is not up to standard.  The issue with the CMK kit is that the cockpit sides are wrongly shaped.  It's almost like someone did the shape or outline, then someone else added the details to the wrong side, because the forward edge of the sides doesn't match the forward end wall of the cockpit.  For the purposes of all current LSP kits available, P-40 cockpits were deeper at the rear than at the front because of the profile and mounting of the wing.  Alas, CMK's side walls were the other way around, and when you put it together, you get something very odd as the front wall and instrument panel will be too low once mounted.  Here's the cockpit sides as they come out of the box.
 

 
I could make my own from scratch, and this I almost did until I decided on a better and easier solution.  New sides were cut from 0.5mm stock plastic, which is the thinnest I've got.  Then I took each of these parts and thinned them down as much as I could to maintain the detail, and glued each side to the correctly shaped home made walls.  The protruding lower front edge was filed off, and more stock plastic was used to build up the lower rear part of each wall, and the resin cast ribs extended to suit.  The right side turned out better than the left, as I went through when sanding the resin side wall, hence the filler.  Here's the result.
 

 
This now means that the cockpit is deeper still than the CMK kit and closer to the actual thing.  I've also added depth to the rear wall.
 

 
I've now started adding some Eduard etch to this lot to try and improve it further.  Some of the resin detail has been removed and etch replaced these bits, and I've also added the Eduard floor to the resin to improve this.  The part needed some severe modification, but once it's all painted, I think it should look good.  Here's the various components of the cockpit as they are at present.  More etch will be added before final assembly after painting.
 

 
The rudder pedals will also need modification, and I may use the kit parts here as the resin part has broken in the package.  Here's the parts taped together to give me an idea of where I'm up to, and what still needs doing before painting.
 

 

 
The next shot is also to help me collect my scattered thoughts.  You'll see where I'm headed, I hope.
 

 
Because of the problems with forever breaking right side spark plug harness tube and wires, I've now decided not to cut off the right side cowling from the fuselage.  This should also make alignment of the engine with the plane easier, as well as alignment of the lower nose.  My thinking is that once I've painted the interior, firewall and cockpit, I can finish the engine and mount it to the firewall assembly, glue that to the fuselage and glue the fuselage halves together.  The completed cockpit will then slide in from below and I'll fab a new mounting for it for added strength.  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to have the interior painting done before the weekend is over.
 
So that's it for the moment.  Not sure when I'll be back with an update as this computer needs repair.  RAM usage keeps maxing out causing it to crash after about an hour, so while it's in, I'm getting another 16GB of RAM installed so that I can run Microsoft's new flightsim better.  In the mean time, work will continue.
 
 
Cheers, and stay well,
Michael

I'm lovin' it!

I'm working on the cockpit
 

 

It can get really scary when you realise many medical devices can be easily hacked. Including things like insulin pumps and pacemakers. their manufacturers just don't put the R&D into ensuring such devices are hack proof.
 
 

Back to assembly of the disks.  These actually went together really well.  To reduce uniformity, I painted each panel individually.  There is nothing uniform about this big ship so I painted the base off white on each separate panel sort of in batches.  I would paint about 5 panels at a time.  First is a shot of the frame going together.  Each panel is later screw to the frame.
 
I masked each individual colored panel once I had the basic assembly together.
 
The gun port windows are aligned wrong in the kit.  I scribed both out and aligned them to the correct orientation.  Why the maker did not leave them as separate parts is a mystery to me since they were about the only parts affixed in place and predone.  Most of the color panels were not done by the manufacturer, a few were present but most were not.
 
 

I think it is better to buy a kit with a set of high quality well thought out directions like we expect from top kit manufacturers.  As a subscription kit it poses some unique challenges, nothing that can't be overcome.  But you have to have an expectation that you may have to dig back through the booklets until you find the booklet that covers the step you skipped.  I mostly built in order but some things just don't make sense.  For example I went through and built all of the side wall components and the side airlock hatches together.  The overall fit is actually quite good.  I did not find a lot of problem with parts not fitting or anything of that nature.  
 
I was working on weathering this morning as actually the model is built now.  I was comparing to the movie prop and rewatched the movie last night and the model is very multiple personality disorder.  Some aspects are more like the prop, some more like the movie.  For example I noticed this morning as I tried to apply streaking effects that some of the panel lines on the prop don't exist on this kit.  Also the satellite dish attachment on the prop is drastically different from what is in the kit and the movie.  
 
I am going for a more movie look as there are a buch of effects on the prop that don't show up in the movie.  For example on the sidewalls they used lot's of rust effects on the prop.  None of that shows up in the movie.  All the races are very dark like they are dirty and grungy but no orange tones at all.  

ah ok, thanks Mike

That's just crazy talk....   
 
BTW, put some clothes on man, what's wrong with you???

Has anyone ever noticed having a conversation about a product and then noticed adverts appear on your phone? I have.
Graham