Alex

That's what I read on a build thread on Britmodeler, and just confirmed while cleaning up the clear parts before Furure-ing them. I'll just leave the sliding portion of the canopy loose so that it can be removed to look more closely at the cockpit. Someday maybe I'll learn the art of vacuforming and be able to make my own thinner replacement parts. Did you have any wing-to-fuselage fit issues? The thread I mentioned above reported this as well. Alex

Making windows...

Still in the final stages of wrapping up the last project, but I can't help starting to fool around with the next one. This will be the counterpart to my recently-finished AVG P-40B. The IJAAF 77th Hiko Sentai was created in 1938 by reorganization of the IJAAF 8th Hiko Daitai, and was initially deployed to Manchuria, and later to central China. They were initially equipped with the preceding group's biplane fighters (Type 95), and began converting to the new monoplane Ki-27 in late 1939. At the beginning of the Pacific War, when Japan moved to secure the "Southern Resources Area" (i.e. to conquer the Philipines, Maylaya, and the Netherlands East Indies to obtain their vital oil and rubber reserves), the 77th was redeployed first to Southeast Asia. When it became apparent that Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand would not oppose the Japanese invasion, they moved onward to the Burma front, where British and American volunteer forces were attempting to halt the Japanese advance. The 77th tangled with both AVG Warhawks and RAF Brewster Buffalos throughout the opening months of 1942, and while the aerial battle was by no means one-sided, with both Allied and Japanese pilots claiming multiple victories, the land war was ultimately decisively won by the IJA, forcing the AVG to retreat to bases in China, and the RAF to India. This is the kit in question: Prior to the start of the Pacific War, most IJAAF fighter aircraft were painted overall light gray. Once the various Sentais deployed to Burma and New Guinea began to encounter significant resistance, and in particular resistance capable of mounting bombing and strafing attacks against airfields, they began applying field expedient camouflage schemes of green and brown (per box art above). However, this change in appearance was by no means universal or immediate, and plenty of the 77th's Nates fought above Burma in their factory-spplied gray, as shown in these familiar photos of AVG pilots inspecting a downed 77th Sentai airplane: Because I am tired of building green and brown airplanes right now, we'll be doing this one in IJAAF gray. Of note, the ID markings shown in the box top art are incorrect. While the yellow horizontal bands on the vertical tail are OK (indicating 3rd Chutai), the "seagull" shapes (stylized 7's for the 77th) should always be blue. There are again familiar photos on the internet that show this pretty well: Of note, the painting in Thorpe's IJAAF Camouflage and Markings book shows the "seagull 7's" being red. I'm going with the photo and making them blue. Looking at the B&W photos of the wrecks above, it also looks very much like the rear fuselage stripes (indicated the number of the individual plane within the Chutai) were white, not yellow, so the Special Hobby box art (and decal sheet) are wrong on that front too. This does not matter to me as I'm going to mask and paint all of the identifying marks on the plane.

Oh yeah. And making all those windows with Krystal Klear. That's another hour for sure.

The accent color is Mr Color Light Aircraft Grey. I added some Alclad Aluminum to try and give it a little sparkle, but I'm not sure it made much of a difference. It's a decent pinstripe though. Maybe I should try car models? Just fuselage decals and final assembly now. I'm eager to wrap this one up and start on the next warbird project...

Great! Looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

Decals done on the wing section And started masking for the second fuselage color.

My frustration was that there was never the exact size on the circle template I have - i.e. the template has 2.0 mm and 2.5 mm, but the wheel is 2.3 mm

yes, Trumpeter kit. I also have their P-40F version in the stash to build at some point.

One obvious newb error that I'm just spotting in the photos is that I got the main gear legs on the opposite sides from where they should be! Can't be the first person to do that... Fortunately they are just fixed in with white glue so it should be possible to reverse them...

Some more views from the other side

Thanks for all the useful tips and encouragement on the build thread for this one. This is the 6th WW2 aircraft and 10th overall model I've done in the last 2 years, having like many fiftysomethings picked this back up after a 40-year hiatus. There are definitely things about this one that I'm not happy with, most notably that the upper of the two engine cover panels that I made removable does not sit right when placed on the model. I think it comes down to the fuselage and engine mount not being perfectly aligned, so the valve cover interferes just a bit despite my attempts to thin the panel. Nevertheless, every model manages to be a little bit better than the last one, which I guess is the point of practice. I'm trying for a more neutral background with the paper. I suppose I should really make a diorama base for photos by gluing some dirt to a piece of plywood. Someday.

Thanks!!

Using a mixture of the Zvezda sheet (stencils, warning placards, etc) and the airline livery from the Aerolineas Argentinas sheet by Joy Decals.

Sprayed. Please excuse the gloss black - I was painting a prop before decaling, so that's what was in the airbrush. I will flat-coat them before they go on the model, of course. Not too bad. One key conclusion is that it would be best to use something a little less sticky than Blu-Tack. I had a bit of a time getting it off, and even I tiny bit shows up really well on those white wheel hubs. I think I will order some actual Sculpey to try the next time. Also on the list is to try the reverse - make a circle cutout to enable a tire first then hub painting order.

After a couple of tries, I discovered that the trick is to cut a circle slightly smaller than the hub, then push it on just firmly enough that it expands to the required size. Obviously you need to press uniformly so it remains circular. These for the front wheels are really quite small

I've been struggling with how to do a clean job of masking off wheel hubs on a 1:144 airliner. These are much smaller than the smallest circle I can make with a circle-cutting compass, and so small that cutting inside a circle template with a scalpel isn't practical. So I can't make masking tape masks. How to do it? I found on line these tiny circle cutters meant for polymer clay (Sculpey) crafting, and figured for $5, why not. I rolled some Blu-Tack out thin and punched out some circles.

Landing gear, gear doors & actuators, running lights, cartridge ejection chute smoke stains, flaps... Underside of this beast is feeling pretty done. I still need to finish painting and decaling the prop, and do a couple other tiny things topside, but it's close! Time to get serious about deciding on the next one... A5M4 Claude or Ki-27 Nate. Still on the fence.

The in-theater photos I have of Warhawks in Burma show quite a bit of soot staining on the sides, as well as a generally really faded and dusty appearance. I'm starting to feel pretty happy with how close this is looking. The photos don't fully do justice to how good the "sun-baked" fade effect is getting. I guess go back a couple pages and look at what the freshly-applied lacquer looked like. One final thing needs doing. The photos I have show that the paint was pretty dinged up in places and in particular the soot stains tended to get worn off from places that feet trod like wing roots. I'm going to judiciously go after this with a small pencil eraser tomorrow and see if I can rub a little pastel off in a way that looks like that. Then I swear I'm stopping, installing prop and landing gear, and putting it on a shelf!

Back to this thread, hopefully to finish soon. I got to thinking that the still-faintly-tacky oil dot filter surface of the P-40B was actually the perfect substrate for some pastel. So to heck with waiting until it hardens up and flat-coating first. I decided to go for it, since there's always the fallback of just washing pastel off with water (although I'm not sure if I'd get 100% off of the oil-paint-treated surface). So, I started by going and buying one of these, because I figured that stealing one from my wife would not end well: I then made some pastel powder

Not bad. I am going to make a serious effort to finish my P-40B while this dries.

I now appreciate why some folks only work with enamel paints. That was stupid easy - nice glossy finish on the first try. Thinned my Humbrol KLM Blue 50:50 with AK White Spirit, and off to the races. I'm still a bit leery of the drying time issue ("I'll just work on this other model for a week while my gloss black undercoat dries..."), but I guess we'll see. Any thoughts on how long I need to leave it before masking over the blue? A couple days? Longer?

All masked up and ready to paint.

Cutting out painting masks. Looking at the quality of the printing on the silver-grey swoosh stripe decals I've decided I'm just going to use them to make more masks and paint that color too. I'll mix up some light gray and a little bit of aluminum to get something close.