Hasegawa P-40E

[SciFi58]

With the kind permission of the forum I would like to honor Mr. Camp as well. At this late date I want to start a Hasegawa kit as it will go together most likely flawlessly (barring any idiotic mistakes), be relatively accurate and will look good without any aftermarket. I wanted to do a Russian P-40 as it seemed most appropriate (A trip to Russville) but as I can't find the Data Decal sheet that is out, I think I will settle for a British bird from the North African campaign. Here are shots of my start tonight:

 

 

I plan to use the kit decal for the panel as I found with a lot of decal set, Hasegawa instrument decals look pretty good over the kit part. For the cockpit I plan to paint with Testors RAF interior gray/green but it would be my guess that despite Curtis being as accommodating to British specs as they could, the rest of the interior, such as the wheel wells, would be green zinc chromate. I submit to the superior wisdom of the forum to hopefully correct me if I am wrong (such as I was when I thought all US Birds were yellow zinc chromate inside). I hope to finish something and thank you.

[dodgem37]

The desert scheme is a favourite scheme of mine, whether it be Allied or Axis. I'm looking forward to following your build.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[SciFi58]

Made some progress finally. Got My BarracudaCals from Flightdec - P-40's of 112 Squadron RAF Pt 1. I have a choice of two Kittyhawk Mk Is, GA-V or GA-Y. I like the idea of the dark blue under surface on GA-Y but my wife and I both like the shark mouth better on GA-V so that's the one I'm gonna do.

 

Here is the cockpit (wish I got some shots before I closed it up but I'm trying to get it done before the Butch O'Hare show in Darien Illinois, USA which is a day before the group build deadline.

 

Cockpit from above showing the panel. The decal for this panel doesn't look as good as the one for the Ki-84 but it settled over the raised details nicely with Micro-Sol. The fuel gauges in the floor were hand painted and I should have tried my luck with the panel. This also shows my bad luck with the wing root joints. My Second Hasegawa kit where I've had problems (1st being the P-47D). One model buddy said I didn't trim my sprue gates but another said don't listen Hasegawa has always had problems here (not with the Ki-84 tho).

 

Another view - I need to scratch build a Sutton harness or pirate one form my PCM Spit.

 

Finally a good top and bottom shot of my progress (and my embarrassingly messy workbench - gets worse as I model in earnest until I just can't find anything anymore)

 

Need to get the harness decision made and get some dust in that cockpit if it fought in Tunisia. The "glass" is drying under cover right now after being dipped in Future. More soon.