Speed build: Hasegawa P-40E

[ChuckD]

Good day, gents.  A little while ago, I decided to participate in the Multi-Engine Group Build.  Since my entrant will be the HKM B-17E built to be the Swamp Ghost, I need to clear the bench to make room for the big, four-engine beast.  So, I knocked out the Trumpeter F4F-4 last weekend and plan to have the Hasegawa Ki-84 Frank done by this weekend. Being on a major early Pacific war kick right now and, being something of a glutton for punishment, I have decided to tackle the Hasegawa P-40E before the end of the year.  Thus, this WIP thread, the speed-build of the Hasegawa P-40E.  Here's to hoping I can get it out the door by 12/31/18 because I fully intend to start the group build B-17 thread on 1/1/19.   

 

That said, I made some good progress this weekend.  The cockpit is done and, if I get any time at the bench tonight, I should be able to close up the fuse halves.

 

The cockpit of the P-40 is complete. Painted with a hodgepodge of Tamiya, Alclad, and Vallejo Model Colors. The interior green is a custom mix of Tamiya paints that I came up with. I believe it is 1:1 flat yellow and flat green. The only aftermarket item here is the seatbelt harness. The shoulder harness is from an Eduard kit in the spares box. The lap belts are Tamiya tape cut to length and painted. The buckles come from the same Eduard set as the shoulder harness. I realize it may not be perfectly historically accurate, but I figure it's close enough.  Everything else is straight from the kit.

 

Chipping was accomplished by using Micro Mask as an undercoat before painting base colors. Parts were weathered with oils and Tamiya black panel liner. The seat was washed with Tamiya's brown panel liner. I used a drop of Future on the two gauges to give them a glass lens appearance after picking out the dial face with a silver Prismacolor pencil.

 

The hard-to-see hydraulic fluid leak on the emergency hand pump lever is Abteilun 501 Engine Grease oil paint.

 

The pilots left-side panel. Chipped with a silver Prismacolor pencil and weathered with oils and Tamiya panel liner washes.

 

Pilot's right side panel. Chipped with a silver Prismacolor pencil and weathered with oils and Tamiya panel liner washes.

 

The instrument panel, all straight from the kit and hand painted as I've never had much luck overlaying decals on raised details. The dial faces were picked out with a silver Prismacolor pencil while the rest was painted with various Vallejo paints. The glass effect was achieved with a drop of Future into the molding for each dial. All in all, pretty happy with the final results.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Gewehr 43

[ChuckD]

 

 

 

 

[MikeC]

Certainly coming along quickly, and looking good.

[Fvdm]

Looking good. You build faster than I can type a reply

Edited December 18, 2018 by Fvdm

[rigor]

Nice. Work and fast. Just what you did would take me 3 weeks. 

[ChuckD]

Thanks, guys.  Still shooting to have this complete by the end of the year (clock's ticking!) so I can begin my B-17E project for the group build.  Tonight I sand the seams and begin construction on the wings and such.  I'm hoping I'll get a bit of a leg up on the whole thing over the holidays.  I have a couple days off and I'm hoping to really knock this one out quickly.

[ChuckD]

Progress!

I had a little bit of time at the bench last night, so here's an update.  I've got a couple things going for me when it comes to trying to complete this build by the end of the year.  First, the holidays.  Second, this kit fits really well.  Third, the panel lines tend to run parallel to the mold lines, so a minimal amount of rescribing will be required.  And, fourth, I won't be attaching any external stores because the mounting gear for them is all broken on the sprue.  It looks, despite the box being in pristine condition and being ordered new, like this kit took a beating at some point in its life.  Several parts are either broken off the sprue, broken on the sprue, or both.  :/  Fortunately, it doesn't look like there are any real show-stoppers, so hopefully things will continue to progress well.  

 

On to the update:

The instructions call to fill 5 extraneous inspection/access panels on the cowl, so I used my favorite putty - sprue dissolved in Tamiya extra thin cement.  The tape is there to protect the molded on details.  You'll see this same method used to fill a few spots in the fuse seams as well as the panel directly behind the pilot's seat.

 

 

Goop.

 

The most egregious damage I've found so far:

 

 

Persevering with the wing spar box and landing gear wells.  The spar was pretty warped and the cutouts for the well boxes are both shallow and oversized.  So, it took a bit of securing to ensure both gear wells came out reasonably square.  In the end, not perfect, but pretty close.

 

With the upper & lower wings taped together, this is the root gap we are presented with.  Pretty nasty.

 

So, I'll use a trick I found here about using a small bit of sprue to spread the fuselage slightly.

 

Much better...

Edited December 19, 2018 by Gewehr 43

[ChuckD]

Here's the overall status as of last night.  The upper & lower wings are glued, as are the halves of the horizontal stabilizers and rudder.  The wings, stabs, and rudder are all just dry fit at this point.  Hopefully I'll shore up the wing tonight and finish the fuselage seam cleanup & whatever rescribing needs to be done.  The panel directly behind the cockpit is glued together (crap fit) but is dry fit to the fuselage.

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

Nice progress!  The Has E is IMHO, a great little kit with a few exceptions, like their choice to put joins in places that didnt have any actual panel lines.   Looking forward to more

[dennismcc]

Great progress, I wish I could build like you, but I'm glacially slow.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[MikeMaben]

If you build the B-17 this fast you can wait and start in November !! 

 

 

[LSP_Ray]

Geez, I cant read as fast as you are building! It is looking good!

[ChuckD]

More progress last night.

 

Not too much in the way of big advancements, but progress is progress.  I spent most of the evening sanding things like leading edges, fuse seams, etc.  I added the inserts for the guns on the leading edges as well as the inserts for the exhaust stacks.  I've still got some more cleaning to do tonight, but should be able to make some more progress.  The wings, sadly, did not get attached as I'd hoped.  I have some cleanup around the root on the leading edges that I want to do before gluing a fuselage in the way.  Tonight I also plan to dip the clear parts in future.  I don't normally do that as I've had bad luck with it, but that clear piece over the area behind the cockpit will no doubt need some filling and sanding and I want to be able to use superglue if needed.  

 

Anyway, last night's work:

Cowl inserts and cleanup done on the extraneous access panels.  Both sides turned out fairly well.  Still some more cleanup to do around the cowl inserts and the leading edge piece of the air intake.  They were just added last night, so the glue hadn't fully dried.

 

 

Cleaned up the seam in this... thingy... pretty nicely.

 

Left gun insert.  Fit on these was okay.  Some filler will likely be required as you couldn't make both the top and bottom flush with the wing.  One side would be flush and the other would have a little bit of a gap.  C'est la vie, I suppose.  Only did some rough-in work here as the glue wasn't fully set yet.  I'll clean it up more tonight.

 

Right gun insert.  This gives you a feel for what the fit was like before any sanding.  Fortunately, there are not any major panel lines anywhere too close by.

 

Final mockup in its current state.  Wings and tail surfaces still dry fit.  I also sanded the primer (Mr. Surfacer) tail join a bit to smooth it out.  It's not absolutely perfect, but the join should be pretty invisible with a coat of primer and paint. 

 

[MikeC]

Coming along nicely, and far quicker than I could do it.

[ChuckD]

Remember how I said this kit looked like it had been bashed around a bit?

 

Much better.  The offending nubbies have since been removed.

 

Tail wheel bay has been installed.

 

Dipped the clear parts in Future.

 

Mocked up the wheels and prop.  Now she's really starting to look like a P-40.

 

 

The gun inserts are almost ready.  I had to fill a couple small spots last night and the dissolved putty takes a bit to dry.  That's the last bit I wanted to address before gluing the wings on.  That should be done today.  

Edited December 21, 2018 by Gewehr 43