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1/18 Curtiss P40C - Finished :)


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18 hours ago, brahman104 said:

I'll never get sick of watching those instrument panels come to life!

 

Hah! That's what I'm waiting for, too: Moving intrument hands, real screws and bolts instead of just some fake "PE-blobs" and of course all those switches and toggles actually totally switch- and toggleable... ! Come on, Peter ...!

 

:frantic::m0152:

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  • 2 months later...

well I can't believe I haven't updated this since February :o

 

been so busy - I did finish the P51C Lopes Hope and have launched 18 new airscale products in the last few months so have not had much time at the bench at all..

 

..that being said, I have done a few bits..

 

..sorted out the fin from being a big slap of perspex, but only took one pic..

 

u7N2Bz.jpg

 

..opened out the tailwheel well from the slot with a mounting tube in it that it was..

 

Ta8dPF.jpg

 

..to the correctly shaped aperture by using a template, but didn't take a pic of that either..

 

dnYkw7.jpg

 

so on to the nose - I had let in a bit of ali tube to provide the foundation of the carburettor intake atop the cowling..

 

v8YCUq.jpg

 

..turned out this was waaay to small in diameter, plus having found the drawing of the casting, it is also a complicated shape and very definately not round..

 

0i66Qe.jpg

 

..it has fluted fairings at the front, tucks up under itself and becomes squareish at the upper rear so is a bit of a handful to reproduce..

 

LYN7dA.jpg

 

GlvHFY.jpg

 

..in the end I made a 3D one, but I don't know enough to do all the fairings so just took the basic shape as defined in a few axes by the drawing and will let filler do the rest..

 

9nzWEw.jpg

 

..chopped out the old one and after having airbrushed the insides interior green (should prolly be ZC but too late now) I masked the insides and let it into the fuselage..

 

5pRoaH.jpg

 

..bit more fettling...

 

CGegFJ.jpg

 

..and with the fairing built up, the basic shape is there - I still need to make the whole casting area stand proud so I can skin up to it so will do that with more filler up to a dyno tape seam..

 

AUl7DG.jpg

 

..the next schoolboy error I needed to correct was the seat bulkhead...  I had intended to just sheet over the hole in the bulkhead as I had seen this in some cockpit pics, but it turns out it should be open with the fuselage fuel tank behind it..

 

..like this..

 

Fej8HA.jpg

 

..you can just see the tank, much like the P51 one I did, it's covered in some rough material, perhaps the rubber self sealing stuff..

 

lUamFD.jpg

 

..so butchery ensued while I chopped out the hole and made up the tank blank from plan templates & hard foam..

 

jC64dC.jpg

 

..also refined the top of the spine a bit by adding a bent litho angle part each side to accept skinning & glass much later..

 

P0df3m.jpg

 

..bulkhead #5 prepared - the hole is painted green under the masking and with the tank in place you can't see anything about how rough it is inside..

 

zq7ivO.jpg

 

..and the finished tank, made by covering the blank with tissue & diluted PVA glue..

 

mmX3CK.jpg

 

..so a bit of a disordered update, but I should have a bit more time now so hope to be back soon :)

 

TTFN

Peter

 

 

 

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evening folks & thank you :)

 

got a bit more done, like finishing off the carb intake...

 

..this needs to be ever so slightly proud so that metal skins around it will sit flush with it - it will ultimately be painted as i can't really make it from metal and polish it (I did try..)

 

..this is done by marking the boundary with dyno tape and adding a very thin skim of P38 filler which is sanded down to the tape - hey presto, a great, proud edge to skin to..

 

FMpXk6.jpg

 

AC0C8i.jpg

 

..the gun covers either side of this intake are being 3D printed, so in an idle moment I started on the gun breeches...

 

..these are PE and stock and are the Browning M2..

 

Vw2r1N.jpg

 

..thankfully, very early in the build of the guns, I looked at my subject...

 

XdAym8.jpg

 

..now I did a couple of double takes, but there are no gun covers on that aircraft - just the central carb intake right?

 

this is with the covers..

 

GlvHFY.jpg

 

..so that was news, and good news as skinning around all the humps & bumps would have been tricky.. it also meant I didn't need to make guns... :)

 

..as I wanted to get all the big ugly building on the fuselage done before I can start on the cockpit, I wanted to start the stabiliser..

 

..I used plans to make my own drawing which was stuck to 2mm plastic card..

 

..hopefully you can see the slots I need to cut in the leading edge to slide ribs onto..

 

qbClVL.jpg

 

..the ribs were cut from thinner card and slotted into place and all the borders done in black sharpie so I can see where to sand to..

 

LfiGqY.jpg

 

..first gob of P38 filler..

 

R3VFO2.jpg

 

..after the first rough sand down to the rib outlines.. they are really only a guide..

 

QY5FiT.jpg

 

..final sand before final prime..

 

D6G7aM.jpg

 

..and the finished stabiliser - the intention being to cut away the front and some of the fuselage so they slot together..

 

 

sXHk3Y.jpg

 

..working out the alignment...

 

29W9KZ.jpg

 

..after dremelling away most of the 5 min epoxy in the joints..

 

b6sCEA.jpg

 

 

..and just in case you sit there thinking I don't regularly screw things up, this is the second time I had to chop it all apart, this time after filling & blending it, I noticed I just had it in entirely the wrong place - as you can see above, the elevator hingline should be a couple of mm behind the rudder hingeline - I had it waaay behind..

 

..also notice the damaged tailwheel well walls where the CA impregnated foam is just too weak for handling..

 

IrNGpr.jpg

 

..finally in place and blended in - the filler acts as a base for the complicated one-piece metal fairing that goes around the joint..

 

TAZyZ6.jpg

 

PkhQv8.jpg

 

..also chopped away all the lower rear and rebuilt the tailwheel aperture with a sheet of formed plastic card..

 

Ydunty.jpg

 

..the next thing to do before starting getting the cockpit together is the scalloped panels behind the rear cockpit glass... these were made from drawings interpreted from photo's and tape templates from the model itself..

 

5yEGK4.jpg

 

..I had read that these panels are NOT cockpit green, but olive drab (or camoflage colour if camo is used), so I painted them OD and added the pipe bases...

 

KRzfiQ.jpg

 

..and in place..

 

hXa6ih.jpg

 

..a dry fit of some components, the next stage of the build is figuring out how to detail the cockpit in a sequence that will work - a particular problem being the instrument panel, rudder pedals etc will need to be a free standing assembly coming off the floor I think as it's gonna be tricky to mount a crossmember to the sidewall carrying it all..

 

k0hMC0.jpg

 

cypQha.jpg

 

..until next time..

 

TTFN
Peter

 

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