nmayhew

process: primer - MS1500 thinned with MLT then some light sanding with Infini 4000 if any rough areas (there shouldn't be, but it's easier sanding primer than paint!) MRP silver (and i realise i went TOTALLY overboard in where i put it) hairspray MRP colours the colour was laid down using PS-771 which is just awesome i got mine for £175 from ebay direct from Japan, and escaped the customs charge etc even if i had got nailed, it was still materially cheaper than anywhere in Europe / UK, and arrived in less than a week it is one of those brushes which you have to try to believe spending £100 less on another brush for your detail work is in my view a false economy (should your funds permit of course) i have never heard of pebbling with MS1500 and MRP paints - other stuff who knows note I am not laying down 'gloss black' per se, it's just primer on a well-prepared (in theory!) surface the result should be super smooth when you run your finger over it if it's not, you either had some gruff areas from construction, or you were not laying the paint down properly I like MS1500 and MRP because they are super durable, dry in seconds, and spray like nothing else out there hope this helps

One of the worms lifted up some paint - MRP’s super powers of adhesion are rendered somewhat impotent over hairspray, but let’s see how it looks after weathering etc I will do the chipping tomorrow. whilst most of the middlestone is done, I haven’t yet done all the dark earth - I toyed with adding some German Rotbraun in places - but I have done the areas that will be chipped These last 2 pics show where I left it for the day…

Because I want to do chipping on wing roots - and maybe a few other spots - I then sprayed MRP Super Silver in these areas. I was just about to start with the whole hairspray then camo when I realised one of the three little circle thingies on the wings needed to be filled - i thought they were fuel filler caps but that was idiotic - the are gun related, though still no idea what they are a few dabs of Mr Dissolved Putty did the trick one of the problems of chipping and black basing is they don’t necessarily go that well together i was not clear in what I wanted to achieve and just started putting down dark earth…and also realised that whilst my airbrush control is reasonable, ability to replicate a camo pattern freehand is utterly feeble! Feeling somewhat frustrated, but knowing this bird had a very feathered demarcation, I thought I would try blu tack (white tack actually) worms! with a few worms in place, I started putted down some Middlestone...

yeah the flaps work out to Tiger armour plate thickness lol but i will always avoid PE wherever possible for genuine structure - for me that would be a recipe for disaster! the udder thingy is hydraulic drain - someone on SMCG posted a diagram - so at least i know they are actually tubes btw PS-290 - f&ck me it's a beast! if you don't have one, GET ONE!!! the stand is useless for this brush - I need to get something that can actually man up! once filled with paint it nearly fell out! anyway, the fan tip on this thing is the absolute nuts, and boy can it put out some paint! finally feel like i am getting somewhere!

getting close to primer! going with interior green wheel wells but the rest will be Dupont's sky grey whatever the hell it was called (don't tell anyone but i'm using RLM76), so kitchen towel sprayed with water to make it stay in the wells only really need to keep the primer out, as the wells themselves will get overspray round the edges maybe same procedure for the radiator cowl area the radiator flap part has two little tripod brace things which i found lacked any sense of positive fit, so careful here; i'll re-prime and paint this again later i guess i got lucky because after some fiddling and a little pressure it just clicked into place (I was able to remove it the same way) finally, what is this little thing on the underside? fuel dump? need to know if i should drill the little tube things out / replace with brass tube etc cheers Nick

i was toying with leaving the moulded on lumps - which are actually nice and crisp - but decided to clip them off and drill a small hole (per instructions - I have the Eduard kit) so that replacement clear parts can be added after painting starting point... snipped! small drill bit in pin vice after a little sanding for next time i recommend doing this before you put anything together - it will be a bit less fiddly this is the part i plan to use at the tail and attach the elastic line (I'll be using Uschi, which is round - EZ Line is fine but it is square in profile and you will see it if it's twisted even at tiny sizes) not entirely sure how accurate this is, but it will look a little better than just running the wire to the plastic tab part of the tail it bugs me that no aftermarket provider makes designated parts for these insulators and springs and stuff! the below was sourced from Hiroboy in UK btw and this is sort of what i think it will look like - note i drilled the hole too far back towards the tail so (test-)fitting the spring thingy was a bit more difficult that it should have been that's all for now cheers Nick

thank you the oloe is just MRP super silver which i sprayed the whole oleo with pre-chipping it was then masked and everything else done it was only masked after matt coat and i was pleasantly surprised with the contrast and general look next time - and perhaps on something larger - i might try to use MRP chrome and yes i will also use these loops for the antenna tie-downs on the wings (haven't tried this before but i reckon easier than trying to just make the wire disappear into a tiny hole! cheers Nick

Also, some pics of the landing gear which are close to complete Bob’s Buckles were used for the small loops that the brake line will be passed through they were gloss coated (MRP) then Tamiya panel line wash dark brown, then sealed with matt coat MRP

Some work on the wheels annoyingly there are no masks out there for these tried using some masking fluid but wasn’t happy with the finish so cut mask circles myself but of course the infini mat I have has every f*cking size apart from the ~13mm that I reckon I needed Nothing looks crapper than a wheel which is just flat black so here are the colours I plan to use I started by giving them an overall dark blue coat just to draw it all together then with paint stencil - someone please make these things in floppy plastic so can be used more effectively on compound curves - added some dark earth, and then some of the lighter colours… I will blend them all with some tyre black later but this is a decent start

Not too much progress recently I’ll go with the Quickboost landing gear doors primarily because they don’t have the shitty ejector pin marks (the kit parts are actually very sharp). The small door will fit very nicely, but the larger door will be fiddly to attach - neither upgrade nor kit part has a large mating surface and I don’t think the engineering is very good here. these doors will be us sky grey eventually - as will the main parts of the oleos - but I thought I would do some hs chipping first the tail wheel doors will stay interior green

he he no worries yes of course you are right and I am a numpty lol it should look reasonable enough once the prop hub is on in other news I have received a better copy of one of the two known photos of this airframe and I have now been ‘converted’ to believe that the spinner is red, and not black as I had previously believed so I guess I have some respraying to do cheers Nick

Hey DocRob sorry to hear of your issues with the wet transfers i would not be afraid to contact HGW directly and explain what happened - maybe it was a dodgy batch etc? HGW concede that they have not yet mastered the process for multi coloured decals which are very involved eg some intricate nose art i recommend them only because they do seem to have taken the fear / unpredictability from the stencilling / small decals best Nick

finishing (I think) the prop blades I have the Barracuda decals but i only ever use decals when there is no alternative luckily there is - HGW wet transfers from my P-47! no idea if the text is correct for a P-40 - probably not - but 1) at least it is for a Hamilton prop and 2) even in 1/32 you cannot read the text unless under magnification tools used shown below, plus a small bowl of water for those who haven't used these things before, fear not - it's dead simple... fyi paint surface is smooth, not because of gloss coat or 'the F word' but because I sanded the surfaces of the primer coat, and MRP goes on super smooth. dip in water just like a decal, then slide the transfer off the backing paper and put in place on top of either some Mr Mark Softer, Micro Sol or similar. use cotton bud / paper towel to press down and push out all the fluid from underneath ensuring a good 'connection'. below shows transfer in place still on the carrier film. i usually wait 6-8 hrs or overnight (hey it's like I'm using enamel paints lol) then use a toothpick to scuff an edge and remove the film depending upon the strength of setting solution, you may get a faint 'ghost' where the film was, but i found this disappears either by wiping the area with a damp paper towel / cotton bud, and if not then certainly by the time you apply final finish - MRP matt varnish in this case. the finished article is literally as if a tiny person painted the data on - there is no ridge or film - none of the dreaded silvering bs you roll the dice with decals etc etc. the finish is pretty bullet proof so you can apply oils, enamel washes etc over the top i have also seen guys sand bits away to simulate wear, but have not done this myself yet i used HGW wet transfers on my P-47 as well - there is no hiding place on a NMF for decal carrier film - and they performed flawlessly anyway, hope the tutorial helps a few people 'break their wet transfer cherry' cheers Nick

Did it have the full value displayed on the box? I am a bit out of touch as to what the rules and regs are...

final update for today i think the horizontal stabs went in and were VERY tight i found that putting both wings in about half way and then pushing them together worked - with a bit of grunt they snapped in very nicely but putting in one wing first and then trying the other and i found that no amount of force would make the second go in just a small amount of Mr Surfacer 500 for underneath where the gap was slightly larger...and then some light sanding and all good 500 not needed on top - i probably could have got away with just sanding tbh catch you all later time for some gardening!

propeller blades hassy have some really f*cking annoying raised lines to signal where the yellow tips should be silver sprayed on rear edge for chipping quick bit of masking then yellow goes on - none of this 'must lay done a grey blah blah' (it's MRP - you can spray anything over anything!) hairspray then goes on, then various colours all mottled on (not on the yellow) to give the blades some depth one of the things i try to do now is not just have 'slabs of colour' - so literally any old colours to hand can work, it doesn't need 'over thinking' then water and stubby brush for some chipping results were so so because i sprayed direct from can and think the hs went on a bit thick but still reasonably pleasing the chipping through the yellow is hard to pick at anything other than close up but as you can see from above is indeed there the front side - here you can see what i mean about depth and variation...the bigger the scale, the more you need this approach in my view or you just end up with that 'big toy' look same sort of approach for the spinner i don't think the panel line around the prop hole is correct but i have no interest in investigating further on this one! some sanding and polishing as my part was scratched to sh*t in the box (my bad on that) half way through the various mottles... looks a bit dodgy here but to naked eye finished article looks similar to prop blades, just slightly different all pics are iphone btw and for some reason when i drag and drop to LSM on my Mac it says they are exported in low quality etc so sorry about that

not sure if i mentioned this before but i found it a bit of an eye opener to cut bits of sanding sponge off and use forceps / tweezer thingies to get in and sand quite 'forensically' if i had used this approach earlier in the build i would have either got better results or at the very least achieved the same in less time / with less effort i found that i had not attached the front canopy correctly - the fit was fine on dry fit, this was entirely user error - so i had a small area requiring filler again probably not showing anyone anything new, but i found putting masking tape either side of the slit i was trying to fill, then brushing on some Mr Surfacer 500, allowing to dry, then sand the area on top of the masking tape off (rough grade fine for this), remove sanding paper and then use technique as shown above provided a fairly quick and very pleasing result

thank you in retrospect i should maybe have persevered? another reason i was hesitant was that the hassy kit links the wheel well construction with a wing spar which aligns the dihedral going slightly 'off piste' with my construction method meant i was quite keen still to be able to take advantage of it next time - and that will be a long time in the future! - seeing as i didn't have any problems in that area, i might have another go at using the covers i actually tried to trim them and fit them in *on top* of the normal wheel well, but just ended up cutting them to sh*t because i was going about half-arsed lol anyhoo...

the landing gear blister thingies were glued on only *after* i was satisfied with the wing root and leading edge inside of the blister i was dreading this area but luckily it did not turn out too bad here you can see the wheel wells...hmmm anyway moving on early P-40s like this one did not have bomb racks; some research and i was told that the bottom was just flush, so more filling and sanding that's all for now i am off to the pub

wings and stuff... as i said i glued bottom on first, then added the top pieces the gun cover parts are moulded as rectangular inserts but there is no panel line on the real thing... i had thought taping round where i don't want scuffed was clever and whilst the idea was laudable, you can (as i did) end up just shifting / creating another problem this is mr dissolved putty laid on with a small flat brush, thinned with some Mr Levelling Thinner; sands quite nicely as you would expect a note about the wheel wells - the CMK inserts do not fit well - they were just too small to fill the round wheel well hole which was sooo frustrating as these birds would have had canvas covers as you can just see above i ended up going without them they are painted (at present) the US equiv of Sky - i have taken a stab and used MRP RLM76 my conundrum is whether the wells should actually be Interior Green - I am beginning to think that they should be they will be a pain to paint and weather correctly again, but it shouldn't be impossible i could even go with some cheeky hair spray chipping as well

a note about the exhausts... the Brassin ones look cool but infuriatingly they need to go in before you glue the fuselage halves together which is really feeble by Eduard i think i will instead by using Quickboost ones which you can paint and weather and THEN glue on unfortunately my first QB set were miscast / damaged - see below - but Hannants sent replacements quickly so thumbs up for their customer service the pic below does not quite do them justice, but still not sure entirely satisfied and i may come back and weather with oils later, we'll see. exhausts primed as usual and then sprayed in order from left to right, trying to get some graduated colour etc etc once i am happy they will be snipped off the casting block and the glued on; this will after i have sprayed on the exhaust staining.

nothing too exciting here but masked the canopy inside and out primed Mr Surfacer 1500 black both sides, then US Interior Green inside interior masks removed and made some masking to fit to protect it once attached and spraying main camo montex masks used in combination with Eduard generally i prefer Montex for flat surfaces, and Eduard for compound curves; Montex usually provide inside and outside which is great whereas i don't think Eduard did here i ended up using Eduard on outside for all the parts, main windshield included fiddly, but with patience it's not too bad the gunsight - which is obviously very delicate - will not be fitted to the instrument panel until just before the canopy part above is ready to be attached some wheel well stuff next which i will try to post later

correct - it's meant to be fun; fun for different people means different things, so it's all good but i only have limited appetite for this stuff i may go build some armour next where you don't have any of this nonsense!

additional changes re the 4 guns vs original 6...once i did this there wasn't really any going back! i thought about using Master Model barrels - and they do look sweet - but i was not confident of being able to drill out the right amount / area of the piece shown above i used black CA - which is slightly rubberised - as an experiment here i think ultimately CA mixed with talc is better, but this stuff is definitely not as hard as regular CA wings.... i will do almost anything to avoid wing root problems! so i glued the bottom half first, and then added the top halves in the grand scheme of things, i think most modellers could do this - i certainly didn't do anything special - and whilst it potentially just moves the problem around from wing root to say leading edge, it's a damn sight easier dealing with the latter when doing this stuff i make a point of scribing / emphasizing the panel lines and rivets **before** i get to sanding it's soo much easier going over something that is already there, rather than trying to redraw lines and rivets from scratch your mileage may vary of course! there is no panel line on the bottom cowl...*sigh*... more sanding this bit was not very well handled by me - i broke own rule of not scribing before the sanding began and i had to rescribe some stuff from scratch meh cheers Nick

Hassy kits have the reputation of being simple and easy to build for the most part if you want to have panel lines where they should be, and more importantly not to have them where they shouldn't be, then their P-40s are not for you notice the horizontal lines inside the insert do not line up with main exhaust area this was a learning experience for me 1) i will be better the next time i tackle a kit like this 2) the next time may be some way off and i am leaning more towards Tamiya's (limited) selection of uber kits - life is just too short to build what saps the life out of you 3) simple kits are *not* easy kits - this is far more challenging in terms of skills required than building a Tamiya Spitfire in 1/32 - no way you'll need to be doing so much of this shit! more fun... in the below, i experimented with talcum powder mixed with CA glue - it did indeed make it much easier to sand and i will consider using this technique again, although i suggest masking along the areas you are going to fill so that you don't have to sand stuff unnecessarily also note in the above the panel lines on the scallop mating the wing to the fuselage are almost completely washed out this were a PITA to re-scribe, but do need to be done given the lines just above them are so crisp