GWH Curtiss P-40B; The Flying Tigers

[JohnB]

Sounds like a plan Peter. (Please don't make the mistake that some modelers make and paint the seat interior color. I feel sure you already know the seats, up to the N's, were bare metal.)

[Peterpools]

Hi John

Never knew and of course, I painted the same interior green as the cockpit, right from the beginning of the build. I'm sure you are correct but it's way too late to change the color as all the seatbelts and harnesses are glued in place and weathered.  

 

 

 

 

[JohnB]

25 minutes ago, Peterpools said:

Hi John

Never knew and of course, I painted the same interior green as the cockpit, right from the beginning of the build. I'm sure you are correct but it's way too late to change the color as all the seatbelts and harnesses are glued in place and weathered.  

 

 

 

 

Oh man! Sorry to hear that. For some reason I figured you knew but was just mentioning it to be sure. I didn't realize you'd already done the seat. ☹️  I'm sure you must have already posted photos of the seat which I missed. Sorry.

I scrolled back and found the photo of the seat. Mighty nice work! Looks great.

[JohnB]

On 11/16/2022 at 2:42 PM, Peterpools said:

CLOSING UP THE FUSELAGE

Pin washes are done, all the remaining decals, placards, seatbelts,  super small PE parts have been added and some light dry brushing as well. I used a good balance of the detail parts from GWH, Eduard and Quinta and the effect does look quite good. As I have already discovered and seems to continue: part placement and orientation is an issue as the instructions are not clear and nor specific enough. Directional locating arrows quite often just go in the general direction or even indicate wrong location. 

 I’ve been very careful with locating parts, removed paint from all the mating surfaces and there still are fit issues.

I decided to use pin washes in the fuselage interior just because I added all the detail parts as extra insurance in case something more can be seen then I assumed earlier. Unfortunately, so little actually can be seen.

With the fuselage buttoned up, I thought now would be a good time to test fit the nose assemble and the fit has some issues I’ll need to resolve.

The nose assembly taped on and there are some fit issues that need to be resolved

 

The seat is finished and resting in place on the wing, as it's not attached to the cockpit bulkheads at all.

 

Even though it's not NMF it still looks GREAT!!!

[Peterpools]

Thanks John, no biggie.  My goal is just to finish the P-40B as it's another over engineered kit. 

Hopefully I have the wings on this week and most of the bottom assembly done and on as well. Just so many small assemblies to do and details to add.

 

 

[JohnB]

1 hour ago, Peterpools said:

Thanks John, no biggie.  My goal is just to finish the P-40B as it's another over engineered kit. 

Hopefully I have the wings on this week and most of the bottom assembly done and on as well. Just so many small assemblies to do and details to add.

 

 

Lots of parts to keep you busy. I know it's gonna look good!

[Peterpools]

John

Yup, going to be keeping me busy for a good amount of time and I seriously thinking about leaving out the never to be seen parts and details, just wasted building time. 

 

[JohnB]

3 hours ago, Peterpools said:

John

Yup, going to be keeping me busy for a good amount of time and I seriously thinking about leaving out the never to be seen parts and details, just wasted building time. 

 

I agree the never to be seen parts are a waste of time and effort. 🙄

[Bomber_County]

Peter, looking stunning as ever. The Flammpanzerwagen had a gearbox and fuel tank to be positioned under the floor deep in the crew space of the half track. Hmmmm detail is good but only when you can see it and appreciate it….

[GazzaS]

Wow, Peter, great update.  Dunno ow I missed it.  Love the cockpit floor.  Looks very crisp and clean. 

[DocRob]

You are mastering the delicate beast, Peter. I would have imagined, that the kit would be of higher quality, but you're doing great and like Gary said, crisp and clean paintjob.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Phil

Exactly. Just can't understand why so many manufacturers waste resources on hidden details that will never be seen and have a habit of causing all sorts of fit issues as well. I'm still working and fixing a few goofs on the wing and then looking at all the plumbing GWH's wants you to add to the underside of the airplane - not going to add any at all, as not a bit of it will be seen. talk about ridiculous and hidden details.

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Gaz, getting there a little bit at a time. There are times the mojo is missing and I don't want to get anywhere near burnt out, so I just walk away for a few days until the juices return.

  

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob. much appreciated

There is a lot of quality with the kit but the negatives and 'non helpful' orientation drawings in the instructions, have greatly demised the value of the kit in my eyes. I can see digging into a limited run kit like Ernie's Helldiver and knowing you will be facing a lot of corrective work but for a kit costing what the P-40 did, I would have expected more. Great intensions and in my view, just over engineered and all those hidden details, just don't understand why.

  

[Peterpools]

TWEAKING AND TEST FITTING

Since the last update, bench time has been a bit rare as both my wife and myself have had more then the usual doctor appointments and she also underwent a serious procedure. Our schedule of appointments seems to be increasing as we age and thank goodness, we’re still kicking.

The main wing assembly is nearly done, required a lot of sanding and filler to get the numerous parts to fit smoothly, including the gear wells (still needing more work). The PE on the upper wing was just too small and thin and I had no confidence in them that they wouldn’t pop off, especially if nicked during the pre-priming stages (one already did). I replaced them with duplicates from the thinnest card stock I had and then sanded them even thinner after gluing them into place.

What I thought were speed breaks on the undersides of the wings, apparently seem to be the ammo trays, meant to shown in the down and loading position, which I didn’t want to do. Again the PE covers were here are way too thin and I needed to make new covers for the second time with Evergreen strip. I spent a lot of time sanding and cleaning up the seams and smoothing things out. (photographs in the next update).

The wing to fuselage fit wasn’t that good and a lot of time was needed to correct the fit. Once I was happy with the overall fit, the wing fairings were next up; the fit is tight and each has a nice size seam completely around the part that will need to be filled. I’m thinking of using Mr Surfacer 1000, as I want the gap filled but the panel line to show prominently. The fit at the leading edge of the wing fairing still needed work.

Lastly, I again test fitted the nose assembly with the wing in place as per the instruction sequence and to my surprise, there are fit issues. When I had originally tweaked the nose assembly, I had the fit pretty well resolved but with the addition of the MG panels, fit issues again. Of course, I'm betting a good deal of these fit issues are mine as getting all the parts to fit and align perfectly is a tough act.  

Not much of an update but a lot of work just the same. So here is where I am and hopefully in two or three more bench sessions, I’ll be ready to glue everything up and start aiming for the priming stages.

 

[HubertB]

On the right track, Peter 👍 !

Hubert

[DocRob]

Test fitting is part of the game Peter. The more dubious a producer, the more test fitting is required, but what I see on your pics looks like a P-40 and that's what counts. GWH could have done better, but in your description, I still hear no frustration. Seems to be a challenging kit, but this is sometimes what you need. Everybody can do Tamiya .

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks Hubert

Slowly but surely, I'm getting there. 

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob, much appreciated.

For me the enjoyment in building a kit, is not going to battle against sloppy fitting parts, which always seems to be the seeds of frustrations. One such example was the three-piece panel over the nose MG's. They could have been designed as a single piece, helping the modeler in a achieving a much more accurate fit. The P-40 seems to be one of those kits were a small part not aligned perfectly for whatever the reason, causes more and more problems down the road. 

GWH decision to have the entire nose section replaceable by using a magnet seems to be a great idea but the execution just didn't work for me. I'm still massaging and tweaking assemblies to fit and this has left the realm of fun. The old saying for me: movable and replaceable parts - fit issues for sure, holds true. 

 

 

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Peter, the results so far look great. It's hard to tell that you're having the fit issues you've described.

Carl

[Peterpools]

Thanks Carl

Getting there step by step and today, I hope to resolve the last of the nose fit issues. See how it goes.

 

[Bomber_County]

Looks good to me Peter, you’re right a challenging kit can be fun but to battle with a kit continually, the mojo goes south pretty quickly. Good luck with last conundrums…….

[Spitfire]

Looking very much like an early P-40, it does look very shark like no wonder the mouth and teeth paint work suited it.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[KevinM]

Well Peter it looks good to me so far really like how the pit came out ...strange design is that on the wing root?fuse,wing root then wing correct? if so more pieces more seams

[Clunkmeister]

Oh man, that looks GREAT, Peter. It’s awesome to finally have an ACCURATE early Curtiss Hawk in our scale. I’ve built Hasegawa P-40s and SH Radial engine Hawks, aand this will perfectly fill that gap.