GWH Curtiss P-40B; The Flying Tigers

[GazzaS]

Peter...

    Whatever the problems...  It looks like it should.  Like a shark ready to pounce.  And you're paving the way.  I found guys who were working on their ZM 109's after me worked things out differently than I did with better results.

    The kit does sound over-engineered.  One thing I don't like is having all of those barrels protruding when there is so much more work to do.  I also like that you took the sensible steps to replace PE with card. 

 

Keep up the good work!  She'll look brilliant with that big, menacing AVG grin.

[Peterpools]

Thanks Phil, right on the money

Just a shame some kits go down that route and for me it tends to be a mojo killer at times and greatly lengthens the build.

 

[Peterpools]

Dennis

Absolutely, one of those iconic aircraft with the perfect shape for a hungry, right to tangle shark mouth.  Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll be priming in the booth. 

[Peterpools]

Kev

Hopefully, I'm close to being done with seams and gaps. I don't remember building a kit before where the actual floor is the top of the wing was so detailed. If memory serves me correctly (not a chance), a good number of WWII aircraft had the wing as the cockpit floor but there was structure above it, so the pilot wasn't actually standing and kicking the wing top. Kit details here are exceptionally good though.

 

 

[Peterpools]

Ernie

Completely agree that the kit surely seems accurate and is an excellent representation of the early P-40. Just wish GWH, would have eased up on the hidden details and offered some one-piece parts as an option to multiple piece parts in certain areas. Seems a better option then going with all the hidden details that are beautifully molded. So far, I build, painted, weather and installed all of them and there are more that go on the underside that will be completely hidden as well. Still tossing on what to do.

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Gaz

Greatly appreciated and your right on the money. I'm sure as other build the P-40, they will find alternate ways to build the kit and most likely will not have needed to resolve the issues I did. 

I've followed you 109 from day one, have the kit and when I'm ready to build it, your thread will be one of my building guides and references.

 

 

[Peterpools]

FUEL LINES, CHECKING SEAMS

AND LOOKING FOR SANDING MARKS

First up was checking all the seams and the areas I used Evergreen styrene to replace the super thin PE parts up to now, priming with MRP Black Primer. I just knew I would need to do a good amount of touchup work and my guess was right on the money, so no surprises here. Final primer for painting as always: MRP Light Gray - super smooth as silk.

Next area to check was the wing/fuselage fairings and while the fit is pretty good, GWH chose to split the fairing a third of the way up from the end / side panel line in the concave area, leaving a seam that needed to be removed. Tamiya filler was put to good use, just a little bit more work needed now plus a pass or two with my scriber and job should be done.

The PE MG Breach panels (?) were replaced with Evergreen styrene and came through with flying colors.

The upper spine showed a bit of the seam that needs some attention as well

On the underside:

The flaps needed to be beefier or at least one more attachment hinge so they wouldn’t have sagged when drying. If I went the route of the flaps down, I could have avoided a lot of work. My fault for not realizing how I glued up the parts but it was one of my typical very early morning work session: 2 AM!

Just out of curiosity I wanted to see how the fuel lines looked glued in place on the belly. Nicely detailed and I didn’t waste any time painting them or the fuselage under them, as nothing can be seen after the balance of the lower fuselage is glued into place. If I was going to leave this section of the lower fuselage off or removable, I would need to move all the fuel lines one line over to the right. I guess GWH thought some builders might choose not to glue the flower fuselage in place, leaving it removable but I just can’t see it – I didn’t see any indication in the instructions that this portion of the fuselage should not be glued. To represent the visible portion of the fuel lines, I would think a small, one-piece part would have done the trick nicely by the engine cowl flaps.

Another example of excellent details, included in the kit, that once built will never be seen.

Beautiful fuel line details

Presto - they are gone for good. 

[GazzaS]

Looks great, Peter.  I always wondered what was going on under that big fairing below the engine.  Did you find the area immediately behind the cowling to be a messy area?  It's difficult for me to tell what's going on there with the grey and white right at the seamline.

 

Those wing guns are gonna be a pain to work around.

[Peterpools]

Gaz

You hit it right on the button. I'm right now in the midst of working on the engine cowling seams, the fit was pretty bad and a good deal of the issue is the engine bulkhead isn't seated perfectly - just so hard to know when I was gluing it up way at the beginning of the build. If I remember correctly, a lot of parts all coming together and things just didn't line up as well as I thought. Just another reason to have gone with the cowling panels off and the Big Allison exposed. 

The biggest waste is all the plumbing that is hidden - I just wanted to show what never will be seen. 

 

 

[GazzaS]

1 hour ago, Peterpools said:

Gaz

You hit it right on the button. I'm right now in the midst of working on the engine cowling seams, the fit was pretty bad and a good deal of the issue is the engine bulkhead isn't seated perfectly - just so hard to know when I was gluing it up way at the beginning of the build. If I remember correctly, a lot of parts all coming together and things just didn't line up as well as I thought. Just another reason to have gone with the cowling panels off and the Big Allison exposed. 

The biggest waste is all the plumbing that is hidden - I just wanted to show what never will be seen. 

 

 

The same kind of thing was true with the ZM 109 and the WNW Fokker D.VII.  If you let things dry, and then glue panels on the next session, or whatever you can find that tiny misalignments that may have been caused by you or not, can totally ruin the picture. 

Happened when I built my first WNW D.VII.  I never finished that kit, it was ruined because everything depends on perfection to get the super-fragile frame in all of the right places.  To avoid the mishap, I slapped everything together quickly and did all of the marrying-up while everything was still soft and malleable on the second one.

Still need to get one of those P-40's.  But gonna have to wait until March of next year...  Christmas, wife's birthday, and Anniversary gotta be taken care of, first. 

[BradG]

I was looking at getting this kit, but looking at your thread I'm kinda glad I didn't as it was in excess of 200 dollars down here. That said you are doing a nice job on it.

[DocRob]

Nice progress Peter, and yes, the cowling to fuselage fit seems to be a complicated area. It's a bit pronounced now with the primer and filler, but I wonder if this will smooth out in the end. This to me is a defining point of the airframe and therefore crucial. I hope, you can master that area.
I like the extra detail, where have you got fuel line fairings. You can show these in a maintenance dio. A hundred times better and more usable, than ZM's single pistons .

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Gaz

Right on the money. I guess we all have been down that road and comforting to have the company. The cowl I think was the first assembly I built up and just wasn't prepared for the alignment issues and how GWH needs parts to come together.

I been plugging away since I posted the last update Wednesday morning, correcting the engine cowl assembly and except for scribing the lost panel lines, it's done. I'm getting ready for a quickie update a little later today. 

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Brad

For anyone wanting to figure out a way of showing all the hidden details and the Big Allison, all the work is worth the effort. But for me. the kit is just over engineered. I wanted to include all the hidden details so anyone thinking about buying the kit, would know what lay ahead. For what will be seen, it's a very pricy kit.

    

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob

Spent nearly two full days plugging away on correcting the engine cowl fit and all is good now. I'm going to do a small update later today with a few pics of the repair and correction. 

I agree with what you are saying about all the hidden details lending themselves to creating a diorama or vignette but if the end goal is a place in the display cabinet, just a lot of extra work, time and I bet they added a lot to the cost of the kit.

While I do have a number of AM kits in the stash, I'm right with you about all the hidden detail parts included in their kits as well. Number one has always been the pistons in the engines - makes zero sense to me. While the interior aircraft framework is a simplified representation of the actual aircraft's structure and I'm sure it has some educational value.  

 

 

[Peterpools]

THE NOSE ASSEMBLY

Yes, it didn’t fit and I missed by a mile. This was where I actually started the build and found right from the start, for me, it was difficult to get all the parts to mesh together correctly. GWH intent was two interchangeable nose assemblies held in place with magnets; one with the engine cowling panels on (as I did) and one with some part or all of the cowling panels off, displaying the big AllisonV12. I wasn’t interested in the interchangeable assemblies. Back tracking. I just didn’t get the firewall bulkhead seated perfectly and that apparently widened the nose quite a bit. I wasn’t interested in building the P-40 with the engine exposed, as I’m after the fierce look of the AVG Flying Tigers Shark Mouth in all its glory. Down the road, I’ll build the Allison up for display.

I shouldn’t have posted the previous update as I knew I had a lot of work to do in correcting my error, as my intent was to show the progress made as a whole. After Gaz and Rob zeroed in on the nose fit blunder, I knew I had to stop, correct it, no matter what. I spent two days sanding and massaging the nose area, muttering to myself, why in the world did I even glue the nose onto the fuselage knowing there was a fit issue? But I did and that was now blunder number two - I just made the repair a zillion times harder.  

Care was taken to bring everything back into proper alignment. Slimmed and corrected, the nose and the fuselage finally flowed together and an unsightly gap appeared. The gap needed to be filled and re-scribed as it is a major panel line and I needed a filler that would dry rock hard and solid. I went with Standard Milliput and when dried, hard as nails. And of course, more wet-sanding and cleanup work – but the gap is gone. All that remains to be done now is scribe the panels lines I removed, add the screws, a few rows of small rivets and it’s time for priming with MRP Light Gray Primer. I originally went with MRP Black Primer to check specific areas for seams and sanding marks and that mission has been accomplished.

  

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Peter, the results are making the extra effort/frustration worth it. It looks good and a whole lot better than the alternative which is the Trumpeter kit.

Carl

[Peterpools]

Thanks Carl. so very much appreciated.

Glad I bit the bullet and went to work correcting the engine cowl assembly and now I can keep going without worrying, as I tried to make sure at this point I fixed or corrected everything that I needed to.

I tend to shy away from most Trumpeter kits as I do not have good luck with them rarely enjoy building them. One exception was the Bearcat, which I did enjoy and didn't have any issues. Of course, that was a long time ago.  

[Sasha As]

Great job!

[Peterpools]

Thanks Sasha

Making nice progress now on a daily basis and hoping there are no more bumps in the road

 

[BradG]

It's telling that you don't see many of these uber kits actually built. I see even fewer when going to model comps, but there are no end of Tamiya and Hasegawa LSPs that are without all the open panels. I'm sure these kits sell well, but they seem to just sit in many people's stash forever.

[Peterpools]

Brad

You pretty much hit it right on the head in my book. Kits that create an aura of being over engineered, lots of hidden details, being a 'tough build', fit issues and expensive, just don't seem to have much build presence of builds online. I know I've complained a lot and a good deal and a healthy portion of the of the problems were self-inflicted as a result of sloppy fitting parts and unclear instructions. 

The P-40 would have been a much better kit with a more conventional approach compared as Tamiya, with both ranges are in the same price range.

 

 

 

[harv]

Wonderful work buddy !!....harv 

[DocRob]

The P-40 looks 'dirty' for your usual extremely clean work Peter. That's no critique, only a sign, how hard you had to fight against the fit issues. Luckily the problematic area got solved and I can hear from your reporting, you are still really in it. It looks more and more like the original and the hard work is seemingly close to an end and than the fun begins .

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks Harv, getting there and not to far away from a full primer cote and the spray booth... 🤞