1/32 Hasegawa P-26

[DougN]

I wanted to sneak in a quick build for myself between some other build commitments, so I decided to add some color to my display case with the old, but excellent, 1/32 Hasegawa P-26, at the same time doing my first WIP here on the site.  I have 3 copies of this kit, two in the old green/yellow, and one in the newer gray plastic.  Since the wings and tailplanes will be yellow, I decided to use one of the green/yellow plastic kits, thinking this will save me some effort in trying to get the yellow paint to cover.

 

If you are not familair with this kit, it is very simple, with only a few parts, but what is there is actually pretty nicely detailed.  This kit was the last in the series of 4 1/32 interwar aircraft (F4B-4; P-12E and BF2-C) and has a multi-piece engine, where the others have everything molded together.  Here is a shot of the entire kit contents:

 

 

The surfaces have very, very fine rivets and a few raised panel lines where appropriate.  Since this is meant to be a quick build, I will do the minimum required to get it together, since the painting will take a bit of time and effort.  Getting started, I have assembled the main cockpit components and will spray them, along with the interiors of the fuselage, with some Floquil Old Silver.  Since I'll have the airbrush out, I'll spray the engine cylinders silver at the same time:

 

 

I painted the instrument panel (as well as some other parts) Model Master Interior Black.  It's a bit basic, but since you can actually see it a bit on the finished model, I'll see what I can do with it (too bad Eduard never made a PE instrument panel for this kit):

 

 

I also glued the wings and tail planes together.  One tip, it is easier to attach the flap to the lower wing half if you want them closed, rather than trying to attach it after the top and lower halves have been joined .  After they were dry, I could not resist dry fitting everything together.  Note that the wheel spat halves are not even glued together yet!

 

 

 

It will probably be next week before I can get back to the kit and make any more progress.  Thanks for looking, comments (good or bad) and questions always welcome!

Doug

[Dave J]

Whooh! You could just throw it into your cabinet as is... and it will add a lot of colour!

 

Looking forward to this one Doug!

[phoenixII]

Hi Doug,

thinking that you have already built this kit a few times?

 

If not, one 'trap' to watch for is the fitting of the bracing wires between the undercarriage 'trousers'.

Shall watch this build with interest, as much for which blue you use, or are you going to cheat and go "green"?

 

Paul

with a P-26 calling from the stash!

[harvey boyer]

All right !............Harv

[DougN]

Thanks for your kind comments everyone!
 

 

The good old days of modelling! I remember this kits box but have not seen one in years. You will do another miracle on this one, Matt!

 

Thanks Thomas, but my name is Doug and I am not Matt

 

Whooh! You could just throw it into your cabinet as is... and it will add a lot of colour!

 

Looking forward to this one Doug!

 

Yes, it's pretty bright as it is, but adding the squadron markings should make it even more colorful - at least that's the plan.  Gotta love a kit that can look almost completed an hour after you start on it.

 

Hi Doug,

thinking that you have already built this kit a few times?

 

If not, one 'trap' to watch for is the fitting of the bracing wires between the undercarriage 'trousers'.

Shall watch this build with interest, as much for which blue you use, or are you going to cheat and go "green"?

 

Paul

with a P-26 calling from the stash!

 

Thanks Paul, this is my first one, but I have built the Hasegawa 1/32 F4B-4.  I'll be sure to watch for the bracing wire issue, and yes, I'll be doing this one in OD, as that is what the decals I have call for  I will do blue one next, and in spite of all the controversy around the blue color, plan to use True Blue for mine when the time comes unless I come across better information by then

 

Doug

[DougN]

Guess it's time for an update since I fell off the first page

 

I have not had much time to work on this model, but I managed to get the instrument panel sorted out to my satisfaction.  Here is the stock kit IP as shown above:

 

 

I used Airscale's excellent USN/USAAF 1/32 instrument decals to see if they would help.  Here is the result:

 

 

I put the decals on, sprayed everthing with dullcoat, then used a black marker to highlight the bezels and other bits, then used Future/Kleer to give a glass look to the individual instruments. 

 

I also managed to get the engine together:

 

 

I could not resist sticking it on the taped together airframe to see how it looked:

 

 

This is my second of the old Hasegawa 1/32 Quartet (F4B-4; P12; BF2C and P26) and I am really enjoying them!  I'll definately be building more in future.

 

Ok, that's it for now, going to get the cockpit finished off and get everything permanently assembled so that the painting fun can begin!

 

Thanks for looking, comments (of any kind)/questions welcome!

Doug

[Dave J]

Nice update Doug! I was wondering how you were going on with this project!

[Mikester]

Very cool, gotta love inter-war aircraft!

[phoenixII]

.................and just HOW many times did you 'fly' it round the room?  

 

Paul

[bbrockel]

Newbie question here Doug.  In your before and after cockpit panel shots (very nice shots BTW), how did you get the decals to lay so flat?  Did you chisel off the raised portions of each instrument or just lay the decals over them and use micro-sol to get the decals to conform?

[Jamme]

Nice start Doug.

Cheers,

Jamme

[Dave J]

Any updates Doug?

[DougN]

Sorry for the massive lack of updates on this one!  I started a new job at the end of April, and have been traveling around the US for training since then.  That, plus needed to re-learn how to prioritize things each day has caused this one to sit for awhile.  Things have settled down a bit, so I can post a bit of an update.  I would have more pics but the wife took the camera to Geneva (and I actually got some bench time) so I was not able to take photos of every step as I would have liked.

 

Apologies to Bob, as it seems I forgot to answer your question!  I just applied the decals over the kit instruments, and they managed to stay flat on top of the raised detail, which was a pleasant surprise indeed!  Any air pocket underneath got filled in with future when I applied it at the end of the process to give the appearance of glass.

 

So, here we go with an update!

 

I used the older kit, figuring the yellow plastic would make it easier to paint the yellow over them.  Wrong.  The yellow paint is very translucent so light showed through the wings even after a few coats of paint.  I also discovered that there were some nasty sink marks on the upper wings, and a problematic join on the bottom.  So I stripped the yellow paint and went with white primer.  Here you can see them in the middle of correcting the issues:

 

 

I also got some paint on the fuselage.  I first sprayed and masked the white areas, and then sprayed the OD over the rest of the fuselage:

 

]

 

The color of the horizontal tailplanes was a bit of a mystery, but after digging around, it seems that initially this unit had white tailplanes with black scallops, and later went to the more standard yellow tailplanes with black scallops on top, and a fat black bar on the bottom leading edge (like the Smithsonian example).  So, I decided to stick with the white tailplanes for this build (as it looks nicer).

 

I also got the gear spats together.  First I painted the wheels and then painted the unassembeled spat parts in OD.  Then after everything dried, I pre-taped one section of each wheel, stuck them in the spats and glued them together.  This way I will only need to paint the seams and can avoid the danger of getting paint on the trapped wheels.

 

 

I added the Townsend ring to the engine.  I also painted this OD first, then glued one side, let that dry and then glued the remaining side.  Only one side needed a little Mr Surfacer to clean up the line:

 

 

I  also managed to get the wings painted yellow, and then attached to the fuselage.  After that, I masked them and sprayed the OD area on the wings, which is how she sits now:

 

 

 

 

I also noticed a seam had developed on the top of the fuselage, so I sanded it a little and put some Mr.Surfacer on it as well:

 

 

That's it for now!  

 

Thanks for looking, comments/questions/critique all welcomed!

 

Doug

 

[harvey boyer]

Glad to see this one back ! Looks really good ! And congrats on the new job.............Harv

[DougN]

Thanks!

 

Made a little more progress, finished up the painting and decided to start on the fun of decals.  I jumped in the deep in and applied the decals to the wheel spats (I kept them off the model in case I had problems with the decals).  Unfortunately, they were not up to the challenge of the compound curves and did not turn out well.

 

Here they are before application (I trimmed the clear carrier film from the "V" cutouts on the decals):

 

 

And on the spats, after several round of decal solvent...

 

 

 

I'll spray a heavy coat of some Floquil Crystal Cote over these and then sand them out to get rid of the wrinkles, etc.  At that point, I'll use them for a masking guide to paint the markings on.

 

For the other side, since I am going to be painting anyway, I cut more of the middle of the decal out to see if that helps it settle better:

 

 

Thanks for looking!  More later...

 

Doug

[efrick]

Looking good so far! Amazing what the Airscale decals did for the instrument panel...very convincing effect!

[JeroenPeters]

Wow Doug!!! Nice build! I just love how you tackle these pre ww2 subjects.. You do your magic..

[DougN]

Thanks guys!  I'm just trying to get close to your magic Jeroen!

 

Time for an update.  Not too much going on, still working away at the spats.  After I got the decals on and they dried for a few days, I sprayed them with a heavy coat of Floquil Crystal Cote, as it is really tough and sands well.  Once that had dried several days (due to me not getting back to the bench), I used some 0000 steel wool and sanding sticks to smooth out the decaled areas:

 

 

 

Looks pretty messy, but hopefully it will all work out in the end  I then masked off the white areas, not worrying about covering the black areas since I would be painting them next:

 

 

I then sprayed Mr. Color white paint over the white areas:

 

 

Next, I'll un-mask the inner areas and mask for the black.  Then it will be another heavy coat of Crystal Cote, steel wool and then touch up any areas that need it.

 

Here is an overall shot of the rest of the airframe, painting completed:

 

 

I need to get some clear coat on the airframe so I can start decaling it as well.  Hopefully the rest of the decals will work without issue

 

Thanks for looking!  Comments/questions/critique welcomed!

 

Doug

[rgb40]

Looking good so far Doug.Bummer having to do those spats over again. You can never trust decals!

George

[DougN]

Thanks George!  Yes, decals don't really like me, but I hope they will cooperate for the rest of the build.  Knowing these were going to likely be an issue, I wanted to do this first to get it out of the way.

 

Got the black paint on, however I'm not 100% satisfied as there is some difference between the spats, which I know will end up bugging me, so we'll see.  Even though looking at photos of the real aircraft, they all seem to be different, I think I'll do a little more touch up before I call it done.

 

 

 

That's all for now!

 

Doug

[Showtime 100]

Awesome job!

[DougN]

Guess it's time for a small update.  Been working on the decals and am yet again disappointed by the Yellow Wing decals.  Some issues as follows:

 

Fuselage stripes are too short, as it seems they forgot to take the front ring into account when they measured the kit:

 

 

Not sure what the heck they were thinking here.  These black scallops still extend too far back but the real issue is that they don't even come close to connecting at the top:

 

 

Another head scratcher - these are just way off so I don't know what they measured when they drew these out as they extend too far down:

 

 

Going to put some clearcoat on the decals for protection, then will mask and spray the missing sections in the first two pics.  Good thing these are black and white, anyone trying to use the other colored set will have lots of fun trying to match the decal colors  For the tail, I'm going to see where I need to cut to use the scallops and will likely have to mask and paint the bottom section to get it right.  I'm also leaning heavily towards stripping and painting the wheel spats since they are way too large for the earlier version of this scheme with the white tail planes (as opposed to the later version with yellow tailplanes).

 

So, slowly but surely we press on!

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Doug

[JeroenPeters]

hi Doug,

Feeling your pain! Great work towards a professional fix though!

Keep it up. I'm following.

[Jamme]

Great job, Doug.

Cheers,

Jamme

[DougN]

Made a little progress, got the easy part of painting to correct decal deficiencies about done:

 

The top of the spine:

 

 

 

The nose:

 

 

 

A little mishap on the last photo, I'm going to have to go back and paint the white again where the decal pulled up.

 

Inspired by Matt's new(ish) photo table, I decided to see if I could upgrade my photo tent using the same principles, so I got a sheet of clear plexiglass and some PVC to build a frame/stand and stuck a couple of clip lights under the bottom to try to mimic the effect.  $30 later, here are a couple of shots of the P26 - not too bad for my first attempt: