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Playing in the Sandbox Group Build Sept 1, 2024 - Jn 1, 2025

1/32 Curtis P-40 production line, building 7 at once!


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I spent the last month buying every P-40 I could get my hands on, and accumulating some AM bits and bobs for them. I have also been trying to chase down the final versions of what I wanted to build, the last one decided this morning. To keep me on track, I’m going to stick with these. I now have all the decals and masks on hand or ordered, with the only exception being the Turkish version, which I have not found any decals, so I’m going to use a Hurricane set that has Turkish markings.

 

 

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I still don’t have a workbench, and I’m still unpacking my stash, but I started the production line today. The cockpits are a little confusing, because I am building a late N with all the PE, and early N with only a PE panel, then two K’s, and two E’s. So far I have the two N cockpits glued up, and started one K before I quit today. I also started fitting and gluing the tail to the fuselage on one of the N’s. After studying how they mate, I figured that gluing the tail to the halves is the best way to make it join up well. I am going slow so I can makes sure there is no step. 

 

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After studying the tail plugs, I tried gluing the tail to the fuselage half, that didn’t work perfectly as the profile is a little off, the fuselage is flatter than the tail, leaving a small step.

next I tried the approach that Hasegawa recommends, which a twist, I taped the halves together instead of gluing. I held the halves together and tried to line up each half as best I could. This came out a little better.

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So, just to prove I have been sitting on my ass, working on planes...

 

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Oops, wrong picture.

 

The assembly line method actually works pretty well, but I did have to modify the method a bit. I have been building the planes in pairs because the different versions, so build by type (E, K, N) made the most sense. I also decided that the two Trumpy P-40’s will have to wait for another time since I still have not received one of them yet, and the P-40F conversion will be on its own since that is still on its way over the Atlantic. 

 

I won’t lie, the cockpits were a bit confusing building the N’s and a K, because they were all different, plus I used PE on both N’s. I have some resin seats coming for the K’s and one E, and I also plan on using a pilot with one of the planes. Building this way definitely saves time, my first cockpit took me nearly an hour, the last two planes I did everything in about an hour.

 

 

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For the first time in over a week, I had a chance to work on them today. Right now I need to get the fuselages closed up so I can continue, so a nice base layer of paint was in order. I ended up using about 6ml of XF5 paint on all these! 

 

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And of course, you need a whole pile of these too...

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And on top of the previous six, this one followed me home as well a Grey Matter F/L conversion. So I decided to paint these up before assembly. It’s going to end up as a French long tail F, specifically “Madkot” in the British desert camo.



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Lol, trust me I’m fine!

 

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Actually, it’s not so crazy, most of the pre-paint work is identical, there are some minor cockpit internal changes, but except for the different tail plugs, it’s all the same assembly and fitting. Where it will really start deviating is at the paint stage.

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At last someone who's crazier than me. :D

I tried doing 3 Tamiya Spitfires and a Revell one at the same time a couple years ago and pulled if off barely. Currently there's a pair of HK B-25s sharing work bench space with my LCM and Firefly.

Thanks too for showing us the different approaches to the fuselage tail section and which seems to be the best one.

Carl

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Epic, with a little photoshopping you could some of your photos make look like a real construction line in black and white of course. Sometimes  I feel the urge of building two planes of the same type, because I want one pure in flight position and one on the ground with all panels open, but SEVEN :blink:. At least you need a presentation shelf 'P-40 only' :D

Cheers Rob

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Today I spent a couple hours working on the cockpits, most of that time was reasearching the seats and harnesses for each. I cut 3 CMK resin seats off their pour blocks, they fit so well, I didn’t need to do much fitting. I built a late PE seat for one N model. I also built up one of the pilots for an E, that was one of the poorest fitting pilots I built in a long time, lots of hacking, sanding, and scraping to get him to fit. I decided he would be the only one. 

 

After that I became thoroughly confused as to which harness fit which models. The ones with question marks, I’m not sure of.

 

Here is what I have so far:

late model N = std US harness

RAAF early N = std US harness ??? (It seems that these were prepped and assembled by US mechanics)

Russian K = US harness ??? (I don’t have a clue on this one)

US Africa K = std US harness ??? (This plane was transferred from the British, so not sure)

French F = std US harness ??? (Transferred from 33FG)

Canadian E in Alutian Islands = Sutton or US ???

British E in Africa = Sutton

 

im still looking, but the books I had don’t cover the subject, and don’t have pictures of foreign service P-40’s. Back to do more research.

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Incredible project and rolling along so nice. Just keeping track of which is which is a major test of organization and mental toughness! 

I followed Carl’s multiple Spitfire builds and was utterly amazed at th high level of work he did on each one, I could never even kept the line going.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter;)

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I spent a while today chopping up a perfectly good, brand new, P-40M kit in prep for the F conversion. I am about 50% done fitting the resin parts, so far so good, I chopped up the plastic already, I also rescribed all the panel lines on the resin nose, they were very light, and did not match the Hasegawa panel lines. The resin is going to need some filler, it’s not super smooth, and there appears to be some mold damage as there is a depression on one side, that looks like the mold ripped before they cast it. I’ll take some pics tomorrow, as I was concentrating on not screwing up. 

 

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Oops, wrong picture...

 

here we go...

 

So this my first resin conversion ever, and so far, the fit is just OK. There are some mold issues that I need to fix, there are two areas that look like the mold ripped and will need filler to bring it level, and the overall shape is a little “lumpy”, but overall, it’s pretty good. All the flat edges need truing up with a flat file, and the fit is not perfect. Someone else that did this gave me a heads up, and I cut the panel line a little shy, where I knew I would have to sand them up to match. The biggest issue is the lower cowl, it’s fit needs some fiddling, and the upper cowl is a little narrow, so I needed to sand some taper into the windshield piece as it too tall and wide at the front. To be continued....

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Spending a few more hours sanding today, I fit all the major pieces and smaller items, I’m pretty happy with the gaps now, the rest will be fine tuned with glue and filler. 

I also ordered a new type of CA+Resin glue that works for resin kits, it’s a CA that stays slightly flexible when cured, they make a Resin and a metal PE version, I ordered one of each. I should have it next week. I can now move on to finishing the cockpits and closing up the fuselages

 

 

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