Trumpeter P-40F

joeg · May 20, 2019

Normally used to finish one or two models a year a broken ankle helped to turn out a very fast build of the P-40F I had just bought before the incident in January. And so within four weeks (for me an incredible short time) I had finished Trumpeters P-40F with all its advantages and disadvantages, of the latter not all completely discovered and remedied. On the plus side there is the very good fit of the kit and fine surface detail and the fact that this is the first F-Version on the market. But on the other hand there are indeed some shape issues that should not be there at a kit selling for about 50 € and so trying to compete with the Japanese. Quite easily to correkt is the too bulged shape of the upper cowling and with some gentle and careful sanding no rescribing is required. More work will be needed to deepen the again too shallow cockpit tub and to correct the chin intake shape. Other errors included the shape of the rear quarter windows, bulged sides panels on the sliding canopy, a right hand fuel filler cap on the fuselage and too pointy (at least for my taste) propeller blades. Except for the clear parts I was able to correct these items with more or less effort. I didn´t care about the fact that the exhaust stub openings and the subs itselves seemed to be too large.

For the paint scheme I chose an aircraft being handed over to the French quite after the Morocco landings. The Indian head was taken from Berna Decals Sheet 32-34 that offers two different P-40F and several P-39s, while the rest of the markings were painted. I especially liked the idea of the overpainted US-insignia that resulted in a spot of much darker colours around these areas (some sources state olive drab being used but I opted for a dark brown that seemed to match my referrence pictures). For the chipped paints, two layers of maskol were applied over first aluminium paint and then an coat of zinc cromate yellow with a sponge. When removing the maskol this resulted in a very irregular chipping either down to the primer or through that aswell down to the "bare metal".