One of my hobby goals is to finish up all of those long sideline builds that have been sitting incomplete for way too long.
I don’t know exactly when I started this kit, but I do believe it was sometime after I came home from overseas deployment in early 2006, and moving out of that house in summer 2011. I did a few improvement mods to the cockpit and fuselage, but most were not well referenced and I decided to just resume construction to get it done. I’ll get ahold of another kit and have another go at it somewhere down the line.
Anyways, this is how the kit was this afternoon when I pulled it off the shelf of doom. The fuselage was mostly together and seams cleaned up, and basic wing and tire construction completed
So this evening I installed the wings
and a little bit of reference inspiration…
I’m gonna be working on this during the usual paint or glue drying pauses on my F2A, and if that one is completed first, it will be full speed ahead here.
As well as resuming work on my Buffalo, I also resumed work on my P-40.
First up was drilling out the exhausts
after that I installed the exhaust stacks and from portion of the nose, as well as the nose gun fairings
I also figured out a way to add some sheet styrene after closing up the wing into the wheel wells to fill the gap and replicate the missing skin and wing spar in there. I also filled the mount point for the drop tank, as AVG Hawks we’re not able to mount drop tanks
lastly I had previously added the horizontal stabilizers
Wow, I didn’t realize it had been so long since I had updated this thread.
Last week I primed up the surface in preparation for painting with Vallejo Model Air.
De to the hard edge camouflage used on Hawk 81’s I had to paint the colors in stages, let the color dry, then mask before adding the next color. Today in finished up the base colors
I’m going to need to go back and enlarge the green in a few areas, but overall, not too bad.
@HGBARNES, thank you sir. Thank goodness for pin vises, micro bits, and needle files.
I’ve been plucking away at this one too. Just had the usuall holiday interruptions to slow me down. I went back and touched up the paint, enlarging the green areas. I really do like using the Vallejo Model Air paints due to their no fuss. At least minimal fuss in my experience anyways. One thing that I did have to go back and do afterwards though was paint the red squadron stripe around the rear fuselage, as I did not realize that there was no decal on the sheet I’m using for that. It would have been much easier for me to paint that area red first then mask off the stripe before the camouflage paint afterwards. Anyways no big deal doing it afterwards. I also gave this a nice coat of Tamiya Gloss getting her all ready for decals.
Decals will be applied tomorrow. With a little luck and no interruptions, I should hopefully have this across the finish line before New Years strikes.
So here it is, with a few hours to spare in 2022, all finished up, from the shelf of doom to the display shelf. Not my best work, but not bad, and sure better than languishing partially built for years and years.
I’ll get a proper multi view batch of photos up in a day or two.
What can I say? The camo behind the back windows, the smoke MG feathering, paint scuffing on the wing root, perfect placement of the decals, that tiny painted tail wheel and that pitot. Such a joy to behold, now cover that treat in a clear box. Thank you Carlos for sharing to all of us your incredible amount of hours and exceptional skill.
Thank you Stephen. And yes, you should build yourself an AVG Hawk. If you prefer 1/48 I would recommend the newer Airfix kit.
This is my last completion of 2022, Monogram’s classic 1/48 early P-40. This one has been sidelined on my shelf of doom for so long that I don’t remember when I started it. A rough guess is that I started it sometime around twenty years ago, give or take a couple of years, and finished it up on New Years Eve, my last completion of the year. I used Cutting Edge decals for Tommy Haywood’s mount, American Volunteer Group, 3rd Pursuit Squadron, early 1942. Paints are Vallejo Model Air that are supposed to be close match for Du Pont colors used on export P-40’s. Personally, based on period color photos, I think that the Earth color is too light and has too much contrast with the Dark Green. I did do a bit of work to add some missing details in the wheel wells and cockpit, as well as some drilling out of muzzles and exhaust stacks. It could sure use a bit more work in the cockpit and wheel wells, but I wanted to get it finished by the end of the year. Not to mention going back and opening up the fuselage again.
Wow, love the dark feathering and the antenna work is great! Truly superb dull finish. HOWEVER, have consulted a therapist regarding your P-40 addiction? Kidding, of course, they are all a treat for the eyes and thank you for posting.
