Dazzled's Doggie Double ***DONE***

[Dazzled]

A small update as I've had other things to deal with for a couple of days.

The P-40 has exhausts painted with a mixtue of Tamiya titanium gold and Games Workshop chaos black plus a few other details touched in.



Plus it's wheels are now on - not without a fight - along with the undercarriage legs. Also some of the underside panel detail has been picked out.




The Zero, meanwhile, has it's engine fitted and drybrushed with Tamiya metallic grey. Somebody else has mentioned how good this engine is and I have to second it. It's a beautiful piece of styrene sculpture that's every bit as good as a resin engine, particularly for the price.



I also painted in the exhausts on the Zero while I was doing the P-40's. It was a pretty tricky paint job. I really feel that this would have been much easier if these were separate components. There's also a tailwheel been added and the pitot tube re-attached 4 times!!



And finally for today, George and Saburo have been painted up ready to take their places aboard their trusty steeds. Actually, the pilot figures in the kit are pretty generic so getting any character out of them was quite a task. I found some references on what the "chaps" would have worn, made a paint list and went from there. They're painted with acrylics from Humbrol, Tamiya, Games Workshop and Vallejo (my son was into wargaming for a while and guess who painted the figures . Nice paints though )



Ok so the Zero is going to be flown by Charlie Chan. I didn't sculpt the original

[IrishAir]

Nice work, if you want your P-40 pilot to look accurate you should have him in a tuxedo

Cheers,
Paul

[Dazzled]

Nice work, if you want your P-40 pilot to look accurate you should have him in a tuxedo

Cheers,
Paul

LOL

[Dirkpitt289]

Looking good. These new kits seem to be living up to the hype.

[Dazzled]

Looking good. These new kits seem to be living up to the hype.

I certainly wouldn't mind buying a couple more of each while the moulds are nice and new.

[Molly-new]

You are making these look such a fun build. I am letting Santa know that I need some

[Dazzled]

Made quite a bit of progress today.

My new compressor is working out a treat and after having to paint the models by hand I got to spray some Johnson's Klear over them. It was a bit of a chore getting George to stay in his P-40 despite ever increasing amounts of cyano glue. Eventually a large dollop of thick Zap-a-gap did the trick. I honestly thought I'd have to court marshall him for going AWOL.

Then it was time for the decals.



The P-40 has way too many stencils. I got most of them on (although I'm not certain that they're all the right way up) and everything settled down nicely with Microset.

The Zero had it's panel lines picked out and then it's decals went on, again with Microset. The Japanese stencils were bigger and, therefore much easier to apply. Maybe the old war movies were right and all the Japanese were short-sighted, in which case, given my own declining eyesight, I'm glad of the help.



As the pictures show, I've also been having a go at the canopies. I hate painting canopies. No, let me rephrase that. I hate masking canopies. It's the declining eyesight. I can't see the lines under the tape. I'm going to start some serious investigation of Eduard's ready cut masks. To overcome my difficulties, I've been masking one or two glazing bars at a time, letting them dry and then moving along to another one or two. It's been a pretty slow process but, thankfully, the P-40 is done and the Zero nearly so.

Finally, while waiting for certain bits to dry today I built up the stand. This is something Airfix really need to improve upon. I had few problems with it but I'm a modeller with thirty something years of experience and also a qualified engineer. While there are only eight components a beginner or a younger modeller, the market these starter kits are aimed at, would struggle. The parts generally dont fit together particularly well, with a fair amount of sanding and test fitting required, the ball joint brackets both split when being assembled and there are no assembly instructions. A word to Airfix - COULD DO BETTER.

[splash]

They are both looking very nice , I’m not a fan of either type as a rule, but I’m tempted to get one of each having now seen how good they look built.

Regards
Splash

[Softscience]

Hmm. They look good, even with the trenches. The Zero is especially nice, and you did a bang-up job on replacing the weight balances. I'm surprised by the missing shell ejection chutes on the P-40 though.

What are the little pinholes in their place? Are there bomb racks in the kit?

[MerlinJones]

I understand your issue with masking.

Assuming you use Tamiya tape, do you press the tape hard against the transparency and then use a fresh cocktail stick to press the tape into the corners of the framing? Do you then use a fine, pointy, fresh blade, to follow the path your cocktail stick went?

I've worked with someone who spent good money on pre-cut masks, only to find that his eyesight made the extraction of these from the sheet and their application to the model, just too much faff.
I bought him some cocktail sticks and he's been a happy bunny ever since.

Regards,
Bruce

[Dazzled]

I understand your issue with masking.

Assuming you use Tamiya tape, do you press the tape hard against the transparency and then use a fresh cocktail stick to press the tape into the corners of the framing? Do you then use a fine, pointy, fresh blade, to follow the path your cocktail stick went?

I've worked with someone who spent good money on pre-cut masks, only to find that his eyesight made the extraction of these from the sheet and their application to the model, just too much faff.
I bought him some cocktail sticks and he's been a happy bunny ever since.

Regards,
Bruce

I do use Tamiya tape and cocktail sticks Bruce but, i'm afraid, it's just the eyesight and electric light. I'm trying to persuade the wife to let me have the daylight lamp/magnifier, she bought me for Christmas, before I go completely blind

[Dazzled]

Hmm. They look good, even with the trenches. The Zero is especially nice, and you did a bang-up job on replacing the weight balances. I'm surprised by the missing shell ejection chutes on the P-40 though.

What are the little pinholes in their place? Are there bomb racks in the kit?

I think they are meant to be the shell ejection chutes although they're wrong for this version. The way the parts break down I think that Airfix are planning a "six wing-gun" version and just didn't want to spend more on moulding a separate lower wing.

[IrishAir]

They're the correct shell ejection shoots for a P-40B, the circular hole at the top is a different thing entirely.

P-40B



P-40E



Cheers,
Paul

[Dazzled]

Thanks for clearing that up Paul. Now that I've had a look under a magnifier (Dazzled dodgy eyesight strikes again) I can see the holes are different shapes.

Nice reference pics by the way

[Dazzled]

After a final push the freebie dogfight double is finished.

The last things to do were to give both models a varnish overcoat (Klear) and then complete the Zero canopy, which I did last night, fitting it in position today. The P-40 canopy also went on, although not before George made another escape attempt. I hope he doesn't end up rattling about in the cockpit! The clear bits on both aircraft fitted superbly-no filling or filing, just clearfix and down they went.

The P-40 gained nav lights and a landing light (clearfix again) and then I turned my attention to the stand. As I've said before, I'm not that impressed with the stand and I wasn't too taken with the Airfix logo that stuck up like a mushroom so, rather than try to file down the cross shaped lug underneath, or cut it off, I decided to fill the hole and paint the stand. I had a can of Halfords Grey Primer handy so that settled it. This stuff dries pretty quick and covers well so it wasn't long before I was ready to put the little placard on. I got the Microset out before I realised that it was a self-adhesive sticker (DOH!) but, in my defence, I had left it in it's bag during the rest of the build.

Then it was the simple matter of adding the P-40 and Zero to their perches. And this is the finished result.























All done in eight days