While I wait for the monsoons to get over before I can do some detail painting on my Kitech F-16C, I decided to get an early start on the P-40 Work Horse Campaign. (Don’t worry Bob; I’ve got 3 more ready for next years’ build.) My victim kit of choice is the Heller 1/72 P-40. I’m reasonably sure it’s a P-40, looks a lot like an E model, and almost matches the drawings in Detail and Scale. I’m only sure it’s from Heller ‘cause that’s what the box says. Looking at some on-line in-the-box and build reviews; the sprues have an extreme family resemblance to the Airfix kit.



Of course, I started in the cockpit. As rendered by Heller, half of it is covered over by an overly large instrument hood, an optical gun sight and a ‘Barcalounger’ for the pilot to perch in. Since there is no detail in the engine compartment, it’s a see thru fuselage. I’ll have to add something there to block it off. Being the fool I am, I cut away the instrument hood, added a couple of frames and stringers to give some dimension to the cockpit. I’ve added a rear wall behind the seat and set up some supports for a cockpit floor. Since the floor of the P-40 cockpit was the top of the center fuel tank, I set up some braces that follow the top contour of the wing and I’ll glue a sheet of plastic stock over them to be the floor.





I’ve got a P-40 cockpit detail set in hand for another build, so I traced the outline of the seat onto some .005” plastic stock, cut it out, bent it up and glued it together.



Measuring a near face on photo of the instrument panel, I drew up a panel in CAD and then reduced it in size to fit the opening in my cockpit. Once I get it printed out and stuck on a piece of plastic, I’ll add instrument housings to the back side and see if I can salvage the optical sight.

Hey Mark, CAD is cheating since I don't have the program on my computer I had thought about a build log to get in practice for the campaign with an old OTAKI P-40E, but school got in the way. I may still try when school lets up a bit. Can't wait to see your camo and that instrument panel

Bob

Looking great Mark! Lovely to see such care being taken over this old kit in this scale. I will be watching this with great interest.

Thanks guys. The beauty of CAD is that I can shrink it to fit any size opening without having to use a copier. I managed to swing a sweet deal on the CAD and get a functional 3D package for U$99.

I’m wimping out on the camo, the kit decals are for Col. Robert Scott, so it’s Olive Drab over Neutral Gray. I hope to make up for it in the P-40 campaign. Some of the AVG and follow on 23 FG planes were re-directed from British destined shipments. Curtis pre-painted them for the RAF during the assembly process so they have hard edged RAF camo schemes. Should be easy enough.

Hello Mark,

Col. Robert Scott, is one of my favorite pilots. I can still remember watching "God is My Copilot" on TV back in the 60's and loving it. Great choice for your markings.

Bob

I did read God is My Copilot centuries ago. But, I didn't put a lot of thought into the markings. Looks like I have enough markings for 12(?) P-40's. A couple of AVG, a couple of VVS, at least four for 23FG, and maybe a few for RAF, RAAF, RNZAF, SAAF(?). But for the Heller kit, I really didn't want to spend any of the good decals on it. All Heller supplies is Col. Scott, so the decision was pretty much already made.

Actually got to open the glue up last night and glue in the cockpit 'floor'. Hopefully I can get some photos soon and get on to the instrument panel/

Painfully slow progress while I work down the 'Honey do list" Did actually print out a teeny tiny control panel, loose it, find it still attached to the plastic panel and get a small piece glued to it for the artificial horizon to set in.

IIRC, Heller and Airfix were in partnership, at least for a while before the bankruptcy (Airfix, IIRC even released the Heller HMS Victory under their name.) So that may be more than a "resemblance."

John

Yes, as I recall, Heller, Airfix and Humbrol were all one big happy company for a while. My guess is that one of them, Heller? released a Hawk 81, P-40B/C in the early days of injection molding and the other Airfix? released a P-40E in the same era. With the combo, they merrily released each other's moldings in their own boxes. BTE, this is one of the white and yellow side opening boxes. I'll post a box photo sooner or later.

Here's the box if that helps date who owned Heller when the kit was boxed.

Made a tiny amount of progress. Got the control panel printed out, attached to a sheet of plastic and started drilling out the instrument holes. Found out it's VERY difficult to drill an .048 hole in an .060 square of plastic for the artifical horizon. Solved it by drilling out the hole in the panel and then punching a hole in an .060 strip, cutting it to width and gluing it in place.

Added instrument bodies to the panel and it's ready for some painting. Now I'm adding some bits to the cockpit side walls.

Next up, wheel whells and an ejector pin on the bottom of the wing

Maybe even some photos

Mark, use a hot needle

Bob

Hadn't thought of that. The punch seemed like such a great idea. Now then I have to redo the throtle quadrant and the smallest drill I have is .014. Hot needle might be just the ticket to put in some small holes for control levers.....

Mark, use a very small needle, the point only and not at blow torch heat. Let it cool down a little and you may have to do this a few times.

Bob

Yea, I've been sticking hot pins into pilot's butts for years to hold them while I paint them.

If it works, HEY!

Bob

Progress & poor photos



Got the cockpit floor in place, curve at fron is to hint at actual cockpit floor which was the top of the main fuel tank? Also have the greatly reduced control panel glued to a .020 sheet for drillin out the holes.



Panel with rod glued on for instrument bodies. Also a look at before and in work on the wings. Heller (Airfix) molded a pin on the top wing for building it with the gear up. There's also been a bit tool rework going on, so I'll clean it all up and add ribs to the top of the MLG bay for a bit of added life.





Couple more of the wing and panel, hope they show what looks like progress.

Progress on the wings:

Mark, nice work on the wheel wells. Wow how hard was it to strip and glue the formers?

Bob

Nice work Mark. Keep it up.

Philip

Thanks Philip.

Bob, the hardest part was getting the bleeding to stop after I nicked myself on the chopper blade. Oh, that's not the question you asked.

Wish I'd taken more photos while I was working.

The kit was designed to be built gear up or gear down so there's a locator pin in the 'center' of the wheel well.

I put the two halves together, used a mechanical pencil to draw the outline of the wheel well on the top wing.

Then I used chisels and sand paper to clean out the locator and an ejector pin that was inside the circle I drew. Re drew the circle after I smoothed out the bottom of the wing top.

My first thought was to use a compass and copy the rivet lines to locate the stringers. Didn't work out, too few rivet lines. Photos show about 9 stringers and the rivet lines worked out to about 2 stringers.

Being an engineer, I calculated the distance between the ribs by dividing the wheel diameter by 9. Right, that worked out to .044 between centers,

Being a realist, I chose to put the stringers .050 apart. I can see almost well enough to mark that out. So I used the compass to locate a stringer near the forward edge of the wheel well. Then I drew a line to match that stringer and marked off more lines on .05 centers. Worked out to 7 stringers. Close enough for government work.

Using a scale I measured from the wing root to past the end of the wheel well. Worked out to about 1/2 inch. Set the chopper (NWSL) to 1/2 inch and started chopping .010 square stock. (Grabbed the handle wrong and notched a finger)

Tried to use an old ruling pen to draw a glue line along the pencil line and then just drop the strip onto the glue line and be done. Wasn't gonna happen. Glue wouldn't flow and the strip stuck to the tweezers better than to the wing. Turns out I had a lot of dried glue on both. Cleaning off the glue helped the tweezers, but not the ruling pen. Plan B: use a pencil lead (.7 mm diameter) and just draw the glue along the line. Worked pretty well. Get most of them on the line and it looks almost evenly spaced.

All told it took about 2-3 hrs.

Doesn't look there's much in the way of electrical or hydraulic line in the wheel well, I'm not going to box in the wheel well, so this part is ready to paint.

Mark, we all have been there (bleeding, cutting on our bodies ) For that 2.5 hours you were not out in the sreet causing problems so nice building so far.

Bob

I think I’ll call this installment Moving Sux

Could have been “And now for something completely different”. The front of Heller’s P-40 has a flat plate with a Y shape to hint at the 3 separate radiators under the engine. I thought I could improve on that by drilling out 3 holes and gluing in some grill material that might resemble the honeycomb of the radiators. Something like this:

Unfortunately, the rest of that sheet of grill is in a box from a move 3 years ago with my AMT 1/48 B-26 and all of my metalizer paints.

So, I raided my wife’s sewing cabinet and found some ribbon that had gaps between the strands. I glued it to the back of the plate:


After the glue cured, I cut away the rest of the ribbon and it kinda looks OK. A test fit shows that it’s awfully dark under the engine and the ribbon may be hidden in the darkness. Maybe some yellow zinc chromate will make it standout.


Ok, so the photo isn't all that good. But the idea mostly works.

Wow, I feel like a real modeler now. Actually got out the airbrush and laid down some paint!