Hi all,

well, I did not start my vacation as expected, but I still managed to start with this kit. I got Broncos kit and a bunch of aftermarket stuff. Not all of it is useable so I will just take things that are adjustable for this kit:




For a full review I recommend reading Bret Greens reviews over at Hyperscale:

Bronco P-40C (Hawk 82-A2) Flying Tigers
Bronco Curtiss Tomahawk Mk.IIb

Furthermore the wings are bulbous .. this is hard to explain, it's shape is rather than an oval with an edge than a drop. So you have a lot of fun getting the thick rear edge thinned...

As per instructions I started with the wing. As I wanted to replace the control surfaces with the AML stuff, I had to cut out the ailerons.... you have some extra work when you use the wrong one for the wing, thus I had to add some white plastic sheet to fill the area again. Else this was straight forward.
As you can see I sanded the wigtips down as these were much to thick (see above re "bulbous") using the new aileron as a rough guide. I also glued the landing flaps shut.



Glueing everything together was easy and the clamps are just for adding pressure on the joints (the ailerons are just clipped in to check the fit)



The wing is ready and just has to be cleaned up. I hope to find some replacement barrels soon. Not sure what to use.



The flaps have no outer surface detail so these were ideal to sand down (a lot). Luckily the material are about a mm thick.



Still not perfect but I would have to wait fow a few weeks to let it fully harden and then sharpen it razorlike ... which I won't do.

So lets have a look at my favorite part of the build, NOT.

I testfit the rear wall of the Aires cockpit, but that would not fit. Luckily there is little detail on this thing and I just cut off the seat mount from the kit part and added it to the right fuselage.



The cockpit parts seem to fit very good which spares me some hefty grinding and sanding. I just removed all sidewall details and glued in the Aires sidewalls, Then the rear wall was lengthend (it is still about half a mm too short) and the tail wheel mounts were added.



Next will be adding the floor to get some stability into the fuselage. I still did not figure out how and where exactly the firewall with the engine has to be added.

all the best

Steffen

Nice work so far. Looking forward to more.

Brave man. I'm going to wait for the Airfix kit, which I pray will be the "definitive" one.

Steffen,
Nice start to an Iconic WW11 aircraft.

In today's day and age, I just can't understand how a kit manufacture using current state of the art computer software can get the overall wing shape so wrong. All they had to do was look at the real thing and compare it to what they've designed.

Joel

Nice start, Steffen. I can't believe how much bad stuff I've heard about this kit.

Wonder who makes a decent one?

Gaz

Good Morning,

many thanks for your kind comments!

@Brian: I wanted to have one of these to compare it with the Airfix kit (which is on Backorder at Hannants). Both have pros and cons. I assume both will be/are reasonably accurate (there is no perfect model...)

Bronco pro: Engine, surface details contra: control surfaces shallow cockpit, price

Airfix remains to be seen, but it will have the slightly grainy plastic texture and no rivets (the test shot at Nuremberg looked VERY good but I was told the material will be standard Airfix on the production kit)

@ Joel: this is probably a misunderstanding due to my bad English. The shape is o.k. but the profile is bad ... just have a look around there are many kits with this flaw (e.g. Revell 1/72 B-17, Italeri Re.2002 1/48 ....)

@ Gary: as witten above there is no perfect model. In the end a model is a model, i.e. an abstraction of the real thing. As for this kit I think Brett put it quite well. All is fixable with ellbow grease and/or aftermarket but at that pricetag I would have expected more.

Progress yesterday was slim. I have only added the cockpit floor and tried to figure out where that darn bulkhead must sit. (I wanted to avoid building the engine, but it seems I will have to do.)

all the best

Steffen

Hi Steffen

It's interesting to see the Bronco kit for real. I decided to give it a miss when I saw the initial CAD views, and seeing the confirmation of my doubts, I don't regret it. Hopefully, the Airfix kit will be good - at least it will be a lot cheaper to correct if they have goofed too.

All the best

Rowan

Cheers Rowan!

I am away for a few days so sadly no progress.

I wanted to skip this one too because I think it is not worth the 40 something Euro I paid for it. In terms of aftermarket only the cockpit really counts as everything else can be done with sanding. Still I wanted to have a first hand experience with the kit to compare it with the Airfix.

We'll see how much "a lot cheaper" will be, I bought the two brassin sets and Eduard-PE and Masks which is almost the same amount of money I spent on the Bronco AM...

back on the bench on wednesday .. promised

all the best

Steffen

Hi Steffen

I think that's blurring the line between what a kit "needs" and what you just want to spend on it. You've got the drop on most of us from having seen the test-shot at Nürburg, but I'm looking forward to getting away with tackling Airfix's P-40 pretty much OOB if it measures up OK and just scratching whatever needs doing...

I think we need a fresh name for aftermarket sets that arrive before the subject kit is on sale. Pre-market? We're definitely getting into GAS territory here. Anyway... enjoy!

All the best

Rowan

Hello Rowan,

you are right of course, but using masks and adding wheels and exhausts plus some cockpit detailing ist still kind of oob for myself.

The Arifix will definitely "need" less than the Bronco and it will be cheaper, so imho it will be the kit of choice.

As for the Pre-aftermarket. Airfix and Eduard work together very well and tight, that is why there is Eduard stuff for most of the Airfix new releases when these come out.

all the best

Steffen

Back on Topic,

I did work a bit on my model on Wednesday, but I missed to post the picture. Besides finishing the Bf 109G-5 I also added a few bits on the Ki 100 and as I had teh airbrush going I painted the interior. I used XF-71 with a bit of XF-5 and yellow, just to make it slightly warmer and darker.



Yesterday was "Großkampftag" (Battleday) on my own website .. just have a look there. So there is sadly no more progress to report...

all the best

Steffen

Hi again,

contrary to the Fw 190 this cockpit is very large and everything can be seen quite well, so I need to invest some more time and effort in the details. Especially as this is designed for a different kit. It was quite difficult to get porper views of P-40B/C cockpits to get the colors right (though it is only green, black, silver and some red).



I attached the seatbelts to the seat and mounted it to the backwall. On closer inspection it is slightly off center, but I can live with that. Not sure yet of the head rest should really be leather brown. The yellow cable is fictonal but I wanted a spot of color on this side too.



Much more work to do

all the best

Steffen

Steffen,
nice start to the pit.
Joel

Hi again,

yesterday I glued the fuselage together and today I added the wing Fit is not as bad as it looks in the photo but the modular fuselage is a challenge. I wanted to glue this together before fitting the IP as this is quite fragile with the PE Pedals.



all teh best

Steffen

Hi Steffen

Nice progress.

All that stringer detail in the rear fuselage hints at a clear-styrene version planned - just what we need to show off the squashed cockpit...

All the best

Rowan

It does look interesting to me. Might be one to tackle. I just wish I could understand some of the large, obvious things that are incorrect about kits like this. With the time and effort that goes into them.

Watching with interest.



Joe

I almost forgot. About the firewall/bulkhead.

http://www.antiqueairfield.com/articles/show/1214-p-40-firewall-forward-restoration

This page should help with at least the placement of it. There are some other pages that do help with the firewall itself but not sure you will need them.

And something for the cockpit specifically the headrest. I went with black based on this page and a couple of other pictures I had found at the time.

http://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=826


Hope these help some.




Joe

Thanks for your comments Rowan and Joe!

re the kit: at the moment I'd definitely wait for the Airfix (due any day now) before throwing out money on the Bronco kit. As written earlier. I wanted this one for comparison and thus I am o.k. with the money spent, but on a more neutral point of view it is not worth it (not speaking of the bought aftermarket here). OTOH if you are after the goodies (blood chit here or figure in british markings release) it is possible to build a model that looks like a P-40B/C oob.

Firewall: Thanks for the link! it is definitely helpful if someone wants to build in the engine exposed. My concern was the kit. There is a slot in teh wing where I thought the firewall should go. But it did not fit. I though the part might be glued against it from front or rear:



Thus I glued it to the cowling top part (which has a notch) and fit then ... well it must be in the slot so I sanded it down .. but it still did not fit properly. Finally I cut the lower end and now it sits good (just clipped in on the picture ... when held tightly there is no gap to the upper fuselage/cockpit)



all the best

Steffen

Hi againb,

yesterday I started working on the tail. Replacing the rudder was quite easy. The hinge arrangement of the kit is pretty good so I just had to file a bit on the ruddere and add some plastic at the lower end. Worked well, looks nice



Now the elevators ... if only I had not looked into the Kagero.

Rudder: Compared to the drawings The kit parts are slightly too large in span, the control surface is too short in chord and very wrong in shape. The counterbalance notch is too large (good on the replacement). The replacement part is slightly too small in span, large in chord and also wrong in shape. (see pix)

The fin is twice as thick as the replacement rudder...





As you can see I already worked on the kit elevator but I would have to broaden the chord. It is already sanded flush and I have added some plastig to get the correct inner angle... At the moment I am not sure what to do:

modify fin to use the replacement (which means sawing the fin into upper and lower half to get it thinner)

or use the kit modified elevator (as it is now, copying the shape to the other side)

or further improving the kit part (which will still be too thick).

Darn kit...

all the best

Steffen

P.S. of course I checked some pix .. the shape of the drawing seems to be correct

Oh man, this kit sure has things to fix and tweak. That shallow cockpit is especially perplexing. Not like there's any other references than the Trumpeter kits that made the mistake first...

Those resin AML control surfaces are interesting too, their 1:72 scale versions have the exact same shape issues. Makes me wonder what they used for references.

But anyway, your build's coming along nicely!

Steffen,
Both kit and AM parts leave a lot to desired. Option 3 is just to leave both as is and go with the AM parts. But that's not your style, nor mine at this point. I'd modify the AM part starting with removing the trim tab and replacing it with one made from sheet plastic. Then cut a sizable chunk out of the inner panel next to the trim tab over sized enough so that you can shape it to the plans that you have.
Joel

Hi Steffen

Sometimes life's easy if you don't check references! This kit just gets better and better, doesn't it.

The scribing looks out on the stabiliser too, so that might be worth addressing if you address the counter-balance.

To be honest, looking at the problems, I'd ditch both the kit elevators and the aftermarket replacements and simply make a pair from scratch (or just one as a pattern if you can cast copies). It'd be more satisfying to know you'd got it right and it was all your own work.

All the best

Rowan

Sorry for the late reply .. I got a cold and have to go to work again, after my vacation.

Thanks for your sympathy! I am still pretty much lost but I got an idea of what has to be done.

1. Splitting the elevator fins in upper and lower half (Tamiya craft saw). The cut will probly enough to reduce the the thickness to an acceptable level and the span will be reduced the fraction that it is too long.

2. reglueing (maybe with a slight shim at the root) and cutting at the red line. Rowan, I think the fin is o.k not stellar, but within acceptable margin to the original.



of course the rectangular notch has to be reduced slightly, no big deal though.

3. scatchbulding the elevators from sheet styrene (probably laminated) .. hardest part for myself

Any better ideas?

all the best

Steffen

As Rowan said... Ignorance is bliss.

Wow!

Gaz

Hi Steffen

I don't know if it's a better idea, but you could always wait for the Airfix kit and cast copies of their tailplane parts if they've done a better job of it.

All the best

Rowan