Hi guys and gals. Finally finished Hasegawas P-40E. It went together well except for that dreaded rear fuselage seam. Hasegawa really captured the nice lines of this P-40. Cockpit detail is outstanding right out of the box. I didn't have to glue the canopy on, just gently pushed it down over the fuselage spine. .Decals went on very well, a little silvering showed up, probably my fault. When I was done I showed it to my wife and she commented,"It looks mean", just what I ws going for. I thought that this aircraft would only look menacing with its gear up and flying, but even on the ground I think it gets the point across. This has to be the only aircraft that looks good with teeth. Although, the Warthog with teeth similar to these looks nice as well. Thanks for looking everyone, Wingman out.

Wingman,

Yup, you did a fine job on this Shark (what the AVG/23rd called their P-40s)

I am tempted to try my hand on another after seeing the other Aleutian Tiger.

You did a good job making this Shark look used but not beaten.

Looks great, entry for Octobers MOM maybe?
I will have to get one of these
Mal

Thanks Fred and Mal. I hope I didn't overdo the weathering. I think I will enter this in MOM Mal. Thanks for looking, Wingman out.

Wingman, as an Armorama Content Scout, I'd appreciate it if you would consider submitting perhaps 10 pics or so of your P40 for a Models on Display feature for the site.

Excellent work here on your part. Please let me know. Thanks and congrats on your work here.

Steve

The boys would have been proud! I grew up around a few of those pilots, you did a fine job. It is very rare to see much modeling about the CBI theatre, I really enjoy it when I see something!

Paul

Looks great mate, really like the Weathering and paint job, but uh oh, i do see one error.
Those are Early war Yankee Stars you have on the wings, when the AVG Flying Tigers never had these, they had the chinese Air Force stars, these are the ones...



The reasons they werent marked with those US stars is that America wasn't officially in the war as you know, so they had to use the markings of the airforce they were flying for at the time, being the chinese.
Cheers

Hi David!

I think Wingman's stars are right!

The plane he build is not really an AVG Flying Tiger! It's a plane of the 23rd FG that was created on the "remains" of the AVG... The 23 Fighter Group did officially belong to the USAAF and therefore carried the stars instead of the Chines roundels...

Jean-Luc

Hi Steve. Thanks for the offer. Should I put them in my gallery? Would you get them from there? Wingman out.

Hi Dave and Jean-Luc. Thanks for the kind comments guys. I went with the instructions with the kit. I realize it's not your standard Flying Tiger[does that sound right?] I have some other P-40s in the stash and some nice Aeromaster decals. Thanks for looking, Wingman out.

Beautiful - great job.
I have a question about how you did the wear on the wing walkways. It doesn't really show up in the second picure other than maybe a little variation in the paint, but in the fourth picture it almost looks like they're worn down to "bare metal". How did you do that? (or am I off base and it's just a photo thing?)

Hi Blindspot. Thanks for kind words. Your not off base at all. I put some ModelMaster chrome silver in a plastic cap[the kind you get on those plastic gallon jugs] and added a dab of Raw Umber artist oil paint to it to tone the silver down a bit, mix it in real good. Then I took an old stiff brush and dipped it in the mixture. I then wiped most of the paint off on a paper towel and then proceded to dab what was left on the brush onto the wing root.[Drybrushing] I also did this right behind the spinner and the leading edges of the wings. The thing with producing that [worn to the metal appearance] is you don't want a ridge of metal paint, so you don't want to do it too much. The key is to take your time, and that goes with anything to do with building models.I read about using this mixture in one of the Verlinden books on building aircraft dioramas, which are very nice by the way. After all that was done, I shot some ModelMaster Dullcoat over the entire plane. Hope this helps and thanks for looking, Wingman out.

Looks great wingman. I always enjoy seeing / watching your builds. They always look amazing to me and inspire me to try new things. Great job!
Leon