Ok chaps...so a bit of an update...from last weekend's work:
- A lot of very large sprue gates made removing parts a a bit challenging but nothing that a bit of care could not deal with.....
- Joined the fuselage...I normally paint first and then join the two halves but as not much will be seen at this scale, I thought I would give it a go to save some time and it worked well. Might try it on the next build to see if it works...accepting that not all fuselage types are built in this style, with the cockpit fixed to the bottom of the wing.
- The famous under engine radiator/air intake 'chin' was a bit misshapen and a not a great fit....this is 2021 reboxing of a 2011 tooling, so maybe it's getting old???
- A lot of filling, sanding and shaping around the 'chin' to get it to fit properly. Looks ok now. Fortunately the worst will not be seen given it's position under the nose.
- Primed and then painted the internals in zinc chromate....a bit of discussion online about what colour should be used and this was a common suggestion, so I used that. Apologies in advance if it's not the right colour but so little will be seen once the pilot is in place and it's buttoned up.
My superior half is out for the morning, so I'm hoping to get the pilot finished this morning.
ACW as usual.
ATB
Andrew
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The misshapen 'chin'.....and some chunky sprue gates
You can see the mould it looking a bit the worse for wear now......but thinking about it, this probably dates back to only a few years after
Airfix started to up their game and so still had some way to go.
Key parts off the sprue and ready for primer and internal paint.
You can see where I'm working on filling the nasty gaps......
Filling the 'chin' gaps using Mr Surfacer 1000.
Someone years ago put me onto Mr Surfacer for dealing with gaps. As you can see I masked very closely to the 'trench' I was dealing with and then over time painted on multiple layers.
I always to do much, to make sure I have dealt with it properly and then sand back - Mr Surfacer sands back very well indeed.
First time around it didn't quite work due to a lip, as you can see. So I had to go back and touch it up.....looking back at the picture not perfect but I will see how bad it looks under primer....plus it's on the underside.
Fortunately for me, all the plans I have of the P-40Bs show that the underside of the chin was completely smooth, so no panel lines to worry about.
Green internal paint done....as I said very little will be seen once the pilot is in.
