Curtiss P-40K Kittyhawk Mk III by realworkingsailor - Special Hobby - 1/72

[realworkingsailor]

10 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

I used to only build in 1/72 scale when I was a kid, but between my aging eyes, being accustomed to working in 1/33 scale for nearly two decades now, and seeing your hand in the picture for scale, my first thought was, "Dang, that's little!"

The irony is, I’m used to working in 1/87 scale with my model trains, so 1/72 is a bit of an upgrade in that respect! 😅

[realworkingsailor]

Has it been that long??

 

I had hoped to be able to get more time at the workbench over the last six weeks or so, but life has a habit of getting in the way. So do warm sunny days.....

 

After my last update, I did get the cockpit buttoned up and a coat of primer applied.

 

 

The main canopy hood is just held in place with some poster putty for now. It is serving simply as a paint mask. I will display the model with the canopy open, and SH has a separate part for that. In the above photo, you can just make out that I have also applied the Azure blue underside colour. I have opted to use Vallejo acrylics for this build, making use of the nice spray booth and compressor that I got back in June.

 

The last couple of weeks I managed to get the upper colours applied as well:

 

 

 

A few touchups here and there, as usual, but I'm fairly happy with how things are looking at this point. 

 

 

The underside contrasts nicely with the upper surface colours. Following the touch ups, I will have to mask and paint the yellow "fighter command" stripes on the wing leading edges outboard of the guns. That should be fun.....

 

Overall I am enjoying using the Vallejo paints. Using their thinner and a drop of flow improver, I haven't had any nozzle clog issues, and I'm able to spray at a relatively low pressure, with no spattering. All problems I've encountered in the past with other acrylic paints (ahem....Polyscale...cough cough).

 

I hope to be able to provide more frequent updates in the near future. Thanks to everyone who's still following along and all your kind comments and likes!

 

Andy

[king derelict]

Lovely, nice neat paint work Andy. Are these the Vallejo Model Air range. I use the Model Color range for my figures and like them a lot but haven’t tried them in an air brush. Tamiya acrylics work well for me with the airbrush as do MiG Ammo ones. AK real color doesn’t and I have mixed success with Life Color. I spent yesterday afternoon unclogging the airbrush after ten minutes trying to spray heavily diluted Life Color 507A. I bought a couple of MiG Ammo Atom paints to see if they are any good but haven’t tried them yet.

Alan

[realworkingsailor]

14 minutes ago, king derelict said:

Lovely, nice neat paint work Andy. Are these the Vallejo Model Air range. I use the Model Color range for my figures and like them a lot but haven’t tried them in an air brush. Tamiya acrylics work well for me with the airbrush as do MiG Ammo ones. AK real color doesn’t and I have mixed success with Life Color. I spent yesterday afternoon unclogging the airbrush after ten minutes trying to spray heavily diluted Life Color 507A. I bought a couple of MiG Ammo Atom paints to see if they are any good but haven’t tried them yet.

Alan

Thanks Alan!

 

Yes, they are the Vallejo Model Air series. I’m not certain, but I would think they are of the same base formulation as the majority of their full acrylic colour ranges. I have experience spraying humbrol, polyscale, floquil and now Vallejo paints with my airbrush. And I would say that the Vallejo is just as nice as Floquil lacquer, and way better than polyscale.

I think the Vallejo airbrush flow improver is the key to happy spraying. I’ve noticed the drying time is extended by a significant amount using only a drop in my airbrush paint cup. It may work well with other brands of water miscible acrylics, I’ll have to do some testing.

 

I admit I don’t have much experience with other paint brands, but now that I’m properly set up, I will have to begin some experimenting!

 

Andy

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking good Andy and welcome back!

 

I found using a drop of Vallejo's thinner helps a lot, along with their flow improver.  Helps the paints spray very smoothly.

[Javlin]

On 11/29/2024 at 12:02 PM, realworkingsailor said:

Has it been that long??

 

I had hoped to be able to get more time at the workbench over the last six weeks or so, but life has a habit of getting in the way. So do warm sunny days.....

 

After my last update, I did get the cockpit buttoned up and a coat of primer applied.

 

 

The main canopy hood is just held in place with some poster putty for now. It is serving simply as a paint mask. I will display the model with the canopy open, and SH has a separate part for that. In the above photo, you can just make out that I have also applied the Azure blue underside colour. I have opted to use Vallejo acrylics for this build, making use of the nice spray booth and compressor that I got back in June.

 

The last couple of weeks I managed to get the upper colours applied as well:

 

 

 

A few touchups here and there, as usual, but I'm fairly happy with how things are looking at this point. 

 

 

The underside contrasts nicely with the upper surface colours. Following the touch ups, I will have to mask and paint the yellow "fighter command" stripes on the wing leading edges outboard of the guns. That should be fun.....

 

Overall I am enjoying using the Vallejo paints. Using their thinner and a drop of flow improver, I haven't had any nozzle clog issues, and I'm able to spray at a relatively low pressure, with no spattering. All problems I've encountered in the past with other acrylic paints (ahem....Polyscale...cough cough).

 

I hope to be able to provide more frequent updates in the near future. Thanks to everyone who's still following along and all your kind comments and likes!

 

Andy

Looking good Andy I am doing the Trumpter 1/48 P-40B in the same camo the Middlestone in your first pic looked light to mine but your fourth pic we are dead on.The Dark Earth mine has a tad to much red in it used French Earth it looks ok.

Edited December 1 by Javlin

[realworkingsailor]

2 hours ago, Javlin said:

Looking good Andy I am doing the Trumpter 1/48 P-40B in the same camo the Middlestone in your first pic looked light to mine but your fourth pic we are dead on.The Dark Earth mine has a tad to much red in it used French Earth it looks ok.

Yours looks great too! Your reddish dark earth might be more correct for a Curtiss built plane as they used DuPont  paint, rather than UK manufactured, so some of the colours had a slight variation from the “British Standard” colours.

 

Andy

[Javlin]

On 12/1/2024 at 4:52 PM, realworkingsailor said:

Yours looks great too!

Thanks Andy not now though over killed the weathering on this one with to much dust effect

[realworkingsailor]

Thanks to everyone, as always, for the kind words and likes!

 

A small update to share with you all!

 

Major painting is now finished. A nice milestone to have achieved in any build! The final element involved the application of the yellow leading edge ID stripes, fighter command stripes, or whatever they're properly called!

 

 

A little bit hard to see in this photograph, I'll admit, but they're there! They show up a bit better in this photo:

 

 

Digging for photos online produced some mixed results in trying to determine if the yellow stripes were in use or not. It seems to have been on a squadron by squadron basis. Most importantly, for 112 Squadron, they were applied. As you can see, I have also pulled off the "masking" canopy so I can touch up any of the small missed areas or any bleed before I add a clear gloss coat in preparation for the lettering.

 

The underside of the plane was also not ignored:

 

 

The tail landing gear doors have been added and the interior sides painted green. I've also added a drop tank. It took me a long time to figure out if I should add one or not. From what I've been able to dig up online, no photo of a 112 squadron P-40 exists with a drop tank attached. However, one many pictures there are brackets. Not sure if those were for a bomb or a fuel tank. Some great colour photos can be found here. Ultimately my decision came down to necessity and a bit of modeller's license. If you take a quick scroll up to my last build update, you can see four holes on the belly of the aircraft, inboard from the landing gear bays. in order to avoid using a bomb or belly tank, I would have had to fill those holes. I hadn't fully made up my mind about things when I started painting, and I didn't want to delay the build any further. Ultimately, seeing prototype pictures of the empty brackets suggested that I was free to do what I wanted, and I think the belly tank does look pretty good on a P-40 anyway. Besides, I haven't yet made an airplane model with an exterior fuel tank, so it was about time!

 

That's about it for now. Hopefully the next update will see the lettering applied! Thanks again for the comments and likes!

 

Andy

 

[king derelict]

Lovely paint scheme Andy. Very neat work 

alan

[Canute]

Coming along nicely, Andy. Paint looks very good. 👍

[realworkingsailor]

Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments and "likes"!

 

I have a small update to report, as some progress has been made over the last couple of weeks.

 

Most noticeably, the main decals and lettering have been applied! I always like this stage, as it gives the model an identity and some history. Overall, I would rate the DK Decals as being of great quality, clean crisp printing and thin decal film, as well as minimal film around the edges of each decal. The glue they use is somewhat stickier than that used by other decal brands. This means a bit longer of a soak in water, as well as a need to make good use of Micro Set when positioning each transfer. The decals set down quite nicely into the various folds and recesses of the plane without too much difficulty and the use of Micro Sol was not needed in most cases (but I used it anyway, just out of habit, and just in case). The shark mouth proved to be the most trickiest decal to get right, lots of gentle manipulation to get first one side in place, then the second. Thankfully the left and right sides came as two separate decals to make this process about as easy as it could be. As far as any remaining lettering, I'm down to the stencils provided in the kit supplied decal sheet. I am leaning towards sticking to the more prominent ones (like the fuel filler covers), rather than the litany of tiny fine stencils found elsewhere on the airplane.

 

 

 

I've also added a couple more important details. The prop and spinner have been added, as well as the engine exhausts. My modification to make the prop spin seems to be working well enough.

 

 

The remaining canopy parts have been masked and are ready for painting, and the landing gear is coming soon. Given how busy life gets around this time of year, it will take a couple of weeks picking away at things as time permits. I'm not going to be overly ambitious and claim that I'll have everything done by the New Year, but I should manage shortly afterwards. 

 

Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

 

Andy

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Lovely work.

 

OC.

[Canute]

Good looking P-40K Kittyhawk model. I've been delving into this whole series of aircraft. I think the Ks were one of of the largest classes.